It's no secret at this stage that Xbox wasn't particularly pleased with its exclusive games lineup in 2022. Delays to major projects like Starfield meant that Xbox first-party suffered from a particularly barren year, and a new leaked email from Phil Spencer shows just how disappointed the team was in its output last year.
Phil's internal email, which we'll post a link to in full down below, expressed how Xbox needed to "get much better at overall portfolio planning", with "real honesty on dates" moving into 2023 and beyond.
The Xbox boss wasn't shy on just how poor 2022 ended up being from an internal first-party perspective. In fact, Phil called the year "a disaster situation for us" given how many resources were "invested in content across studios".
Phil was left frustrated by how the year panned out, but thankfully, 2023 has been a much smoother ride for Team Xbox, and you can already see how some of the boss's words from this May 2022 email have resonated in the months since.
Today has been a wild ride with these FTC court document leaks, and it'll be interesting to see if Phil and the team respond to everything that's come out over the past few hours. If you want to catch up on the day's events, check out the links down below.
Do you think Xbox has managed to turn things around since this internal email went out? Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
[source x.com]
Comments 43
Yep, it wasn't good, but the good thing is that they have appeared to have learned. We have many games in the pipeline, with releases seemingly becoming a lot more frequent across 2024 onwards.
That fake persona mask slowly being ripped off with these leaks
Removed - inappropriate
Phil wants to compete and i Ike that. However game development these days just takes so long. It’s why you need 40 studios just to make sure you get 3-5 AAA games out. They are close to achieving that. Once they get this rolling and have that type of output, i am not sure anyone can match that. They will just continue to grow the services and communities of players. Good times ahead. Happy 2022 is a learning lesson and one that looks to not be repeated anytime soon, if ever.
@Lightning720 well they didn't really learn anything ,they just bought a load of games.
He's been saying that for 10 years.
@HonestHick they had plenty of studios to give xbox gamers, quality titles years ago, and yet did nothing ,all theyve done at the moment is buy a load of games,this guys like a broken record ,im sure this is like the 5th time he's spouted this nonsense ,look back at past presentations,he's said it numerous times in the past.
@tallythwack No, i only believe internet gamers that are 30 years or older and live with their parents. Or gamers that hate Xbox, sometimes i even believe people that enjoy arguing or changing the narrative to make gaming more negative than exciting. Now that is the people i trust to be around for a lot longer than Phil.
@tallythwack not interested in what one says as much as what one does and Phil and MS are bringing games to the Xbox and PC, they are providing services and consoles for all different kinds of people to enjoy and try, i am not all that worried about what happens behind closed doors. The internet has turned into drama and not excitement for this industry and that is something i do worry about. Having millions of kids and adults fight and argue over which plastic PC boxed console they own is getting really really old.
Removed - flaming/arguing
Removed - trolling/baiting
Its 'understandable'. They could have delayed Forza Horizon 5 until February/March time to at least have 'something' big for 2022. Although at the time, they had Redfall, Starfield and of course Stalker 2 'expected' in 2022 so they had little reason to delay.
Phil knew that Redfall and Starfield delays basically gave them 'nothing' big and 'could' have delayed FH5 and/or Halo (although that had already been delayed so not a good look) into 2022 to at least have something 'big' of their own.
We all know how 2022 turned out for Xbox after 'winning' the best Publisher of 2021 on Metacritic. It wasn't helped by Sony also getting Ghostwire and Deathloop earlier so even when Deathloop came inn 2022, it didn't have the same impact.
I don't think 2022 will go down as a Great gaming year across the board, but it was an Annus Horribilis for Xbox in particular...
@HonestHick
Totally agree, the only thing I would add is some more tight controls on quality management and maybe aim for a bit more perfection.
But they seem to be getting there slowly but surely.
Glad it shows they weren't living on another planet, and were well aware what we all felt - that Xbox and Game Pass had a dearth of content for much of last year.
They're definitely doing better now - and the leaks while disappointing for them do at least show they're willing to investigate lots of different ideas for catching up, or for different games / controllers etc.
Mostly staying out of a lot of the comments for the leak articles though, as expected it brings the PS lot over looking for a fight - haven't got time for that rubbish, too busy with Starfield
Now purely from a managerial review of the email.
Not my gamers head.
Far too wordy and long.
Should have bullet pointed.
Should have defined tasks at the end with bullet points and whom responsible, with review meeting date for task accomplishment.
What I see is wordy love letter 💌 😂
@Chrisajax just because someone has a difference of opinion telling the truth 2022 was absolutely shocking for Microsoft but it seems like the games are coming now so the future looks great Microsoft can't afford have another year like 2022
Now we know why redfall was pushed out in the mess it was. Gave them the release they needed
@OldGamer999 i agree and there was bound to be some learning curves going into owning this many studios at once. Not making excuses for them, nor did they make excuses for themselves. But it’s just the nature of the business. I think once a year or two pass and they have a good feeling for working with all the teams and lending help in areas of need. We are going to see some of the best of the best Xbox has ever put out.
honest? where is my 60 to 120 fps in starfield?
@HonestHick
How you finding Starfield? Or is it not your thing.
He recognised a problem candidly admitted it, and set about fixing it.
It was problem occurring on his watch, but at least hes fixing it. Bravo.
There was some mention of honesty that made me chuckle, as despite the kind of creepy fan worship of the 'cult of phil', hes just as ecconomical with the truth as any other ceo. As long he gets the games flowing thats fine, you gotta play the game to win it 😁
@OldGamer999 haven’t picked it up yet, but plan to when it’s further patched and my Diablo 4 fix is closer to normal. Diablo is a top 3 all time franchise for me, i am over 300 hours into Diablo 4 and not slowing down anytime soon. I am leveling a buddy up to 100 now and we are at 71 each. So quite a ways to go. I want 3 level 100 characters before i will slow down. But when i do and the time is right i will jump into Starfield and many others.
@HonestHick it is a big comedy show, this xbox division, nothing else, a lot of talk, i thought it was better in the past, little talk [xbox 360 era] a lot of action, but well, i do have confidence in the future .
@XBOX045
I sort of understand where you are coming from as the 360 era was my favourite Xbox era.
And yes there seems to have been a lot of talk.
But hopefully now they can move forward with a bit more action.
Don’t forget sometimes the other two have a quiet year now again as well.
Take the recent Sony showcase not really a mention of 2024 and their usual big AAA in house exclusives single player games mentioned. We normally know a couple of years in advance with some gameplay shown sometimes.
Anyway only time will tell and reveal all for us gamers.
@OldGamer999 @XBOX045 i think the one thing some gamers forget is when you make a mistake the likes of which the Xbox one did, it takes a lot of talk, action, games and word of mouth to dig you out of that when you aren’t a name like Nintendo or PlayStation. Nintendo and PS can have an off Generation and bounce back no problems cause they are a worldwide name. Also we are in the digital age as Phil has said so all the PS4 users that built large library’s are of course looking to get a PS5. This is where i think GP is a strategy for MS to give new gamers a huge back log of games along with newer games at a fair price to jump into. You skipped Xbox one? No worries come over to Series consoles and get loads of games a month for cheap and we have great sales on BC games. This now helps them have games on Xbox and a need to play the system more. All around i think Phil and MS have put together a compelling strategy coming from a losing generation. Things might look different had they rolled off the 360 and did big numbers with the one.
@HonestHick
Is it me or have yet again another developer ruined a great game for me like Wo Long and now with the Lies of P.
Been playing Lies of P and now frustrated and can’t beat a boss early in the game.
Please developers your games play and look amazing Wo Long and Lies of P, give us oldies an easy option so we can play and not spend hours of our valuable time stuck on a boss.
The souls gang can still have their hard difficulty as well.
They can say all they want against Phil Spencer. At least he has the balls of steel to tackle this kinds of situations.
@tallythwack plenty....you meqn 5 studios that MS owned till 2017? No they aren't enough certainly with the 5 to 7 gaming circle of this gen! When sony has 21 and still cant menage to devolop more than 1 gme each year
What about sony buying not only studios but 3rd party games to cover their empty release window this year and last year? Whats the futire for PlayStation ? The last new game was shwn 2 years ago!!! They only got SM2 this year and wolverine and the last of us faction coming god know when
@TakeItEasy your anger is seeping into your spelling.
@Chrisajax oh god grow up,im a gamer who owns all platforms ,not some petulant child.
@HonestHick I dont care which platform a game is on l,i own them all,but iam still of the opinion that Phil spencer is a slimy toad of a man
@tallythwack my anger? Haha you thibk anything gaming can make me angry lol im 30 yo yesterday i played DS remastered and i was laughing on myself for dying and you think a 5 yo ps fanboy can make me angry 🤣
I’d argue this year has made up for it. Starfield is immense. Forza looks a lot better than GT7 and personally I’d put HiFi Rush as my GOTY.
@OldGamer999 I’m not a souls game fan. I prefer to focus my gaming hours on multiplayer and getting better or Co-op or just a single player game for story. But souls is not my thing. I respect them for the players that enjoy it.
@tallythwack well maybe if you ever had the chance to meet the man you would realize he’s just a man with a high profile job and he really loves gaming and the fans but has numbers to meet and things to do in his position. I too own all 3 consoles, and if the PS controllers didn’t suck and the switch wasn’t less powerful than a iPhone 7 i wouldn’t care which games were on whichever platform. But for me the controller and ecosystem of Xbox has me hoping they continue to improve, grow and even dominate.
@Rmg0731 i can smell the stench of your hate from here. Now please, go back to nintendo life or whatever
@HonestHick you was doin well, until you said the ps controllers suck,then it was just fanboy city central
@TakeItEasy aww you're 30,you're just a baby,what has you laughing at yourself, got to do with anything though 😂
@tallythwack PS controllers is the only thing i haven’t liked about PS since i bought the PS2. I had the PS1 and i never minded the controller, be it i was younger or i just liked it. Now when i say they suck i mean they suck for me. Six axis was a joke to play shooters on. No rumble, thumb sticks that my thumbs slipped off, to small, hand cramps and awful triggers. Again for me and the games i enjoy playing. Dual shock 4 was ok, but again not something that worked for most games i enjoy. Dual sense while a cool controller it cramps my wrist and thumb cause of the stick placement. I have bought and played every PS, but i only use them for exclusives now. I prefer to play on a Xbox controller. If that is a fanboy i would ask you this how many Xbox fanboys own a Dual Sense Edge that i barely use. How many own the Sony Inzone H9’s like i do all to just play a handful of exclusives. I’d like to think i treat PS just fine and honestly could even switch to them as my main platform if they would make a controller that don’t suck for my hands.
@HonestHick well thats fair enough my friend ,maybe you shouldve stated the reason they suck for you in the first place ,the pad does not suck ,its just unsuitable for your needs, which is a fair comment
@tallythwack yeah it doesn’t suck other than it sucks that it hurts my wrist and thumbs. I like the dual sense for what it is, it just don’t like me haha. Trust me if i had a controller on PS3-PS5 that was comfy for the games i play i would possibly not even be all that much on my Xbox consoles. A controller to me is the only thing that makes these two have a real stand out difference to me. I own them both there are things i love and dislike about both, but I can’t have my wrist and thumb cramping after 30 mins of playing a shooter or diablo 4. I play some of those games for hours at a time. Thanks for the understanding 😊
@HonestHick no problem ,i wish they would let you use any pad you wanted on any system,id love to play starfield with my ps5 pad
@tallythwack if they did that, i would love it. At that point it really wouldn’t matter what platform I gamed on. The closet thing we have to that is PC.
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...