Phil Spencer Celebrates 10 Years As Head Of Xbox This Weekend

Yep, and by the 11th year he will have successfully made Xbox a 3rd party publisher. Not quite the best of legacies..

We all get at Phil from time to time including me.
But just like me being a senior manager you get orders from above which you may or may not totally agree with them but you have to follow them through.
So how much of what they are doing with Xbox actually comes from Phil, we will never know.

Never liked Spencer and never will, he gives such a greasy car salesman vibe and it astounds me how much people fawn over him.

I still stand by that only Nintendo have had truly great CEO's.

I was lost my all hope for xbox when bismal "xbox one" announced.
I returned and gladly bought my "xbox one s" after dear Phil Spencer got in charge.

Imagine getting put in charge of Xbox after the Xbox One launch! He has rebuilt the brand significantly after the market failure that was the Xbox One. He is a gamer and I think is doing a decent job of giving gamers what they want while satisfying the demands of Microsoft.

@OldGamer999 Bingo. And remember it was Phil that went to them and said let’s not get rid of console gaming. Oh and by the way we need close to 100 billion dollars for studios for content to compete. So i am sure when they hand over 100 Billion dollars it’s not just one person’s (Phil) say. I know you know that, but many others don’t. Phil loves gaming and Phil loves Xbox. We are all human and make mistakes but for my money he is trying and the console business and gaming in general is a very hard line to walk.

Congrats to Phil for 5 great years!

The Xbox brand is currently a joke. It’s not all uncle Phil’s fault and I’m sure there are other actors pulling his strings. He’s just another corporate mouthpiece at the end of the day, one who comes across as being a gamer because he’s always saying how great exclusives are… on other systems. He’s done some great things for the brand in his time but I’m not going to lie I feel like the brand is not in a good place right now. Just my opinion.

@somnambulance You can't blame him for that. Mattrick pulled the pin, popped the handle, and chucked him the grenade. He's done an admirable job thus far.

Time for him to go. Overpromises…….. underdelivers over & over. Has done for years. Guy above said xbox brand is a joke, and it is. Developers ditching it now. All the studios they have and their output is a farce. Phil……. you have tried but ultimately failed

The best boss they ever had. Hopefully he is in charge for years to come.

@HonestHick
Totally get what you saying.
I mean if Xbox do go all third party and no hardware that will be a corporate decision, ok Phil might have a good percentage of the process but it will be a business decision and not Phil’s alone.

Now don’t get me wrong I think somehow since the xbox360 for me Microsoft definitely has not done with Xbox what I wanted them to do.
Which simply is sell as many console's as Sony and Nintendo and produce very top end AAA single player games like in the Xbox360 era.

That’s the reason I’m here sometimes given large at Xbox, but I’ve stopped doing that for a while now as my passion for Xbox has started to diminish so my emotions don’t care about it anymore.
Shame as I’ve been with Xbox since day one and owned every Xbox console and probably helped sell many xbox360s. But it is what it is I’m afraid.

Xbox would probably be dead if not for this guy.

I like Phil but he was handed a sinking ship and hasn't been able to fix it. Xbox as a console is all but dead unfortunately

@OldGamer999 I agree it would be a business decision. I also agree since 360 the Xbox has struggled to get its footing on the console space in the way we want and i think even they had planned. The thing is for me, i still love the controller, i still love the Ui outside of the Ad’s. It’s still where i prefer to play most games and forget about the business side of it. I think since talking about video games is such a big deal today we have forgotten how to just enjoy what we enjoy and let the business do what it does. It’s good to be informed of course. But i have to remind myself to live for today and what makes me happy at the moment and not worry about 2-5 years from now. As long as Xbox has a way to play the games i like and the controller and online experience with my friends i care to enjoy then i am going to be there. As i like to say if i survived the Wii-U i can find the fun in anything if i try.

Phil Spencer is not a bad guy. He’d be a great neighbor. But I think people have a hard time separating the man from his job. He basically took over Xbox after the 360 era… and Xbox has been going downhill ever since. He even said “Games don’t sell consoles” 🤡 I honestly think, the sooner he gets replaced the better.

He was good at first when he was getting exclusives like rise of the tomb raider and game pass, I feel like I'm still waiting for these great games that waa supposed to be coming and now even if they do they going to Playstation and Nintendo anyway. It's time to go 3rd party

@Lup it is mate

I hope he stays another 10 years. Phil is the best.

@Doomcrow That is not what he said. He said Starfield being 10/10 would not stop the momentum that was built by PS4 in the previous gen. Xbox needed to keep their momentum from 360, and Mattrick squandered it. The next best thing would have been to be in the position (studio and project-wise) that they are in now when the Series gen started. It was not possible.

@HonestHick
I actually liked the WII U and didn’t realise how many it did not sell.
Yes for me the best controller is the Xbox series x controller. I even prefer the Switch pro controller over the Dualsense. The Dualsense seems so awkward to deal with at times and I don’t like the thumb stickers in line.

@OldGamer999 Wasn't the whole point of making Phil CEO of Microsoft Gaming, and separating the Xbox division from the Windows division to allow more freedom in decision making? The only person higher than Phil is Nadella... Phil probably does get to make a lot of the decisions. So, I wouldn't count Phil out so easily of these not being his choices. Granted his decision have to make shareholders happy.

We had better days .. don’t worry more coming to a PlayStation near you ! Don’t have an Xbox ? Don’t worry there’s no need ! He did what he can now time to move on before he crumbles what he built . We need to keep the brand going not consolidate

@somnambulance The fanbase is divided because of the porting program. Specifically, porting to PS — I get it. Xbox is a public company and under a massive company in MS. Spencer has to answer to Satya and shareholders.

The sales divide between PS and Xbox is too great (again) to avoid MS scrutiny. If both were at 40 million units then PS5 would be pushing harder to PC. Spencer would have more breathing room. Buying ABK shown a spotlight on Xbox inside MS. Execs will ask, "if we are making CoD for PS, why not make other games for PS?" Sell s/w on consoles MS/Xbox did not have to produce and combine to be more console than they could ever sell.

As far as devs voluntarily skipping Xbox, those are rumors, and goofy ones at that. Unless the dev is paid by Sony or so small they can't develop all versions simultaneously in a reasonable time period, it is senseless. A healthy developer would not target 67% of consoles over 100% of consoles unless paid to do so. Xbox is a platform holder and even they are second-guessing absolute exclusivity.

@OldGamer999 the same for me i would go Series X controller and then the Switch Pro then Dial Sense. I mean console sales matter and of course getting great content on the box matters. But funny enough with Sony having nothing for 2024, at the end of this year it could be the Xbox with the most exclusives. For all the Doom and Gloom we could have the most to play on Series consoles. Plus we don’t know about June showcase yet, so maybe even more to come in 24 and early 25. So things can change and normally do in this industry. MS has around 40 studios at work. So let’s see what we get and if we don’t get Gears of War Marcus Fenix collection i am going to throw a fit. Just saying.. Haha 😀

@HonestHick
Don’t get me started, where’s my Gears of War 6 😂

Trust in Phil! It’s takes a long time to turn a console around and Phil is a gamer so I trust in him over any stuffed shirt … he got the ABK over the line and Japanese companies are talking to him again… and he’s classy…

I know there’s a lot of love/hate relationship with Phil but I don’t think he’s a bad guy. I think it’s a tougher position than most believe. All the decisions made for Xbox are not always his decisions. He unfortunately ends up being the punching bag for some of those decisions. I do think he means well and I do think at the end of the day he wants what’s best for the brand. Xbox just needs to find where it fits in with this ever changing market.

@OldGamer999 We’ve been waiting. I want Marcus Fenix collection and then Gears 6. That would give us plenty of Gears to play for a long while. Time will tell, i have a feeling for better or worse we find out this June.

Hes had a good run and some great things. Best to go out on a high before the lows keep getting lower.

Phil is doing an excellent job. Unfortunately things are going to appear worse before it gets better, but that's a sign of his progress and vision are stirring up the gaming community.

He is rattling the cages, and Sony fanboy critics are upping the pressure, with anti-consumer remarks, wild rumours, and unfair poor reviews of Microsoft's biggest games.

All this pressure on Microsoft is to sway the Xbox users to lose faith, and prevent the long term vision from achieving success. Plenty of stalling tactics by Sony and critics alike, but now that Blizzard is finally acquired, and Gamepass seeing great popularity, the wheels are set in motion. It's just a matter of time.

Phil is in a lot of ways and continuous as Jim Ryan but for opposite reasons. Jim spent good money after bad and declared their own customers an enemy while damaging what was good, like Matrick. Phil on the other hand salvaged a brand and rebuilt it while navigating a changing headwind but did it through using the patent companys capacity for M&A, all with a declining market share.

It's clear he has a different vision for Xbox than "just do what Sony does but" but it's unclear if the strategy will be effective.

I didn't know if he's done great or done terribly yet but I daresay nobody else could have done it as well. Sink or swim he has a bold vision and he's seeing it though. And in entertainment that's the only way to do it. No focus groups, no hedging, just believe in the plan.

Even this comments section just doesn't get it. So many comments just wishing Xbox would "equal" Sony by doing what Sony does (Even though Sony literally just told us directly that they can't afford to keep doing that, literally the week after Phil announced multiplatform.). Gaming has changed. Severely. Is not just Xbox. It's hitting Sony too. They just closed studios, dumped their leader and are scrambling to redesign themselves too. It "looks" like everything is status quo at Sony for casual fans counting who's console is "winning" but it's not. Things are changing between market demand, costs, and hardware itself. This isn't the gaming world of PS4 any more than it's the world of 360. Phil's told us part of his plan. Hinted it other parts. Sony, we don't know, they don't know, they need a leader first before they can figure that out. As best I can see Phil's idea of Xbox is merging it with PC. Which is bold. It's also the original point of original Xbox. It's also where console has been heading since Dreamcast was a Windows machine. Since arcade machines became PCs. Since PS3 could install Linux officially. Since Sony is focusing on PC more than their console, too. Since publishers have demanded everything be PC for the past decade and a half. If Phil can navigate Xbox to become the convenient box to play PC games on, he's one step ahead. It's a gamble.

@somnambulance Regardless of other problems he took Xbox from a brand that "had no games" and was left with two studios to being the world's largest game publisher. That's not nothing.

@ShadowofTwilight Only Iwata. By some miracle. Furukawa is just a bean counter and Hiroshi "Totally Not A Yakuza, Honest!" Yamauchi was an iron fist in an iron glove who's only redeeming quality was knowing when he was the problem in his own way.

@AverageGamer I think we learned from the abk hearing that Amy Hood has total control of everything. The profit chasing comes from her. I think that's where Phil contradicts himself. He says one thing and then Amy tells him to do something else that hurts the brand but boosts the quarterly. She's definitely the biggest danger to the vision, and Nadella if he's in agreement.

Phil seems a very nice guy to me. Friendly and glad. He seems also seems in general able to make smart and rational decisions. I mean at lest from the MS perspective. Not sure how many how many of you have read the recent interview but I think you can get some good insights from that piece if you are interested to know more about the guy.
@EvilSilentFrame Yeah exactly. The market have some impact on things..

@OldGamer999 i just watched a video and it leaked that last week Phil Spencer pulled a in house MS meeting with all the teams and said we are NOT leaving the console hardware market and plan to be around another 10-15 years with hardware and games. So unless that changes and i don’t think it will cause they are going to rake in cash on the studios here soon. We will have a Xbox until we are old with arthritis in our hands and fingers.

I think Spencer has done an admirable job since taking over what was essentially a poisoned chalice. I know that we think that Xbox is floundering now, but the truth is that Spencer saved it from sinking towards the end of the last generation. He took over following the mutiny started by Mattrick, and when people were leaving the brand in droves. Although he may not be capable of saving the ship from ultimately sinking in the not too distant future, he has at least been successful in baling out some of the water! Steady as she goes? Not quite, but there is still the possibility of calmer seas, but that depends on whether he is forced to throw out the buoyancy of exclusives too. Without exclusives, and without the crew (us gamers) sticking with the Xbox, the ship will sink. It is only a matter of time.

I think that Spencer has been a great Captain, but when Microsoft are firing torpedoes at the brand, there is only so much that he can do to keep the ship afloat, and I wouldn't be surprised to see him step aside, and allow someone else to scuttle the ship in the not too distant future...

Some of us already have those arthritic fingers, @HonestHick! I'm 60 now, but still going strong(ish!)... 😂

What is Microsoft going to do next and what will become of the Xbox brand? This is now the story of this generation and with speculation rife, my latest complete guess/hope is that they maybe continue their current two console offering but with updated specs AND the Steam ecosystem in addition to Gamepass etc?! (This could really eat into Gamepass though as Steam is the best value storefront in gaming). I think Valve are in Washington State too and they're surely all buddies outside the office. It's that or publisher only in my admittedly clueless opinion! Sony making the only premium spec home console will be terrible for consumers.

@Fiendish-Beaver just happy you are alive and well my friend. Gaming is a great hobby. I just did my outdoor hobby this morning which is bass fishing and wow is my arm sore from casting. Probably hit up the Xbox here in a few.

@Doomcrow They sell consoles if you don't have a business mind, whenever i have purchased a console it's never been about the games it's always been about the price/affordability I know many people here and push square jist love to throw money around like it grows on trees , won't catch me paying full price for any game that's for sure.

@HonestHick
Yes I have heard about that from Phil as well.
Will be interesting to see if they pull of an xbox360 style release and go a year before Sony.
If they do at the right price and most importantly big AAA exclusives then they good do well.

True think I will be gaming until my body can’t game anymore 😂

@OldGamer999 yeah i think that is a good strategy. Launch first with some killer games and build up some momentum and then keep a killer title back for when PS6 launches to keep some hype around Xbox. Should be all good. Happy to hear them continue to double down on more hardware is coming.i prefer their ecosystem more than the others.

@HonestHick
For me I’m here to play the best games and the best they can be for what console they are on.
Normally action, adventure, platform and fps.
All single player.

Xbox for me has the better console due to certain features and form factor and the best controller without a doubt.

It’s the games as I mentioned above where Xbox doesn’t shine for me. I would have thought by now we would have had about 2 killer app big AAA showing us what Xbox and series x can do.
We have had some ok and good, but not what I’m really looking for from Xbox studios.

In the mean time on the other two sides I’ve had.
GOW and HFW. TOTK, Pikmin 4, Mario wonder.
That is what Xbox is missing and why they are where they are, especially in console sales.
Yes Xbox games being on PC day one will have some effect but it is no where near what has happened, especially outside the USA.

@OldGamer999 i can agree with that. We need some killer titles on Xbox for sure. I think once we see Gears 6, Fable and a few others we will see the power of the Series . Heck even Hell Blade 2 looks crazy good. Xbox needs to create something big to go along side their 3 core games. Just not sure what that would be.

@HonestHick
I would give but they have to big top killer app games.
Indy, hopefully
Halo
Gears of war 6
Fable
Forza horizon
Some thing new

@HonestHick
I think this year could have been Xbox’s year but there is still time, with Sony releasing nothing themselves until April 2025 and the Switch 2 now early 2025 this could have been their year to gain ground, but I don’t think they will.

And Sony and Nintendo in 2025 will come all guns blazing and nothing will stop them.

I just don’t think Xbox get their planets aligned with the stars to pull some gaining ground off in any meaningful way.

@OldGamer999 yeah they need to capitalize on Sony and Nintendo being quiet this year. Plus outside of Switch 2, i don’t think Sony and for sure MS don’t have a game that can over shadow GTA 6 if it comes out in 2025. I honestly think Sony is just going to throw out some more marvel titles and wait for GTA6. Unless we see something with Naughty Dog. All their other studios seem to be coming off canceled projects and probably need more time. At the June showcase we need to see Perfect Dark, Fable and Gears 6 all looking next gen.

@HonestHick
That would amazing and just what Xbox and I need. Hope you are correct.
Perfect Dark, Fable and Gears 6 all looking next gen.

@HonestHick
The big thing with GTA6 I bet Sony get the advertising rights. So there will be console bundles with GTA6 boxes and maybe even a special controller.
Best to play on PS5 Pro and then to top it off TV advertising looking like it’s a PS5 exclusive.

The above will over shadow Xbox and anything they can do nowadays.
Maybe in the xbox360 days not as much but now not a chance in hell.

Phil Spencer is a very safe and boring person which now reflects the Xbox brand. Boring and inoffensive.

@Phantom_Anima

If Spencer is doing a great job then I'd hate to see him do a bad job. I thought he was pretty damn awful but if this is him doing great then wow.

@somnambulance Yeah, I agree on the back and forth messaging and last minute planning. It does seem unpredictable. I think that's somewhat less about Xbox and more about the situation in a lot of ways though. The landscape is changing overall. To be honest I thought x1x marked the beginning of console to PC and was excited about that. I thought Series was kind of depressing by trying to be"console with exclusives"again. So I'm more optimistic about the console to PC change than most as it's what I expected all along.

I do think there's more to it than "play Xbox on PlayStation" though and I think that's where Phil is coming from. I think PS as we know it is numbered in days as well. They'll seem more stable for a while due to inertia but I think we're going to see ps become more multiplatform and more PC focused. I think you'll see the hardware get much more expensive while ms shifts to PC hardware. Even if it gets to a point if only PlayStation mattering is only a matter of time before publishers tire of them likely gouging then and try to push the PC market more. On one hand Xbox being multiplatform means only ps matters. On the other hand if Xbox sells a PC console and valve sells a PC console, and Asus and Lenovo and Alienware and others probably sell gaming PC consoles.......... That leaves PlayStation in a weird place as the only hardware that's not cross compatible with the others. That leaves publishers looking at them like they've looked at Xbox.

IDK, you're definitely not wrong about the confusing mixed messaging and constant changing plans. When I watched the podcast I thought Xbox seemed really bleak. Then the next week I watched Sony implode and realized "ooohhhh...... Phil DOES know what he's doing "

I think the industry is seismically shifting, the console model is dated and wearing thin, and it's probably more obvious internally than out here. Obviously MS is in a position to talk and hint because they don't have a current horse in the race anyway. Sony is going to be quiet and ride the status quo as much as possible. But I also think once they name a new CEO, you're going to see a lot of changes at PlayStation too. They've been stuck with Jim who was stuck in 2014 forever and ever. He tried navigating the change, badly. Like you said they were stagnant both due to no competition but also due to no leadership or vision. Microsoft....I think plans did change. I think ABk derailed a lot. That was kind of a mistake. I think the focus only on game pass has been a problem. I think that's thinking too far ahead into the cloud only future. I think they focused on cloud rollout too soon but I think they did it because easy money, once interest rates went up, cloud investment stalled. Then they had to pivot strategy again. But I also don't think exclusives would help them much. A lot of exclusive hype is just that. It's a SONY exclusive! Must be the best thing ever! Ronin even gets mediocre reviews but it's still treated as something special. If you take all of this years ps exclusives, minus rebirth, and imagine them all actually being ms exclusives... Do you think hardware momentum would have changed? I don't. I don't think the exclusives sell boxes as much as just the image as being an exclusives factory that makes art.

One thing is certain though. Even if Xbox hardware were ended, the industry wouldn't just accept that there's one platform and PC. Sony as a monopoly retailer of video games would be a publishing disaster leaving them to push PC hard. Which is ironically back to Xbox.

I still don't know if they can pull off Phil's strategy, but I think the Xbox consoles vs Sony consoles filter is outdated. Phil, Jim, Shaun all have one thing in common. Every other word they say is PC. Console as we know it is finished. Really it's been going that way for a while. Heck the biggest game SIE has going for it is hell divers. And most of it's sales are on PC.....

Never thought I'd see that day.

@NEStalgia

"Consoles as we know it are finished."

Man, only been hearing this crap for 15 years now.

@somnambulance Yeah, Jim was all about the importance of exclusives... Then announced basically none and went to the Matrick playbook of paying for third party exclusives like Ronin and Forspoken. But at the same time, rock and hard place, they created this myth of high budget exclusives by overextending and can't actually afford that more than occasionally. They'll have a rough journey from that point like with PS3. They had living legends righting that ship. And they had Matrick light his pants on fire to help. New leadership coming from a low point should make things very interesting on the blue side

Stellar Blade is interesting. Big hype. Niche gameplay. Kpop Star in latex cat suit protagonist. We'll see how the virtuous the virtue signaling Western market really is 😂

I think we have the result of Jim Ryan's strategies. They're choking on budgets, making low margin, cancelled half of what he planned and are set back years of development and are searching for a real leader. But we get a creepy digital bobblehead to share with future generations so theres that. Phils strategies are still ongoing and will take more time. Abk....I think that was a problem that is what caused back tracking. But it was there in that moment.... And it was their key to mobile money. I think budgets and cheap money ending capsized both companies plans. Cloud plans froze, they literally just stopped upgrading it and taking about it. I think that's all about interest rates as is the tightening of budgets everywhere.

I also want them to stick with one plan at this point, totally agreed. I know why it's been in such flux but it's painful to follow. I think if they ACTUALLY commit to pc as console, it solves nearly all their problems. They've done great on PC. Xbox was originally meant to firebomb consoles. It kind of goes back to the original idea. If they can stick with it... And yeah they REALLY need to fix their PR. I suspect they have one pr agency for all Microsoft and they're used to selling monopoly products.

@ShadowofTwilight No, that was "brand Y is finished". This is "the Device category and business model that was console is ceasing to be relevant in the face of technology and distribution model changes."

That doesn't mean you won't still buy a dedicated piece of hardware to play games on. But it won't be bespoke closed systems subsidizing hardware with overpriced software. That switchover started LAST gen with consoles going x86 at publisher demand. That was the beginning, not the end of the shift. Steam Deck was kind of the proof of concept to the industry. You really can have a "console" that's really a PC. And that's a handheld! Doing a wired box of even easier. And that's what the third party publishers have wanted for ages, and the third parties are really all that matters.

@NEStalgia

The armchair analysts never cease to amaze me.

@ShadowofTwilight Yes, of course, mass layoffs, project cancellations, unsustainable budgets, studio closures, mergers, liquidations, are all in my head, hardware prices fall as soon as it rolls off the line, consoles will never use x86, Steam Deck doesn't exist, online is a fad, the console market is an incredible growth industry that's grown a ton since 1989, VR's day has come and it is the future, PS5 is outselling PS4 and the publishers are all ready for more expensive games for that huge and rapidly growing console market. We're living in a golden age I tell you! That status quo will serve the industry for centuries to come!

@ozkrmz "I was lost my all hope"? What?

@Utena-mobile OMG! Did the same exact thing. I was like "Phil is looking good, he looks like he lost 20-30 pounds and hired a trainer."

Under Phil Spencer, XBOX has become the world biggest publisher with over 40 studios and 19.000 employees. Do you remember the state of XBOX before 2014? Spencer literally saved XBOX from closing down by Microsoft. Spencer has made a lot acquisitions durign the period 2018-2023. In 2018, XBOX aqcuired Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games. They created a new studio, The Initiative. In 2020, XBOX aqcuired Bethesda and, in 2023, it had Activision Blizzard.

XBOX has become a true powerhouse under Phil Spencer leadership. He's doing fine with having Game Pass as the main service and going multiplatform for more sales at full price by selling their games to PS/Switch platforms.

The next step for Phil Spencer is to make Game Pass the top service platform for gaming. To achieve that goal, I believe that he should focus on releasing first/third party EVERY SINGLE MONTH that will be AAA/AA games. He also could make more second party deals for publishing games under XBOX with external studios. XBOX should release at least 2-3 AAA single games every year besides live service games.

XBOX future is Game Pass growth, not consoles. XBOX consolo will continue to exist, but it will an optional choice for those who want to enjoy Game Pass on console platform.

Multiplatform and day one release on Game Pass will increase revenue and profit margin for XBOX to an enormous level. You can't lose the opportunity to make more money because of the exclusivity, which limits the consumer base in one platform.

XBOX brand is bright. XBOX haw now a diverse portfolio of studio that making all kind of games from AAA games, live service, mobile etc etc. It has some of the most popular franchise like Call of Duty, Diablo, Warcraft, Halo, Gears, Elder Scroll, Fallout etc etc.

XBOX can and should dominate the market with that kind of manpower. Phil Spencer spend years for creating the resources(a lot of acquisitions), but now he has to show his management skills and be productive for releasing quality content that will make XBOX the dominant force on gaming.

@somnambulance I think the mixed messaging is a result of the reaction to the multiplatform stuff that’s appeared so far.

It was said during the podcast that it was moved forward so we know for a fact that the original plan was for the 4 games to be announced before the podcast. Pentiment + Grounded Switch via Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase and the PS stuff via shadow dropped trailers and blogpost.

Given the general reaction to the rumours was very much a sense of Xbox going the way SEGA did in the early 00s, I think very clear cut “everything is going multiplatform” messaging would have a Don Mattrick XB1 reveal style impact.

It feels like the mixed messaging will disappear by the end of June though as that’s the end of Microsoft’s fiscal year.

Fishing is one of those pastimes that I wish I had more chance to do, @HonestHick. I've often been tempted to try one of the fishing games. They're on sale all the time. Have you tried any of them that you might recommend?

@Fiendish-Beaver i actually never did try any of those games as I’m afraid i will get addicted to it like i am in real life. I used to play Super Black Bass on the Super NES when I was young.

@somnambulance To be fair, I’m not sure Game Pass is a focus for them anymore. Of course they’ve made deals with 3rd parties in the past which still need to be honoured but between Activision games being an extremely sluggish rollout and the article about Game Pass deals drying up, it doesn’t feel like Game Pass is a focus anymore. I think the focus is being a multiplatform publisher and that’s why they’re having to be careful about messaging.

@somnambulance I sort of agree but the problem is GP is a double edged sword. There's no way the other consoles let it on. Sony is selling Plus as a direct competitor. Even if consoles vanished and everyone played in phones, Plus vs GP would still compete. Moreover both services exist in part to promote their own library sales. Plus/GP become the modern version of "exclusives" to draw you into their digital store. So I don't think that's an option for them. But it's their own trap. They made gp the whole brand but it can't actually become the brand. It's just an enticer, and later the whole cloud platform. But not just yet.

But you nailed it about his vision changing largely due to other factors. Some are corporate. Some are just technology, money, and the market changing all the time. But it makes an awkward sell. I'm some ways that's the cost of thinking big in an industry with a 7 year turnaround. Every big great plan becomes obsolete before it hatched. It's another catch 22. Keep informing people the plan you keep changing the plan and going back on statements. To avoid that you go Nintendo route. Say nothing other than that your have nothing to say. Tell no one the plan. Then one day announce for sale "this is what we decided Xbox is, it changes today.". Works for aloof Nintendo. Kind of. I'm spite of them. I can't imagine it would work as well for Microsoft. But that's how you're consistent in this business. Be silent for years until you dump your vision on everyone, or just never think big like Jim's Sony....

Jim's PlayStation problem is that not only did he not care at all what the customer wanted (thinking he was bigger and better than simple customers. He actively presented what publishers wanted customers to want, glibly as what they actually wanted. No wonder he blew up the company.

The most dangerous thing to Phil's vision IMO is if Sony finds a competent leader.

@Grumblevolcano There's a zero percent chance being retail software publisher only is their focus. It may be the short term focus this quarter but not the long strategy. Microsoft is platforms and their competitors are platforms. They're not going to stop at being a 90s retail software provider for other platforms any more than Excel on Mac meant they didn't care about Windows anymore.

I'd say he has had a fair run these 10 years and still going well. I don't think every decision was great but that happens.

Some games just eh didn't do it for me of direction of their series, same has happened with PlayStation too.

Other business stuff has probably been fine I can't remember right now.

@NEStalgia PC is a Microsoft platform because of Windows. On the hardware side you’d have PCs that can play PC games normally and your Xbox library is in the cloud.

@Grumblevolcano that's not inconceivable, but I still think you're still thinking in terms of console vs PC, Xbox vs PC. I didn't think that's Phil's direction at all. I think it's about merging those together, not keeping it separate like PS3 trapped in the cloud. The storefront and online network is their platform. Just as it's Steams. And with all that direction changing I've said in a few threads, cloud seems to be on pause. It was too soon to go all in on that. User numbers are pitiful. The streaming stick is stalled. No real cloud expansion in ages, announced features pending forever, and the cut the performance to series S versions to double capacity without expanding. I think that interest rates are a big part of that. And I don't think we're going back to quantitative easing again this lifetime unless Jim Ryan somehow becomes chairman of the Fed next lol.

I think their direction is wholly bent (for today) on merging console and PC, Deck style.

@NEStalgia I was looking at it more like a result of architecture differences much like how Microsoft couldn’t do proper full backwards compatibility for Xbox and Xbox 360 games on XB1/Series X|S. The best they could do is a case by case scenario where if a game ran properly and Microsoft managed to get the licence, it could be released via the backwards compatibility program.

In addition we've found out that some 3rd parties hate backwards compatibility because it decreases potential sales for ports/remasters/remakes of games that would be already available via backwards compatibility which would make the licensing part even harder.

So it doesn’t really sound feasible for any kind of Xbox console/PC merging other than a PC that can play Xbox console games via the cloud.

Is he celebrating the 47% drop in console sales in Europe and that developers are rumoured to be considering dropping support for the Xbox console platform? Hardly a shining achievement.

@OldGamer999 @somnambulance Xbox has a good chance picking up significant momentum in 2024. Unfortunately, during the quiet 5 month wait for HB2, they have stymied themselves again and damaged confidence with the porting effort. I don't know who thought this was a good idea or how it truly came about, but the timing was horrendous. It reminds me of Ghostbusters when the jerk forces them the open the ecto-containment unit.

It was never gonna be an easy ride for Phil, coming off of the abysmal Xbox One launch. He was behind the 8 ball from the start.

Just a few of the positive things he has been responsible for include Xbox becoming the best backwards compatible console on the market, which I hugely appreciate. He made Game Pass the most successful sub service in gaming and I do love Game Pass. He added a TON of first party studios including ABK and Bethesda. By the time he actually leaves its very likely Xbox will have leap frogged over PS in regards to overall revenue. Xbox players are spending more on average than PS gamers this generation. He has been hugely instrumental in accessibility features and cross play.

Sure, there are negatives as well but once again, he came into this position behind the 8 ball. The Xbox brand would likely have died during the Xbox One gen if it wasn’t for Phil. He gets nothing but respect from me.

@theduckofdeath
Yes I wrote yesterday how Xbox could rule the rest of the year. But alas they never line their stars and planets up together.

I’m not the biggest Phil fan but he’s a definite improvement over don mattrick!

@Grumblevolcano No, the bc issue was solved with x1 going x86. It's all native now. The difference is in tool kits and apis now, and GPU specific instructions, but that's something easily done in software at the cost of some performance. As long as the hardware has enough overhead (and the already said 'biggest power leap between generations ever' which I interpret as 'all used for overhead since it's a PC') that can run native because it's all native anyway. And they said bc into future is a thing they've been paying attention to since launch.

360/og bc, since it's already running emulation under the current x86 tool set should be fine. It's already emulated with room to spare, so running that through any thin translation for a full PC is needed shouldn't be a big deal. Obviously physical takes a fall.

I don't think bc on a native pc box would be trouble. I think it's the licensing system etc that keeps it Xbox, and they're still running windows 98 WGA key servers, I'm not worried about that with MS.

I know some third parties hated bc. Others love it. Depends how PC minded they are. But at the end of the day, is PC. #dealwithit. It's the same companies that pull games from steam. This industry is a joke if it depends on removing purchases to resell things. Even Disney doesn't go that far. I'm not sure licensing would matter though. After all, it's "emulation"... So it's still the original platform licence. Brad the attorney better be worth that retainer

The idea of "license per generation" is exactly what the ending of console is kind of about. Some companies might not like it but I assume those companies already do PC so it's nothing new to them. Maybe they pull their games but I doubt it. And even if they do you can buy the PC version. Cheaper.

@NEStalgia I think if the problem was already solved for Xbox/360 backwards compatibility versions natively on PC, we would’ve had a Rare Replay PC port by now considering that it and Halo 5 are the XB1 XGS games that aren’t on PC which don’t require Kinect and aren’t delisted.

Halo 5 would’ve needed fixing up the XB1 version first meanwhile Rare Replay already runs very well on Xbox.

@Grumblevolcano No, 360 games themselves aren't native, but the emulator and "custom" versions that build the emulator into it are obviously x86 wrappers otherwise they wouldn't work on X1/XS. Even if it's raw emulation certainly a PC could do that as well as or better than the console, and there's nothing hardware-wise that's special about the consoles in that regard. There must be some weird quirk or AMD-specific thing it's doing or something on the GPU, those two games are definitely weird outliers. Maybe it's something unique they do with network/service features that aren't present on PC?

Either way, 360, being the PPC console is definitely going to be sloppier in a PC conversion, but only by a little, than X1 and Series that should be pretty directly runnable with a modest software translation layer as a sort of "universal emulator" without a lot of emulation. And being MS, something AI driven no doubt.

@somnambulance I don't necessarily think pursuing GP and Plus hurt the platforms. I think MS pursuing only GP hurt it though.

I also still think "games" (meaning exclusives) is overstated in terms of the effect it has on sales. People still like to repeat that exclusives sell consoles. They do, but I'm not sure exclusives shift the balance of console momentum like people think they do. It works for Nintendo because they have mascots more popular than Disney. Sony doesn't have that. MS doesn't have that. Sony and MS are unlikely to ever have that. Even Disney barely has that anymore.

I used to say that "if Sony stopped making first party exclusives today, PS sales would still look about the same" but I don't have to say that because Jim basically did exactly that and they're fine. If Jim did one thing, he proved me right. Sure Spidey and GoW move SOME consoles, but they aren't what moved MOST consoles. Similarly look at the sales success of SoT on PS. But did any of those people buy an Xbox to play it? No. And moreover, even Nintendo, MK8 is one of the best selling games of all time. Did anyone buy a WiiU to play it? No. Exclusives really don't sell consoles. Not in numbers that matter that much. And that's been Phil's point/problem. People buy consoles to play GTA, CoD, AC, whatever else on. They all buy PS because their friends all bought PS. Almost all of Sony's 1st party games have been sequels to prior gen games. Their exclusives are selling mostly only to existing customers. And that's XB's problem. Nobody's going to buy an Xbox because everybody everyone knows plays on PS, so they might as well play on PS too. How does "last place" console get into first place? It's not games, apparently. Phil thought it might be the bargain service of GP, but it doesn't seem like it's that either. It's a genuine problem. The "power" console market gravitated toward PS and once everyone's there everyone stays there until something makes them change. For Xbox to have "games" that make that happen, they'd need something GTA6 level as an exclusive. Even Sony can't pull that off. I don't think "games" are going to change their sales momentum much. They need to offer features/services/functionality to do that, and even the valuable GP isn't doing it.

Gaming's kind of sad, really because everyone just does whatever everyone else does. It's the ultimate group think experiment.

Nintendo has earned my trust that I know they'll bend me over every day, lol. You love to hate them mostly. They sell trash hardware at high prices, overpriced budget software, and milk it forever like Diseny opening the "vault", you can even see the decline in quality and their new copy/paste model. But darnit, you hear "pika pika" and you fork over the cash. You hate yourself for it. But you do it anyway. And they even copied Xbox's controller like a Chinese clone console and we're like "yes, finally!"

But I don't personally think cranking out big "games" will move the needle for them. Especially knowing it'll go to PS, but even if it didn't, people with a PS would just laugh at MS "inferior" games and carry on buying TLoU Remastered: Remake: Remastered: Pro Patch for $70. I don't think having more "inferior" games would move consoles. I think "being a better place to buy GTA6 and play Fortnite" is what would move consoles for them.

Maybe the PC shift is it, maybe it isn't, but then at least publishers don't have to do the "I don't know if an Xbox version is worth the sales" dance anymore, it's just a PC build, and MS can push their store and services and subs with basically all games guaranteed to be available with no extra effort. And long term Sony being an island from the universal platform could hurt them.

It's a tough spot because at the end of the day the primary problem isn't xbox, it's that the console market has not meaningfully grown since the 1980s. And considering it's in far more countries than before that means console sales in primary markets has considerably fallen since the 1980s. And as a small/shrinking market, there's not really enough market room for competition, it's just the same customers. And "new" customers are gained by getting young gamers into the system and waiting 15-20 years for them to grow up on that system. That's how Nintendo wins. They relentlessly target kids so that EVERY adult associates Nintendo with their childhood. Sony is targeting middle-aged moviegoers and can't figure out why they can't grow their market. They got lucky and became the place to play Fortnite and GTA and CoD pulling in the teens and tweens. Those customers aren't going to leave their chosen platform now unless something extraordinary makes them leave. If Jim couldn't get them to leave, nothing Phil does will convince them to. And since the market doesn't really grow, poaching customers is the only option. Or convincing people to buy in as a "second console" the way Wii and Switch have worked. And Switch was a feat of marketing selling a console as a trendy "lifestyle" product, because otherwise Switch is nothing but a giant GBA with a TV out. That leaves Microsoft basically targeting neeeerrrrrdds. Which is great because we're all neeeerrrrdds. But we're not a huge market outside PC. We're basically lazy gamers that want to be PC gamers but are cheap and lazy so we buy Xboxes. Navigating our market is MS's problem.