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[Sushi_Combo]

He looked terrible, he needs to focus on his health first.

 

[Humdinger]

He wasn't pushed or forced out. As others have pointed out, he was talking to Satya about retiring last year. And he is staying in a consultant role through August. That doesn't generally happen when you are forced out.

I think Phil saw the writing on the wall, knew his time was done, and decided to retire. He may have moved his retirement date up to coincide with Satya's plans for the division, but he wasn't ejected.

 

[[Sigma]]

Phil looked like he aged 10 years in the last 3

 

[Plague Doctor]

I believe exactly what Microsoft is saying happened.

I also believe that multiple cameras in a maximum security prison can all go out at the same time because of a freak technical issue.

Questions are hard. I like easy.

 

[Alexios]

Cos he's just a baby.

 

[Leonidas]

Don't know, but its the correct end for the crime of him having a part in the cancellation of Perfect Dark.

Justice is served.

 

[CLW]

 

[lachesis]

My guess is Phil was pushed out, especially after last earning report came out. Sara Bond, probably was the next in line in terms of power, but since she lost her anchor - she had to leave.
Seen this type of power moves many times in my work... And these decisions sometimes happen overnight.
When a person follows wrong "line" of power - sometimes it means the entire branch of that "line" gets demoted or leave.

 

[Boss Mog]

If only Hermen could get pushed.

 

[MayauMiao]

Strange comparison. People take retirement at different ages and for different reasons.

Nadella has overseen a roughly 1000% increase in Microsoft's stock value since he took over, by the way.

You take his word with absolute truth?

We all know what is really going on here. Taking account of Sarah Bond leaving out of nowhere, we can pretty much summarised what really happen.

Please feel free to swallow whatever Phil said.

 

[Moses85]

He wants to be prepared and ready for the RE9 Launch, I can feel him.

 

[Alan Wake]

Spencer retiring is not surprising. He's been at Microsoft since 1988, and was the Xbox boss and then Microsoft Gaming CEO for over a decade in total. Bond was obviously overlooked, I guess Nadella wanted someone who loves AI at Spencer's position.

For me this all means it's over. The old Xbox days are definitely over. Hryb is gone, Spencer's retiring. Is Greenberg still there? I still don't get why Booty is pushed up once again, but what do I know.

 

[Come On Tars]

I wonder if we're going to look back and miss Phil. He seemed to actually care

 

[CityHunter1981]

Pretty sure because he recently didn't had anything to say and other people made the decisions. I mean I am pretty sure he wanted to have exclusives and that is why he tried to soften the blow at the beginning by saying a handful of games. But it's clear that he was used only to defend the decisions other people made within Microsoft.

 

[wolffy66]

Dunno. The bloke doesn't look very well to me.

He definitely kinda got old looking real quick. It could be health related, you never know what's really happening in people's lives.

 

[kiphalfton]

What's amazing is Spencer and Bond got away with wasting millions (if not billions) of dollars, didn't get fired, made millions upon millions of dollars, and probably still got a bonus at the end of the each year they were in their role.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

I wonder if we're going to look back and miss Phil. He seemed to actually care

He cares. it is also true that he is bad at the job. He was the only MS Suit who wanted Xbox to survive, but that does not mean he actually had a good plan.

 

[balls of snow]

Personally, its the hail mary of cod in gamepass that barely changeed anything sealed the deal exit. Two cods are now gamepass launch title. There wont be a third.

 

[euroboi]

Investors have new toy
AI
He spent his budget in acquiring comptetitors to kill Sony
He failed
He tried to reduce developement cost - games under his direction are generally mid or trash
He failed again
He went third party to reduce acquisitions impact
He failed for the last time

Yep, that sounds about right.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

Nadella has overseen a roughly 1000% increase in Microsoft's stock value since he took over, by the way.

A common fallacy if you attribute stock gains to a single individual, also not giving credit to all the processes that were put in place before he took over.

 

[Deft Beck]

Phil Spencer was kicked out because he managed the brand poorly as of late and Microsoft wants to pay tribute to the god of AI with a sacrifice.

 

[Moses85]

Because he betrayed umbrella

 

[Elios83]

He had nothing more to say really.
He obviously wasn't on board with what Nadella did to Xbox, he just had to execute a plan that wasn't his own while taking the heat at a PR level.
The latest financial results showing cracks in the COD machine they paid 70 billions probably accelerated things.

Nadella needed a new reliable person completely on board with his vision and AI focus for the future, showing enthusiasm for these ideas not reluctance.
Sarah Bond was basically completely in line with Spencer and probably not really appreciated by Nadella and when not chosen for the job she preferred to go away instead of getting humiliated.

 

[MidGenRefresh]

Nadella has overseen a roughly 1000% increase in Microsoft's stock value since he took over, by the way.

Other than Copilot, which is basically a worse version of ChatGPT, I can't think of a single brand new "product" introduced under Nadella.

 

[Rob_27]

Get rid of gamepass, go back to exclusives.

 

[DR3AM]

MS CEO Nutella is Indian
Sir Phil Spencer is white
Sharma is Indian

It all makes sense now

 

[Montauk]

MS CEO Nutella is Indian
Sir Phil Spencer is white
Sharma is Indian

It all makes sense now

Just out and out racism. Many examples in the thread.

 

[Fafalada]

Bond not leaving a farewell message might mean she was really fired without notice, which would be strange for such a high profile executive.

Given how every public speaking of hers somehow triggered flashbacks of 2013, I think it's one of those things MS gaming needed to do for self preservation.

 

[Vyse]

He wasn't pushed or forced out. As others have pointed out, he was talking to Satya about retiring last year. And he is staying in a consultant role through August. That doesn't generally happen when you are forced out.

I think Phil saw the writing on the wall, knew his time was done, and decided to retire. He may have moved his retirement date up to coincide with Satya's plans for the division, but he wasn't ejected.

This makes sense to me. Bonus and evaluations are usually done around now. For someone at his position, the timing works. Also, we haven't really seen much of him in a long time. Guy made his money, time to focus on himself and his family. Going to be very interesting to watch the next Xbox launch. Most of the heavy decisions have already been made. New person comes in and needs to play it out. This isn't turn key stuff.

 

[Unfortunatecookie]

We all know Sarah Bond left because she was overlooked for the big job.

But what is the main reason that Spencer left? Something must have happened between him and Nadella for him to announce he is leaving randomly on a Monday. On 9/10 times, the CEO would give notice and leave a few months later. It's happened with nearly every big gaming CEO that I can remember. Even the disaster class that was Mattrick gave notice that he was leaving. Same with Bowser and Ryan in recent times.

I doubt Nadella cares that he messed up big franchises. Was it the poor performance from Activision? COD flopped compared to recent standards last year.

Kinda funny are saying Phil was pushed.

Dude...

Phil Spencer was given access to the 'Microsoft War chest' and he failed to utilize it to success.

I don't think people fully realize how much of a failure Spencer was. He was given close to one hundred billion dollars and he failed to use that money to save Xbox. Like... that's an F- performance.