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Good decisions Phil Spencer and his team made

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Considering all the negativity surrounding Phil Spencer and his team in general, what are some of their good decisions, if any?

I'd pick backwards compatibility. Bar licensing crap that makes titles unavailable, it was just an all-round huge effort to make this happen. And from a technical perspective, it works fantastic. Games run great, better than on the Xbox and Xbox 360. You can boot up about 30% of the 360 catalogue on Xbox One and Series consoles. I applaud Microsoft for doing this, especially in convincing so many third-parties to see the value in it.
 
Guy isn't even dead or fired, why does he need an eulogy.

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The backwards compatibility program. Bringing old OG Xbox games back like NG to be played at 4K/60 was a great move.

I wish Sony had done that. I need an emulator to play PS3 games.
 
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spons said:
I applaud Microsoft for doing this, especially in convincing so many third-parties to see the value in it.
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There is no value. You are talking about an industry where design documents, original assets, etc. were routinely not kept and destroyed. Compare that with something like what Charles Vermont did for watch manufacturer Zenith:

The story of a Zenith employee saving manufacturing equipment during the Quartz Crisis is true and centers around Charles Vermot, a long-time watchmaker and head of the chronograph workshop at Zenith. When Zenith's American management decided to abandon mechanical movements like the El Primero chronograph in favor of quartz watches in the 1970s, they ordered all the tools, machines, plans, and equipment related to the El Primero's production to be destroyed or sold.
Charles Vermot defied these orders by secretly dismantling and hiding about 150 presses, cutting tools, cams, and all necessary manufacturing components in the attic of the factory building. He labeled, catalogued, and carefully stored everything, including the technical plans and instructions on how to produce the movement. Vermot's act of civil disobedience preserved the know-how and equipment crucial to producing the El Primero.
Nearly a decade later, around 1984, when Zenith decided to resume production of the El Primero due to renewed interest in mechanical watches, Vermot led the company back to this hidden cache. Thanks to his preservation efforts, Zenith was able to quickly restart production without heavily reinvesting in new machinery. His actions not only saved the El Primero but also helped preserve the heritage and future of Zenith as a watchmaker.
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I'm going to go for "unifying PC and Xbox, dropping out of the console race", even though this just happened because of how they fucked up.

If we want to look at things in isolation, Game Pass and Play Anywhere are the only things that come to mind.

They haven't had one relevant new IP after Phil has taken over and bought every studio they could. It's a sad state of things, though I don't even think it's their fault.

In all fairness, as someone who's owned all the Xbox consoles, I think Xbox was never really good and the only period in which they were the superiore console (half of the 360/PS3 Gen) was mostly due to luck and capitalizing on Sony's mistakes. The only thing that ties me to the brand are now playing on PC and Game Pass. I'm not happy about this, but that's how things are right now.
 
spons said:
Considering all the negativity surrounding Phil Spencer and his team in general, what are some of their good decisions, if any?

I'd pick backwards compatibility. Bar licensing crap that makes titles unavailable, it was just an all-round huge effort to make this happen. And from a technical perspective, it works fantastic. Games run great, better than on the Xbox and Xbox 360. You can boot up about 30% of the 360 catalogue on Xbox One and Series consoles. I applaud Microsoft for doing this, especially in convincing so many third-parties to see the value in it.
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Who fucking cares?
Why are we running defence for this bozo?
 
1. Xbox Design Lab. Absolutely fantastic idea. It's Xbox's version of Nike By You (formerly NikeiD) and it's one of those no-brainer moves that Nintendo and PlayStation should do.

2. Dropping Xbox Avatars. Relic of the past that felt like a weird reminder of Kinect and what it did for gaming.
 
All of the shit xbox has done in the last 15 years or so, phil spencer or not,
was done because xbox desperately needed positive talking points to drum up interest
in their ecosystem.
Backwards compatible announced when it became obvious ps4 was going to smoke the xbox one, same with gamepass.
These were to generate good pr for the brand not because Microsoft suddenly cared about consumers.
If you believe otherwise, let's talk about the oceanfront property I have right in the middle of Oklahoma that I'm sure you'd be interested in.
 
you have nintendo and ps rotate their ceo's while doing better than ever, but this loser is stuck to his chair like some third world dictator.
i guess that can be considered a "success"

he nurtured this extremely weird cult of personality thing through paid shils and a "gamer uncle" facade.
still has morons simping for him, while single-handedly destroying their favorite toybox and lie through his teeth every step of the way.
 
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The Play Anywhere initiative is the best thing Xbox ever did if you ask me. As someone who plays on both PC and console, having multiple versions of a game with one purchase that both worked at the same time is a huge plus to me.
 
At least op has "and his team" since Mr. Spencer is responsible for almost NONE of the things that are attributed to him (good and bad).

He's just a talking head which has gotten very tired.

I wonder how many folks at Xbox have maintained a position at his level for as long as he has would be an interesting video (I'm not going to tag your Neogaf acct here Jez…but food for thought).
 
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Hudo said:
Bringing back Age of Empires.
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This and giving a blank check to make Flight Sim.
Also the guy who picks indie titles for gamepass - Clair Obscur, Pal World, Manor Lords, Blue Prince, Ball x Pit. Guy has picked a lot of winners.
 
360 back compat.

but sadly the way they did it was pretty suboptimal... although necessary at the time due to the insanely dogshit Jaguar CPU of last gen consoles.

I just wish they'd do a proper back compat for next gen, with both og Xbox and 360 games reading right from the disc.
 
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At first i wanted to praise him for cancelling square jaw perfect dark sequel, but then i realised her having masculine jaw and whole cancelation happened coz he wasnt enough hands on with it, so got nothing here tbh ;*(
 
He and his team have made lies part of Xbox's everyday marketing. I don't know if that's a good thing, but it fits the times we're currently living in^^
 
Acquiring studios that made them look good on 7th gen cause it just makes sense.
Game pass service.
The crazy deals.
Mouse and Keyboard support on many games.
PC on Xbox.
Backward Compatibility.
Users reviews on Xbox store cause %99 of the times they know what they're talking about, not some random retarded Metacritic users that makes you hate the game instantly cause that's what they're good at.
 
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