OG Xbox Creator: I Believe In Xbox, Despite This Week's 'Tragic' Job Losses

Is he still on Microsoft payroll?

That’s great, but I don’t anymore, there’s no way around it, Xbox is dead, Microsoft Gaming has taken over and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking to see their administration.

After watching Sarah Bond’s interview I can bet she’s gonna be leaving in the upcoming months, she looked so uncomfortable and I almost felt bad for her because it’s obvious she didn’t make those decisions and she hasn’t been around as long as Phil Spencer or Matt Booty, who should be the ones answering these questions, it feels they just promoted her to be the scapegoat.

That original Xbox team were amazing dudes.

It must be terrible for them right now to watch what is going on with their legacy.

"Here's a word from Seamus Blackley (Expletives ahead)"

This is why Xbox used to be great. We went from official statements from Xbox having expletive warnings to official statements from Xbox coming days late and containing word salad circular riddles from people who don't actually know more about the situation than the audience because they're not even the one involved in it.

@GuyinPA75 No he left a long long long time ago. He seems to float around to different tech startups and foundations now. He was working on some augmented reality thing I think last I saw?

It really is something for Seamus to still be able to have some optimism after everything that's happened over the last decade. Respect.

@IOI Yeah, glad I'm not the only one who saw how uncomfortable she looked. She was wringing her hands at various points, too if you notice. Same with her and Phil back in February, and Phil in the post Redfall "we lost the console war" interview. They all look like hostage videos.

Did you notice how she perked up when they got to talking new hardware? Like old times.

On one hand it's vindicating because at moments I feel like an idiot for trusting these people and their brand, but when I see their reaction, it's clear they really are on the same nightmare ride we are and we weren't wrong to trust in them and their vision......it's just that their vision got co-opted by the suits and they're finding out as we are. We backed a winning team, the team just got traded mid-season by the owners.

It's here we disagree. I'm not defending Hood and Nadella, but my speculation has been that they gave Spencer so many years and so many billions and a new generation to turn the Xbox in a positive direction. If the Xbox One is seen as a failure, doing worse than it is simply unacceptable, and that's what Phil has done. The last acquisition this company made for the benefit of Xbox was Bethesda, Starfield was repeatedly delayed, then when it came out to good reviews but didn't move any needles for sales, it was over. The same holiday, with Starfield on the shelf, they put the XSX out with Diablo 4 out for $350 almost everywhere, and couldn't give it away, in its 4th holiday, what should be its highest selling year. It's an abysmal failure. Phil failed. I love Phil, but he has to own this.

When you take out a loan from loan sharks, and you don't pay back the loan, the loan sharks come and break your knees. The loan sharks are bad guys, but it's still your fault. Hood and Nadella are the bad guys, but this is Phil's fault. Xbox would be fine today if it was anything close to winning.

Did you notice how she perked up when they got to talking new hardware?

I actually noticed that as well, a glimmer of hope for the future. The next gen can't come soon enough.

is that coffee he calls tea? he is an xbox guy!

@NEStalgia lol I was kinda joking since he seemed to be defending Microsoft like crazy there. Could be a media plant.

@Jenkinss I've never approved of Nadella, ever. I really think he is hurting Microsoft for long run. The guy keeps putting too many eggs in one basket.

I remember when OG Xbox arrived — it was like a drop of punk rock in the console market (ironic, considering their parent company was anything but). They courted developers and publishers and players to make a dream machine that had everything from break-away cords to a hard drive that could rip your own game soundtracks.

That ship has long since sailed. And in some ways, that's understandable. While I'm sure there are still some people at Team Green with that spirit, one has to imagine they're eyeing the door at this point though.

I've been at companies where this kind of stuff has gone down, and morale takes a major blow. The brightest and most talented people see the changes and mass layoffs and find opportunities elsewhere before they're caught off guard too.

I love the console concept, the simplicity of no driver's or weird stuff, but I increasingly believe PC+Nintendo console is gonna be the best combo. At least for me, we shall see what the future holds.

I think why this hurts is deep down we still believe that if you work hard and are successful that you will be rewarded. I think if you were upset by Tango’s fate you are a dreamer but I desperately want to be your friend….

@Jenkinss While I agree with you on how corporate is thinking about it, I disagree that that's the actual chain of events. Through X1X Phil was gaining steady traction on the brand and repairing a lot of damage. Repairing studios, business partner relationships, consumer confidence etc was never going to be fast or easy, but was slow and steady. Series launch was very well received, and showed positive momentum. There were missteps, and I think it's obvious Microsoft wasn't ready for a new console, they just dropped 1X, they just had to rush into it because Sony was, so the game dev timetable wasn't going to line up for them. Mistakes were made especially with Halo. That's on Phil. But momentum and image were on a good trajectory for a while, and that was a difficult road to forge coming from how bad things were. It's when ABK was starting up, even before it was publicly announced that suddenly all momentum completely stopped, and then reversed. That's when corporate STARTED undermining, because Hood and Nadella were already rubbing their hands together with that sweet sweet mobile future. They didn't need Xbox anymore. We're seeing corporate endgame now. But behind the scenes, the days of "we're doubling the price of gold" "we're calling gold Game Pass now", and total radio silence...that all began when corporate started the inner legal work to prep for ABK. The wheels were already off the bus before Starfield dropped, and by then the market moved on.

But yeah, whether I end up shifting to PC/PS or jsut biting down and sticking with Xbox because it's economically pragmatic practically depends on them talking new gen, new hardware, very soon. And how it looks like the Nadellabox (Kotickbox?) will be managed.

@GuyinPA75 Putting eggs in one basket is one thing. Nadella can't decide what basket he wants to put his eggs in, keeps taking them out, putting them all into a different basket, sometimes one that's way too small, sometimes one that's too big and the eggs bounce around, and about half of them get cracked during the transfer.

Seriously look at all their reports....what product are they actually making money on? Worse, what product are they not making far LESS money on than they were years ago? Everything is performing worse across the board. The only things that are booming for them are things they purchased and gain passive income from, or flipped as assets, liquidated, etc. etc. The only "tech" they're making money from is just selling rental space in the cloud. Nadella doesn't operate MS like a tech firm, he operates it like a hedge fund/bank, just using their mountain of capital to purchase, fund and trade other assests. Even their "AI" initiative that's his current obsession that's replaced his cloud obsession amounts to just throwing money at OpenAI and integrating it. Somehow in a broken way.

Somehow he's made them the wealthiest company on earth while basically losing money on every single business channel they have and losing market share in droves. It's all just finance transactions. Money making more money.

That's the real shame of Xbox/ABK. Given what hes' done to Windows, Office, Surface, Azure, Phone, everything else, you know the moves he's making isn't to make more money from growing gaming. It's to siphon every penny from ABK passive income while cutting all expenses and just use the 80bil to generate endless passive income while doing nothing.

The only thing that makes Nadella look good is how bad Balmer was.

@NEStalgia But... to what end? I'm arguing against my own feelings here because I've been and to some extent am still a massive fan of Phil. He took over Xbox at the beginning of 2014 and XSX launched at the end of 2020, he had 6.5 years to prepare the XSX. That's all the time in the world. And what kind of successful reception did it really have? It has undersold the failed Xbox One, and has fallen even further this year.

I personally loved this console, and I also loved Phil's vision for Xbox. But the console and Phil's vision both failed to win fans back. We backed the losing team. Look at my avatar. It's not my first time. Maybe this was my fault, am I cursed?

One of the many things we agree about is corporate undermining before Starfield. In the FTC trial we learned that the decision to buy ABK and not a much smaller, console focused publisher was driven by Hood because they are a mobile developer. It was certainly the beginning of the end, knowing how poorly sales continued to go.

Was he drinking tea or kool-aid? Because he seems to be carrying an awful lot of water for this company that he himself recognizes is terrible to developers/creators. And yet, he also seems to think that people should continue to trust in the same company that has burned so many developers/creators time and time again.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Oh its the very much the end of the console maker side of Xbox. Next gen Xbox only exists so they have something as they start going harder on becoming the next Sega. Xbox the console is done and there's not much point supporting it once this Gen ends.

@Jenkinss I still have my Game Gear, Vita, WiiU, Virtual Boy, PSVR2............
....
Series X......

I know how it goes

I should have worded that differently. I meant picking a winner based on a business designed to meet the needs of a different market of which we add consumers represent. Not a winner in terms of "would successfully outsell two abusive competitors that maintain their customer base through induced Stockholm Syndrome"

I agree Phil had a bold strategy and it for reasons I can not explain, failed to succeed in the market. But they were genuinely offering that product to a market and recognized our wants as a market.

Satya just wants a different market.

Apple's.

@DennisReynolds somewhat disagree. I think next Gen merges console into PC with software enhancements and thus there's no disincentive for them to offer a surface like game build pre installed even if it's relatively low in sales. Honestly I expect it'll be a good product as will successors (released as annual upgrades) but also uninteresting.

@EvenStephen7 It drop in like gabber 🙂 not to stop back in 2001 , awesome xbox console it was i only hated the controller .

Whilst 'no-one' wants to see Jobs lost and Studio's closing, when you buy a job lot, a bundle, you don't necessarily want 'everything' but you had to take everything - the trash with the treasures so to speak.

I have some Games, some accessories etc from buying 'Bundles' that I've never used or even opened. I didn't want or need them, but they came included with the Console I really wanted.

MS may have wanted the IP's, the Publishing Rights, the tech (id tech, creation engines), Some Studio's (like id Software, Bethesda, MachineGames) etc but had to take Everything as a Job Lot. With the state of the world and its impact on Gaming, Projections too are different than they were 2 or 3 yrs ago when Gaming boomed.

When times are tough, you may sell those 'extras' you got in Bundles but never really wanted/used, sell things Surplus to your requirements. MS didn't necessarily 'buy' Tango or Arkane Austin - not like they bought Obsidian, Ninja Theory or Double Fine for example, they bought Zenimax as a Bundle, a Job Lot.

As an "outsider" who only just joined the xbox / M$ ecosystem (lifelong gamer, nintendo, pc, ps.) It's interesting seeing how the energy of xbox seems to have changed. From the outside looking in. Now I'm invested in it to some degree I can see how many things have come about from refinement. But yeah if i think about it, the soul of it has changed irrevocably. I could say the same for Playstation as well. I think in my own headspace i still live in those Halycon days of edgy ps and xbox things. Despite being a firm believer that the console wars are dead. Just waiting for Hasbro to gobble up everything. "Til all are one".

@NEStalgia But Satya didn't ask Phil for Xbox to gain market share vs Apple. He tasked him with gaining market share vs Playstation, and gave him more than enough resources over 10 to do it, and he absolutely failed to do it.

@Jenkinss Yes, but, I don't think we can use 2024 as the watermark. Microsoft basically abandoned Xbox as soon as they started internally shifting to using to to chase Apple instead of Sony, when Hood ran the ABK Numbers and that goes back a year and a half ago or more. Instead of looking at PS5 vs Xbox on May 2024 we have to look at what was the trajectory of Xbox in summer to holiday 2022. That's where we can say if Phil was doing well or not. Everything after that was after corporate already decided to ignore it.

Back then the trends weren't bad at all. Then they stopped promoting the console, started mixed messages, and we're vague about games and trumpeting how much they suck.