During PAX West 2024, Xbox boss Phil Spencer hosted a 'Story Time' chat about the gaming industry, discussing many different aspects of the business - including some of Xbox's history. In that chat, Phil was asked about some of the biggest games that Microsoft 'missed out' on signing up, and the boss mentioned two popular Activision series that went on to live for years to come.
When they were being conceptualised by their individual dev teams, Xbox was pitched to publish both Destiny and Guitar Hero. At the time, Destiny dev Bungie had only just split with Microsoft, so that one perhaps makes more sense - but the boss goes into a bit more detail on the team skipping over Guitar Hero.
Here's a clip of that GH chat:
Yep, Phil & co. just didn't believe that a game where people would "plug plastic guitars into consoles" was ever going to work - so Xbox skipped on working with Guitar Hero. In the end, the team went to Activision and created a massive franchise - with the original GH developer then making Rock band afterwards as well.
We can imagine these sorts of hits and misses are pretty commonplace in the industry, but it's always interesting to see someone like Phil discuss them so openly. In the past, Xbox has also talked about missing out on Genshin Impact along with other major games that went on to be successful elsewhere.
How do you feel knowing these two franchises could have been Xbox exclusive? Go ahead and drop your thoughts on this down below.
Comments 32
This encapsulates xbox. For the past 15 years or so they've been run by people who had absolutely no idea what they are doing.
It’s always going to happen. Sometimes you don’t think somethings going to hit. Then it does.
Take palworld for example, who saw that doing as well as it did and they took a punt it.
Or look at redfall Phil said they expected double digit higher reviews so it goes both ways.
Some hit, some miss.
I wonder what the console industry would have looked like today if Guitar Hero was a Microsoft exclusive back then.
Hopefully we'll have Guitar Hero back soon, it's missed.
Regarding the news, it's normal, it's not possible to guess the future and you never know what game is going to break the market, the same thing has happened to other companies.
Fortunately it also works in the other direction, sometimes you bet on something you don't expect much and it's a great success, for example Palworld.
I can’t say I blame him for passing on Guitar Hero—I still recall rolling my eyes when I first saw that big plastic guitar, thinking, ‘Yeah right, who wants that junk?’ Man were we both wrong.
Some of the other titles he listed though? How could you not know they’d be huge?
@PsBoxSwitchOwner if Phil played Redfall before it released and thought it was good, he should be fired IMMEDIATELY.
Things like these are common in every industry. Imagine Dick Rowe, the guy who rejected The Beatles.
@fbnaulin The more interesting question is HAD Dick Rowe signed them would The Beatles have been as popular? So much of that is based around lightning in a bottle luck e.g. when they were signed, by whom, how they were marketed, etc. etc. Small changes can make huge differences and perhaps they would be a niche band only a few people know of who got annoyed about not quite making it and split up... or perhaps stayed together even longer.
@armondo36 And if the Sony CEO played Concord before release (the biggest First Party flop in recent years), he should join him.
The game released in 2005 so the pitch would have been probably 2003 or 2004. Before the Wii, Kinect, Move etc and around the time of tentative experiments with plastic plug ins like the Eye Toy and Donkey Konga. Not that much of a surprise they didn’t see the potential for success. Not sure many of us would.
Phil makes a lot of bad choices and mistakes.
There's a long list of games they've done this for. Resident Evil 4 is one of the earliest. Is anyone really surprised at this point?
New guitar hero please
@Divide_and_Wander Series S would so have an ‘air guitar’ version at 30fps!
@armondo36 Redfall is not a bad game, it has major flaws and is far from the quality of games produced by other Arkane studios, but it is still a remarkable title, I quite enjoyed it at launch and hope to replay it at some point with the latest patches.
Destiny and guitar hero are both basically dead or crap easy pass nothing missed out on except while guitar hero was around it was popular and good both destiny games are stupid live service 💩
He’s showing more and more how incompetent he is . a man who hid his bad business decisions im surprised he’s saying this at a time Xbox brand is weakening. He didn’t have to buy the ip but to pass off the exclusives at the time shows he doesn’t know what he’s doing half the time ! He will pay 10 million for a indie on gamepass but not a game that will be a top played 50 game ? Hmm
@armondo36 could be worse. He could have bought Firewalk.
While fair, I could care less about either of those IPs making a comeback or being signed deals really. Plenty of other music/rhythm IPs they could focus on. VR, Just Dance, and Indie ones even.
In terms of skating and Tony Hawk/others I mean eh, goes either way really with Skate 4, Session and more being there regardless.
Give me a Pitfall sequel/Singularity or something, anything else Activision ignores, but they aren't compelling enough, don't make an impact, aren't live service worthy or other money making type IPs are they, sigh.
Destiny sure they didn't at the time, sure it's on Xbox but yeah they could have signed for it some DLC deals or exclusivity or other benefits to Xbox platforms, Bungie is on their way now. Probably other games from other studios/publishers big or bit smaller they could have but didn't sign on with other publishers of more impact I think.
Then again I'm not disappointed Gal Gun Returns is on Switch/PC (better place to put it anyway) and it couldn't have it's return to Xbox when it only was on 360/PS3 at the time in Japan, the other entries on PS4 and pretty much all entries on Switch/PC now. Nope. Not like it couldn't have come around because well they have their reputation/morals after all and that audience has to go elsewhere, they don't want that audience's money at all.
Xbox just struggles to get some IPs and they wonder why many have Switch/PS/PC instead and are broader of audience or better sales.
@Utena-mobile I think it's still him trying to be the relatable/down to earth big chungus exec that is at least humble with flaws he's well aware of.
..Which, while nice on paper, not so great when perception around what he's in charge of has been so consistently poor outside of a few things (their summer event) they've almost eagerly tried to sabotage not long after showing. (Indy PS5 port confirmation before the Xbox version is even out.)
Destiny1 was a PlayStation exclusive on the Japanese Xbox, despite the fact that it was scheduled to be released at the time.
This caused many Japanese Halo fans to migrate to the PlayStation.
343 Industries has its own problems, though, as they left the matchmaking glitch unaddressed for quite some time. (At the time, the Halo community in Japan was in the midst of a meltdown over the change of voice actors for Master Chief and Cortana)
@fbnaulin or Jimi Hendrix who had to fly to another country to be taken seriously
@themightyant @fbnaulin Much like CBS cancelling Star Trek in season 3.
"I've made some of the worst game choice decisions"
Good job you're not in charge of one of the biggest video game publishers/platforms in the world..............
Pabpictu wrote:
IGN recently had a poll for "What Forgotten Game Genre Should Be Brought Back?"
"Rhythm games (like Guitar Hero)" won.
Hey — Xbox gave Steel Battalion the green light. That was ballsy.
It proves how out of touch with gaming and gamers that Phil Spencer is and always has been.
@Utena-mobile You and me both.
@xboxjapanfan Though I don't play Halo in Japanese, I'm sorry you had to deal with VA changes. I hope it was for a good reason, but I doubt it was. 343 though is known for being downright sloth-like when it comes to sorting issues.
@PsBoxSwitchOwner pal world bit of Nintendo and steam charts been getting worst … he supported palwarld more than hi rush
@NEStalgia I'm imagining a Yakuza-style twist to all this where the heads of the Sony and Microsoft clans are revealed to have been agents of destruction working for the Nintendo clan all along.
The ruthless gangster era Nintendo never actually changed. They just began playing the long game.
@Ralizah I honestly believe that, blindly, without question. The Yamauchi Clan didn't stay in power for over 100 years by being fools....
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