Preamble

My, how time flies. As Wario64's Tweet reminds us, it's been over ten years since Don Mattrick took the stage and presented the Xbox One, an all-encompassing multimedia-minded console priced at $499.99/£429.99. The platform proved to be a significant turning point for the company's console manufacturing fortunes after doing more than admirable work with the Xbox 360, hardware issues and all. Mattrick left Microsoft on July 1, 2013, and his position remained vacant until Phil Spencer officially became Head of Xbox in 2014. It's wild to think, but Mattrick announced the Xbox One, and when things went south, he only stayed around for less than a year before hitching his reputation and future on Zynga. So, while many gamers, especially those invested in the Xbox ecosystem, look at the anniversary of the Xbox One as a significant page in the "What Could Have Been" tome of video game history, most seem to have forgotten that we are also nearing the tenth anniversary of Phil Spencer's tenure as the head of the Xbox brand.

Phil Spencer is one of the more interesting figures in the video game landscape. The man first joined Microsoft in 1988 as an intern, with one of the highlights of his internship involving him becoming the development lead for Microsoft Encarta. He was twenty-five years old when he led that project. He was eventually attached to Microsoft's Xbox division almost immediately upon its launch. He made the rounds in Lionhead Studios and Rare until he became the general manager and studio vice president of Microsoft Studios, now known as Xbox Game Studios. When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella promoted Spencer to the company's Senior Leadership Team, which means he now only reports to Nadella, few opposed the move. The Xbox brand was still on shakey grounds, but Spencer had done a decent enough job of righting the ship in a limited amount of time. Now with Nadella being reported as signing blank checks to fund the defense team responsible for protecting its proposed buyout of Activision-Blizzard, it doesn't seem like Microsoft has any plans of giving up on video games, though its vision of what it will contribute to the industry and what shapes its consoles will take remains undecided.

And yet, how much progress have we seen the Xbox division make since Spencer took the reins? Most estimates say the PS5 continues to outsell the Xbox Series S/X two-to-one, and the Switch continues to inhabit its own arena where it is on track to become the second best-selling game console/device of all time. The highly problematic launch of Redfall resulted in Spencer making the rounds in various media circles, wherein he publicly apologized for the game's state and took some responsibility. The reports of management dysfunction in Microsoft's internal studios, especially those they bought during Spencer's tenure, continue to grow. This year, the company has a lot riding on Starfield, and if the game's technical issues exceed what many of us would judge as the normal jank associated with Bethesda's style of open-world game design, that would be another black mark on his record. Game Pass remains his most significant achievement, even if it has done little to motivate people to join the Xbox ecosystem. So, does Spencer have enough to show for his nigh ten-year reign, and if not, at what point do you start judging his management and amiable direction differently? Before we get into that, I want to clarify that I am not advocating for the firing or removal of Spencer and his associates. Nor do I think Spencer is a friend, consumer advocate, or someone to defend like he's the second coming of Christ. He's a multi-million dollar earning corporate manager who will likely make more than I will ever make in my lifetime in one month.

The History Of Broken Promises

Let's start with an effortless statement: Phil Spencer legitimately loves this industry. He loves it so much that he has attended every one of Microsoft's E3 press conferences and has been on the brand's public stage in some capacity since 2010. The issue with Spencer's enthusiasm is that he has the "Peter Molyneux Syndrome." He overpromises on the company's portfolio of projects and habitually underdelivers. Likewise, his love for big stages and fancy press conferences has the habit of forcing some studios to slap together teaser trailers and game announcements far earlier than they should. Redfall is a recent example, and Jason Schreier's profile on the game confirms this in brutal detail, wherein Arkane developers knew the game was in a problematic and buggy state but were forced to demo it at press events, which seems downright cruel. Additionally, let's remember that 343 did a massive rework to Halo Infinite after a universally negative response to a press conference trailer. Likewise, when was the last time we heard anything about The Initiative's Perfect Dark reboot game or Playground Games' Fable title after both were tapped to be "World Premier" teaser trailers Spencer giddily announced on a public stage? Spencer and Microsoft are far from the only guilty culprits of this practice. Still, he sometimes exhibits an element of "announcement envy" when he tries to out-compete Sony and Nintendo on big stages, and it's had some embarrassing results.

Now, what are Spencer's responsibilities in this matter? At the most basic level, he reviews items before they get on the final draft of his conferences, and there's a high likelihood he puts out company-wide memos asking for interested parties. Again, I'm not an expert on the corporate structure at Microsoft, but there are two points worth echoing on this matter. First, Spencer's experience working in software, which dates back to 1988, should mean he has a good compass on software titles being in a good or bad state. Unlike other console gaming head honchos, Spencer knows how the sausage is made. Second, how many years in a row can you look directly at the camera, promise people this will be the best year for your console yet, see things not pan out, and still not realize you need to be more careful about your language and messaging? People might like Spencer's more amiable personality, but who trusts him when he excitedly says he has a game announcement that will catch your attention?

Most Agree Spencer's Statements About Big Games Not Moving The Needle Is Wrong

We now transition into the most divisive part of Spencer's Kinda Funny interview. At one point, he outright states that Microsoft likely will not be able to catch up to Sony or Nintendo this generation or possibly ever in terms of hardware sales, and also that even if the Xbox had a bevy of big, eye-catching titles or exclusives, people are unlikely to leave the current Sony and Nintendo console ecosystems in favor of Xbox's. There is some truth to what Spencer is saying, and I agree that the Mattrick era lost one of the worst possible generations one could lose in this industry. However, I don't entirely buy Spencer's argument that losing the Xbox One generation is the primary reason Xbox still needs to play "catch up." People forget that the PS3 eventually caught up to and exceeded the 360 thanks to Microsoft's complete and utter complacency after they caught Sony in its weakest state. After approaching an entire generation with a sense of pompous elitism, Sony engaged in a level of good faith building Spencer's management has repeatedly been gun-shy about in favor of continually attempting to shift their narrative to pretend like the Xbox One never happened. I honestly think if Spencer and others stopped saying some permutation of how the Series S/X was a "new era of Xbox" and instead publicly reflected on why consumers and developers turned on the Xbox One, it would result in some buy-in from significant stakeholders.

Furthermore, Nintendo had an even worse time with the WiiU. While Nintendo has almost 40+ years of video game IPs at their disposal, a fact I do not want to downplay, the core argument that big and exciting exclusive titles will not change your fortunes doesn't hold up in my mind. While Spencer's Kinda Funny interview was admirably frank, it critically oversimplified most video game consumers. Most people with disposable income and in the games hobby are open to owning more than one console. The messaging shouldn't be about "switching" people that own a Switch or PS5 to replace what they already own, but instead to motivate and communicate why owning an Xbox console alongside the ones they already own is a worthwhile investment. And yet, continually, Microsoft has failed to do that. Part of it stems from Microsoft releasing almost everything that launches on the Xbox on PC. Whether that is a good business decision is beside the point that people who do not already own an Xbox Series S or X don't feel like there is a reason to own one, and the brand isn't exactly saying why one should change that mindset.

The Reports Of Management Dysfunction In Their Purchased Studios Grows

This next point is not exactly a shocker to anyone casually following recent video game news. Still, Redfall is far from the only evidence of Microsoft showing clear signs of not knowing what it wants from the many internal studios it paid millions of dollars to own. Microsoft first announced the Perfect Dark reboot in 2020. After prolonged radio silence, Microsoft only recently revealed that they needed to reboot the endeavor, and many of the figures billed as spearheading the project had left. And speaking of Xbox struggling to communicate the state of its tentpole titles in its portfolio, it's WILD that we will likely get to the fifth anniversary of Gears 5 with no semblance of an idea of what is going on with Gears 6 or what Microsoft has done with The Coalition after Rod Fergusson left to work on Diablo IV. It's also not like Microsoft denies its struggles managing in-house studios. In a documentary titled Power On: The Story of Xbox, Spencer admitted that his and his predecessor's handling of Lionhead Studios was "a mistake" and how forcing them to make a Kinect title, everyone knew would never make its money back, was a terrible decision. Spencer also admits that he knew Fable Legends was not a good fit for the studio but didn't do anything to encourage the studio to pivot into something that better fit their strengths and instead let everyone involved wallow until the plug was finally pulled.

For an example of how the Spencer era has not been a universally smooth transition, look no further than the ebbs and flows of 343 Industries. It is essential to note that it's impossible to criticize any studio or console manufacturer with staff turnover unless you have evidence of gross or criminal negligence or abuse. There are even cases of Microsoft presiding over graceful torch-passing moments in its outfits, like when Shinji Mikami announced he was bowing out of Tango Studios after HiFi Rush. Likewise, The Coalition deserves much credit for using Gears 5 as a slight course correction of the series. Nonetheless, the struggles of 343 might stand as one of the most prominent black marks on Spencer's tenure as an actual manager of a brand. 343's near-constant soft-rebooting of the narrative they are trying to tell in each game is a sign there's an evident lack of direction that otherwise did exist during the Bungie era of Halo games. Infinite's inability to deliver on a regular schedule of updates and features that were once assumptions in the past, without any clear replacements or alternatives, further suggests 343 is either rudderless or in dire need of a director that can act as a point man willing to follow an open five-year plan. And the announcement the studio would be heavily affected by layoffs and was in the process of restructuring does not paint a pretty picture that Spencer or his staff know what to do with the post-Bungie Halo IP, even though they have had almost ten years to figure things out. Has the FPS genre passed Halo by? Possibly, but you can't look at 343's inability to deliver on split-screen co-op in Infinite or promised season pass features as anything other than a studio in crisis!

He Sure Likes To Put All Of His Eggs In One Basket

I hinted earlier that the Activision-Blizzard purchase would not be a focal point of this write-up. Nonetheless, there's no denying that we need to talk about it. To put a slightly positive spin on this topic, it is worth noting that the enormous blank check Satya Nadella gave Spencer to purchase the studios he did on top of Activision-Blizzard came after Spencer had to virtually argue in favor of Microsoft not selling the Xbox division to another company or spinning it off entirely. His directive of going "all-in" on gaming hasn't been without a handful of successes and, as we will eventually talk about with Game Pass, does deserve massive credit for changing how we consume video games in the first place. More fundamentally, if Spencer's personal goal was to keep the Xbox dream "alive" and within the walls of Microsoft, there's no denying he accomplished that. Nonetheless, they sure have a lot riding on their Activision purchase. Microsoft has the reputation of thinking it can purchase its way to market-share parity, and there's no denying you get that sense with Spencer's reign.

It also does not help that much of Spencer's current drive to move units and bring people into the Xbox ecosystem relies on people viewing Game Pass as "enough" to sell them on new console hardware or encourage them to use the Xbox or Game Pass PC apps. Speaking of which, how is it in the year of our Lord, 2023, that Microsoft's communication about the differences between Game Pass on Xbox and Game Pass on PC STILL is utter dogshit? I'm not even talking about the performance issues with the Xbox App on PC or Game Pass on PC; I want a list of the games that exist on one or the other and the ability to sort them. This quibble is one example of how Microsoft needs to be more thoughtful about educating general audiences about Game Pass, which is all the more difficult when you have two different permutations of that service. And on top of that, what the fuck is the point of the Xbox app on Windows? I'm sick and tired of needing to put it to sleep whenever Windows updates and turns it back on, and it sucks up my processing power, OR it hits me over the head with ads for games I'd much rather buy on Steam, Epic, or GOG.

The other dangerous line of thinking that Spencer is occasionally guilty of is viewing one game or project as being "enough" to salvage or justify problematic development cycles. The worst thing that could happen this year is if Starfield comes out and it has considerably more "Bethesda jank" than we have ever experienced in their previous titles. Open-world games are complex endeavors; there's no denying that. Nonetheless, a lot is riding on Starfield this year to show the power of the Xbox's architecture and that the Microsoft acquisition of Bethesda and ZeniMax Media was mutually beneficial. If the game comes out and it's noticeably better or has a smoother launch than what we have seen in previous Bethesda titles, they can, at least, claim they are learning from their failures. Still, another problematic outcome that could arise after Starfield's release is one I'm apprehensive about but assured will happen. I think there's a genuine risk that Starfield makes a ton of money, and Microsoft slaps water on their face and says, "Whelp! We are out of the growing phase! Nothing to see here! Business as usual!" Redfall is one of many examples that Microsoft needs to have a cause célèbre moment wherein they reflect on why their attempts to create the in-depth AAA internal game titles that Sony and Nintendo have has been messy at times and which of their policies or personnel continue to lead to these dusty development cycles.

To Spencer's Defense, He Inherited A Disaster

Let's now transition to why we should still view Spencer's tenure as a net positive rather than a net negative. The biggest one is a reason I have already hinted at earlier. The fact remains that the launch of the Xbox One was an unmitigated tire fire. While the console was not a complete commercial failure and even had pockets of success worldwide, Spencer inherited a public relations disaster. The end of the Don Mattrick era burned large swaths of the goodwill people had from the 360 and pissed away decades of progress Microsoft made with developers to treat their consoles as being on par with Sony and Nintendo. The last ten years have made some, but not complete, progress in rectifying the deficit Mattrick wracked up in the failed plan to make the Xbox One an all-encompassing multimedia device. Are there examples of developers like Square-Enix that prove some do not view the Series S/X as worth their time or that Microsoft still does not present them with a deal worth taking? Sure, but considering that the alternative was Nadella pulling the plug, Spencer preserving much-needed competition in the industry remains a massive accomplishment. And, yes, a single mind or person rarely spearheads business decisions. Spencer has a team of industry professionals that work with him. Regardless, part of his agenda of keeping the brand alive has also involved him and his team developing a path or direction we don't see from Nintendo or Sony. There's no denying that games are coming out that take advantage of Game Pass and would likely not exist on consoles if it did not exist.

Spencer's work to better align the Xbox division with Satya Nadella's mandate of moving from Microsft's software-based portfolio with services and cloud databases was no small task. Yet, he managed that reasonably well, and this has been to the benefit of consumers like you and me. It's wild to think, but Microsoft has the most consumer-friendly backward compatibility program AND maintains legacy software leaps and bounds better than its competitors. As an exercise, think of any game you bought digitally on XBLA during the heyday of the 360. Unless it is a movie tie-in or a licensed property, it's likely still available to purchase, thanks to Spencer and his team publicly advocating for these storefronts to stay up and available. The last time Microsoft sunset any services on Xbox was when they terminated Xbox Live support for the original Xbox to allow people to have more extensive friend lists and adopt a wider breadth of newer Wi-Fi generations. Yes, Games for Windows Live is another black mark on the company's record, but that wasn't Spencer's call, and it still ranks below Nintendo making whole generations of consoles virtually unusable like what they recently did with the Wii U or Sony revoking your ability to buy exclusive titles on the PS Vita.

Microsoft Has Been In The Industry For Far Less Time Than Its Competition

I want to return to Kinda Funny's interview of Spencer, wherein he accepted responsibility for Redfall's state and signaled that he did not see a path for Xbox to match the PS5's sales lead. Something must be said about him coming out and accepting responsibility for a mishap. When I indicated as such on various other channels, many people were apt to point out that Iwata did so when Nintendo's fortunes took a downward turn. Now consider this, by the time Iwata took up the head role in Nintendo, Nintendo had its skin in the video game industry for about the same amount of time Microsoft has been making and publishing console video games in totality. That's an advantage few have mentioned when raising concerns about Spencer's tenure leading Xbox, but one we need to be mindful of before calling for his ousting. Sega, Nintendo, and Sony have all committed more prominent follies that have lost their respective console brands even more money and reputation than the Xbox One. The Xbox One was Microsoft's de Havilland Comet. It was riddled with mistakes, but mistakes that virtually any company that has entered the console manufacturing market has made. Sure, Nintendo and Sony have pivoted within a single console generation after stumbling, but that's after both had decades of experience managing console hardware for nigh thirty years. Expecting a single person or team to un-fuck a thoroughly screwed situation is not just an unrealistic expectation; it also masks how Microsoft's failures have been echoed and repeated by its peers.

There's no way for me to put this without sounding like a monster; the studio dysfunction many have cited as a possible weakness of Spencer's management isn't endemic to Microsoft. Going dark on a hotly anticipated video game title? How about the Nintendo Defense Force update me about Metroid Prime 4 and Nintendo's haphazard direction for Retro Studios? And if you want a historical example of Nintendo being as meddlesome in the development and leadership of a video game as Microsoft was on Fable Legends, look up the development history of Body Harvest and learn how it might stand as one of the most tortured developments in industry history. Do you think Microsoft is alone in announcing a new internal studio prematurely? Remember when Sony paraded Treyarch veterans associated with the Call of Duty franchise with the announcement of Deviation Games? Remember when Sony announced that Deviation Games laid off 90 staff members this year, and all of those big names have since left the label for "undisclosed reasons?" And you also have Sony subsuming Japan Studio and stripping it of its identity after belting out Astro's Playroom.

Reading over Jason Schreier's most recent report on what went wrong in Arkane during Redfall shows some weaknesses of Spencer's management style. It sounds like he elected to give the newly acquired studios and their pre-existing management free reign to operate as they did before purchasing them. In a lot of ways, this article isn't surprising. Though, it's not a massive indictment against Spencer or Microsoft. Redfall sounds like an example of a studio operating out of its comfort zone, and with Arkane already three years deep, axing the game was a tough call. Additionally, the mismanagement seems primarily from Arkane's managers rather than Spencer's. You could argue that he should have pulled the trigger, but it's still a brutal decision. His only genuine mistake in my book was presenting the game as a big release when all the signs were there that it was not that. Additionally, Bethesda asked for Spencer's hands-off management style in the first place. Todd Howard has been on record saying he likes Microsoft letting them cook, and that was part of their initial agreement when ZeniMax agreed to its sale to Microsoft. I don't say any of this to apologize for poor management that has gone unchecked or possible toxic work practices. Nevertheless, let's not look at Redfall or other game projects from Microsoft's command center as these self-contained experiences. If Sony was so much better at this, what the FUCK was the deal with that TLOU PC port?

Game Pass Has Always Been A Long-Term Investment & It's A Massive Triumph Regardless Of Its Current Issues

If you press even the most ardent critics of the current state of Microsoft or Spencer to highlight successes, most tend to default to Game Pass. These claims are then followed by a bevy of issues with Game Pass, like the fleeting nature of more prominent games on the service or perceptions of its unreliability. Correspondingly, many people have claimed that Game Pass is a single success story associated with a brand in dire straights and that one W cannot possibly outweigh a long list of Ls. As if fundamentally changing how we consume and play games is a simple accomplishment that should weigh as much as a game launching hot or without promised features. Sure, the communication of what value Game Pass poses needs to improve, and the service is still struggling with some basic UI quibbles that have persisted well beyond their introduction. Still, Game Pass remains one of the best deals in the hobby, and it's not like Spencer unthinkingly followed a template another company pioneered. Laying the groundwork for Game Pass necessitated massive engineering and novel out-of-the-box thinking. There have been subscription gaming services in the past, but none have achieved the ubiquity or general acceptance Game Pass has achieved.

Likewise, Game Pass is not a singular service or product. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and the goods tied to Xbox Cloud Gaming present entirely different benefits to people who opt into them. With Xbox Cloud Gaming, the team at Microsoft has assuaged previous critics at Microsoft internally that their division fell out of line with the company's growing emphasis on cloud services and its "software as a service" model. Maybe you hate this direction, but when you weigh the need for self-preservation, it's hard not to see the need for it. Cloud gaming is far from something that Microsoft or Phil Spencer invented, but when you look at previous stabs at creating a long-term cloud-based gaming service, efforts like OnLive didn't "stick" the way Xbox Cloud Gaming or Game Pass has. Correspondingly, other competitors like GeForce Now or Amazon's Luna have had far more tumultuous relationships with publishers leaving their respective platforms or services without warning. Let's not forget about GeForce Now changing its licensing agreements and, at one point, losing Bethesda, 2K, and Activision in a few weeks. Game Pass also has injected a much-needed sense of direction into the Xbox brand, and Spencer has consistently executed on funding games that benefit the most from the service, whether it be games big or small. Xbox under Spencer has what feels like an incredibly tangible sense of commitment to a long-term viewpoint on how to change their fortunes, and in the realm of business, that's not something you punish.

People Like Him

It seems incredibly odd to end this write-up with something so subjective, but pointing out Spencer's amiability seemed the best way to end it. And it is true, while the console wars still fail to die, most people view Spencer in a far kinder and brighter light than most of his competitors. Obviously, Nintendo is the gold standard, but let's remember how many of you would opine about always looking forward to Jeff Gerstamnn interviewing Spencer during E3 and feeling like there was something different about him. Yes, Spencer is still a corporate suit who speaks about wanting to take responsibility for the launch of Redfall with little sign of him following through in any meaningful way. Nonetheless, the man is a storyteller, and unlike Jim Ryan, he has more personality than a wet cardboard box. Even if all Spencer was expected to do was take center stage during conferences and get people excited about things they likely will not touch for at least five to six years, you still benefit from him sticking around. The thing is, Spencer knows his shit and does a lot more than drum up fanboy support. Thanks to his connection to software and game development, he understands the industry, and I don't know how many others tick the additional intangibles boxes he does.

And you know what? Having the humility to say outright that something is your fault and you accept responsibility, especially in an era when we seem to get the most robotic and soulless apologies from video game companies, is refreshing. Spencer's subsequent interviews about Redfall show he understands the game's issues are more significant than simply polish. What are the actual consequences of taking responsibility? I hope it translates to permitting Arkane to cook and providing the people who worked on Redfall the opportunity to share what they think could have been done better and him acting upon that input. Contrast Spencer with Jim Ryan, who often issues public statements that make perfect business sense but get your blood boiling. The main contrast is that the games company Ryan is in charge of has been doing exceptionally well. And that's just that. Even if we like Spencer because he knows how to talk like a human being, the point still stands: when is it time to reassess his tenure?

I think that this post is unfair to Spencer and what he has actually achieved. I have had Xbox as my primary platform since the first Xbox launched but have also owned every Playstation except the PSP and every Nintendo console except the Wii U, as well as done some PC gaming, so I have an understanding of how Xbox stacks up compared to the other console makers.

Yes the Xbox games lineup has been somewhat weak, at least at times (I think there's some recency bias here because Xbox actually had a strong 2021.) But Xbox hardware turned around during the Xbox one and now other than storage format, which was a mistake, pretty much everyone agrees the Xbox Series X is a great machine (at least if you like consoles) and the Xbox Series S is an interesting gamble. So he fixed the hardware. He also created Game Pass, which may not be gaining subscribers like it once was but was successful enough to force Sony to come up with a competitor. Xbox was an industry leader there.

A lot of the studios he bought years ago haven't actually produced Xbox exclusive games because games take so long to make now. He bought Double Fine and they were committed to Psychonauts 2 being a multi-plat so Xbox studios ended up putting out a very highly acclaimed game on PlayStation, undercutting itself. Bethesda has just started making Xbox exclusive games after playing out their Sony contract. The Coalition has been mostly fine on Gears, it's just not the world beater it once was. 343 has been kind of a disaster (though Halo Infinite wasn't a total bomb) but building studios is hard. Many of Sony's top studios have been around decades with long popular products. It's not like Sony doesn't make bombs too (Destruction AllStars anyone? GT7 arguably underperformed in some ways) it's just that Santa Monica, Guerilla Games, Naughty Dog, and Insomniac are a murderer's row lineup that covers for the Forspokens of the world, and Sony also gets Japanese exclusives because it has bigger inroads there. Both Sony and Nintendo have a big head start in building top notch studios.

Spencer has made mistakes and yes, he needs to start producing soon (at least for my critical opinion, we don't know how Nadella sees it or what his long term plans are which is what really matters) but I think he should at least have a chance to let some of his studio acquisitions put out a number of games on the Xbox before we judge him. Hi-Fi Rush was a big hit. Playground games is doing Fable and they haven't missed yet (though it is, admittedly, a different genre.) Double Fine took Microsoft's budget and made a fantastic game, just not an exclusive.

Whether good games will fully turn things around on Xbox or if Microsoft even cares (they seem ambivalent about being in the console business, though they clearly want to be in the games business) I don't know.

Also at a time when Sony is cutting back on its small fun projects to focus on huge games and games as a service Microsoft is putting out Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush. That has to buy him at least a little love from the likes of @zombiepie

@bigsocrates: I honestly feel like I err towards a largely positive review of Spencer by the end? I do think there are systemic issues plaguing the company's direction with the Xbox brand, but I feel like I am all but clear that he's doing good if not great work and there's absolutely no one capable of doing his job, with his wide breadth of responsibilities, as well as he does. In fact, all of your points about him not having the company history to make the core studios that Sony has is something I pretty clearly mention as a reason to be understanding of the company's current struggles. If that was not clear then that's on me.

Nonetheless, my core point is that I think it's weird to assess his tenure but I don't know if there ever will be an appropriate time to assess his successes.

@zombiepie: I think there's some discussion of Nintendo and Sony's time in the industry but not enough about how long their particular studios have been around, which is I think the more important thing (After all Insomniac and Naughty Dog haven't been Sony studios very long, and neither of course has Bungie.)

Spencer is in a situation where Microsoft had basically no strong studios when Matrick left (the vast majority of their games under Matric were second or third party) and he's done a good job rebuilding in various ways from a pretty bare cupboard unless you want to count Rare.

I also think, again, that a lot of this is just news moving faster than the industry. A lot of Microsoft's acquisitions either haven't put out games or have put out games on old contracts (The Outer Worlds being another example of a game that was a critical and commercial hit from an MS owned studio but went out under another publisher.)

In terms of when to reassess him, I think over the next few years will be pretty fair once the studios he has bought are fully online with projects conceived of and put out under his leadership. And, of course, a few years after retirement we will have something like the whole picture.

Good write-up. There is one point here I'm curious to hear your thoughts about:

It's true that though the PS3 released later and started slower, it eventually made up the numbers in the life of that console generation, though MS continued to hold a big advantage in the US, while Sony was stronger throughout the rest of the world.

But I honestly don't remember the "good faith building" you're talking about that supposedly led to that. What, in your view, were some of the things they did? Maybe your memory is just better than mine, but you don't mention anything specific here. I mean, they started PS+, which provided some good games, but it was also a paid service from the beginning IIRC, and a cynical person might say they did it partly to ease their way into charging for online services during the next generation.

This is purely anecdotal to me, but even though I consider myself a Sony guy, I started that generation with a 360 because I wanted to play ES: Oblivion and it was cheaper than buying a new PC that could handle it. I'm budget-conscious enough that I don't like to own multiple mostly-redundant consoles if I can avoid it, and so the 360 ended up being the only MS console I ever owned. I got a PS3 in 2009 simply because I needed to be able to play Demon's Souls, it was a console exclusive that was too good to pass up. After that, my 360 collected dust for two main reasons: the infamously fail-happy hardware, and the fact that MS charged a fee for online services while Sony did not.

Anyway, I guess I just don't necessarily buy the idea that the fact that Sony ended up pulling even by the end of 360-PS3 era is attributable to "good faith building." For me it was exclusive games, no online fee, and hardware that wouldn't fail at the drop of a hat. Good faith didn't come into my calculations.

But to return to the larger question of Spencer's tenure. As you lay out in detail, he's had both successes and failures. For the most part I think the job he's done can be pretty easily summed up as doing a fairly good job with a nigh unwinnable situation. As you point out, last generation was a terrible one to lose, not only because of its length, but because those digital games libraries (and physical ones, in a lot of cases), have carried forward into the current gen. If you only want one console, it seems silly to leave a whole (long) generation of digital titles behind when you could be playing them on the new hardware.

I agree that if MS really wanted to win the hardware war, then Game Pass and releasing everything on PC as well was the wrong move. But the Xbox One debacle was honestly so devastating that I don't think anything MS could have done would have caught them up to Sony in the hardware battle. Instead, Spencer attacked the problem a different way with Game Pass, which on balance seems like it was probably the best thing they could have done. If you can't win a battle, then change to a different battlefield!

I don't think it would ever actually happen, because Sony would metaphorically shoot themselves in the head before they allowed it, but imagine if Game Pass eventually showed up on a Sony console. That would be the MS dream scenario. "Haha, people like your hardware better, but we've got our games on there anyway, suckers! And the hardware sales themselves aren't the money-maker!" Their goal was clearly to make Game Pass so ubiquitous that their lackluster hardware sales didn't matter, and they've taken a pretty good swing at doing that. I really don't know what else they could have done.

The way we talk about Don Mattrick in Western circles is how large swaths of the domestic Japanese game development community felt about Ken Kutaragi. That man and Hironobu Sakaguchi had a verbal argument so bad that Sakaguchi refuses to release any game he works on on a Sony platform and the two of them refuse to talk about it.

Kutaragi had high hopes that he would eventually lead the entire Sony business. As such, when he was tapped to design and reveal the PS3, he made some insane decisions. At one point, Kutaragi wanted to ship PlayStation 3 without a GPU, thinking the Cell processor could handle everything. He over-promised on the processors abilities and so, when development teams got their dev kits, things were so utterly underbaked, many felt lied to. Sony assigned Hirai and Mark Cerny to assure this sort of impractical thinking would never happen again. Then you need also to talk about Howard Stringer, who's management of the whole company was so bad the board of directors forced him out and replaced him with Kaz Hirai after a seven year term.

@zombiepie: Hmm, that's interesting, and you said some things I didn't know. But... I'm not sure what this has to do my question? I said that I don't remember Sony doing "good faith building," and you've pointed to how some of Sony's execs seemed incompetent, and were replaced. But maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean by "good faith building." I assumed you were referring to some kind of overtures to end users rather than just leadership swaps, which the vast majority of gamers will never really notice or care about. Only the truly obsessive folks know much about the corporate suits.

This is the sort of thing that on one hand is interesting and on the other hand is really kind of weird for us to care about. Phil Spencer is charismatic and enjoys games for their own sake (as opposed to, say, Bobby Kotick). This is a really great overview of Spencer's history at Microsoft, but honestly I think the idea that he needs to correct a bunch of mistakes lest he gets sacked is overlooking the main point: Microsoft's gaming division is profitable. I don't think it's much deeper than that. That's why Spencer is still around. That's why he's not going anywhere.

When it comes to Xbox's seeming inability to put out the "hallmark, tentpole, AAA blockbuster" release the way PlayStation and Nintendo do, I'm reminded of all the shit Spencer talked early on about single player games being dead and service games being the future.

Xbox output at the end of the 360 was dire it was literally Halo, Gears & Forza with the occasional Kinect game from Rare. MS stratergy to go all in with Kinect basically killed them, MS released the XB1 with pretty much only three internal studios. The reception to the XB1 not only scuttled the console but the games as well, practically every first party game outside Forza Horizon declined not only in sales but mind share and all their third party deals massively underperformed.

Xbox problems were a decade of under investment a non-existent first party and selection of games that have lost their thunder, I don't really see what Spencer or anyone else could have done differently since taking over. Xbox clearly don't have a budget for major third party deals like Titanfall anymore, the only thing you can do is build up Xbox first party.

US centric gaming media often fails to see Playstation's strength likely because its base is across EU & Asia, talk before the Series releasing was about Xbox challanging which is total nonsense the gulf between the two brands has never been bigger. Sony hasn't gotten lucky idly sitting around they have half a dozen studios 500+ strong and continue to invest, they're in a position to put out two prestige games a year and secure big thrid party deals. MS only started building back up in 2018 most of their teams are pretty small it will also take longer for Xbox because their workling with a smaller base. Spencer's words just reflect the current climate Starfield isn't moving the needle, they would need several every year.

Hmm... that is a very long story, ok here is my quick guess about when he will reassess? probably by Q3 to Q4 2023.

Sidenote: I'm still curious about what Forza Motorsport Reboot's handling model is going to be like. I'm expecting it to be improved & more realistic than its predecessors, plus the developer (Turn 10) is better to show up more cockpit/1st person view footage plus explaining the handling model as well during Xbox's Showcase 2023.

I don't think anything is guaranteed in the games industry, and i don't believe that changing the person in charge makes that much of a difference especially not immediately, i can't point at one person when thousands are involved even with Mattrick, other people are part of it too.

It could be that the next few MS games that come out somehow blow all our minds and we forget we ever had this conversation, or that PlayStation start dropping the ball and losing market share, or that there's some major scandal at either company and attitudes skew even harder but one thing remains true, talented developers given the time and space create the best* games.

That's something Spencer knows, he doesn't just know it he exudes it, i'm not his personal assistant i can't tell you what he's actually like or if he's screwing up i only have an impression and that impression is that if my boss was Spencer or Jim Ryan i'd rather knock on Spencer's door, and if that's true i'd rather Spencer stay because his replacement could be demon spawn.

But it's not about being happy it's about business right? Xbox employees are only safe if they're being successful so some people will point at Spencer's friendliness as a sign of weakness, after all you need a tone deaf business minded tyrant to make the hard decisions right?... Like i said before i don't necessarily believe that, go too far down that hole and you might end up like Activision.

*as always great games are subjective, and of the few games i've played i've enjoyed MS's output much more than Sony's.

It always boils down to output, for me. Microsoft has had a terrible decade of trying and failing to get titles to market. The pivot to Gamepass is an interesting one but it seems so narrow an approach. Phil comes off as a very pro-consumer guy but they need to create an environment where projects consistently get over the line.

Yeah, this basically. Game Pass is a good product but it can only hold a person's interest for so long with so little being added to it. I had it on and off for several years and played through most of the staple games on it already. Once you've played most of those, there's not much left. This is the big issue with Game Pass: there's not enough new bigger games on it. It's obvious they know this by the fact that they signed deals with EA and Ubisoft to get their bigger releases on the platform but that still doesn't move the needle past a certain point. If you already played all of the staple Game Pass games you were interested in on PC or on an Xbox One, there's currently no reason to sign up again or get a Series X or S console since the extreme majority of Game Pass is the same on the new platform as it was on the older ones. Game Pass was a great deal in 2019 or 2020 but since then it's been largely stagnant so anyone who has had it long enough has probably ran out of any way of extracting value from it (not to mention that it's become much pricier and they've got rid of the deals that used to get people to try it out in the first place. The $1 month deal is gone as are seemingly the three months for the price of one deals they had each spring).

Also, his statement about exclusives not driving people to a platform is completely wrong. I didn't buy a PS3 and had no intention of buying a PS4... until Persona 5 and Horizon: Zero Dawn were announced as exclusives for the PS4. Those games got me to buy a PS4. Sony got me in the door with exclusives and as a result the extreme majority of my time playing console games is now done on Playstation and I've been subscribed to PS+ for almost 6 years.

@atheistpreacher: The things you mentioned are some of the reasons that even though i owned a 360, i dropped it in favor of the PS3. But at the start of the PS3 era they did a lot of things that did not help there image as a company.

They started the PS3 era still showing power point presentations of pie charts and bar graphs at E3, and what games they did show ended up being mostly target renders or CGI that the games never looked like. Lying about why rumble was not in the PS3, and trying to convince people into thinking it was old tech no one wanted. A launch price of $500 - $600 dollars, and thinking that of course people will pay it, because they are PlayStation. And annoying developers with the complex architecture, which of course they would work with because PlayStation is the biggest console market out there. There advertisements where also... something. The baby ad explained nothing about the system and creeped people out.

They shifted as fast as they could, dropping the price, and making E3 more about games (no more lying about graphics) and less about charts, and making an advertisement campaign that people liked so much at the time they got the actor to show up at E3. They fixed the complex architecture problem when they could with the PS4, where Cerny went out of his way to point out the improvements when revealing the PS4. They very much focused on the games being the important part of a video game console, giving indy devs a nice spotlight at E3, but it was nice that it could do Netflix as well.

The start of the PS3 was the high point of arrogant Sony. And some of the reasons people don't like Jim Ryan is because he is a business man, showing little care or emotion for the brand and games. Being ok with shutting down PS3/Vita store, and saying who cares about those old PSone games.

That E3 ad with Kevin Butler has basically been what Phil has been saying, telling the fanboys there toxic, and he just wants people to have fun playing games. Trying to keep all generations of the Xbox alive with backwards compatibility. Seemingly giving developers a lot of rope, and hope they don't hang everyone with it.

Good faith alone isn't going to sell a product, or sell Xbox consoles. Because if it was Xbox would be in "the lead" and Sony would be firing Jim Ryan. But it sure as hell sold a shit ton of PS4's. You can have a company/leadership that people loath, but has a good product that people will still buy. But having people like your brand helps grease the wheels and sell a product, but you still need a good product. And one of the main problems with Phil is he still has not figured out that games are the main product he should be selling for a video game console/platform.

The point I was trying to make, and apologies if I was not clear, is that Sony cleaned house and replaced all of the people that were responsible for the messy launch and original architecture of the PS3 and made and emphasis with the PS4 that developing for it would not be anywhere near as hard as the PS4 and used Mark Cerny to make the rounds to communicate that point. You might have been bored out of your mind during his bits during the reveals for the PS4 and PS5, but those segments were not for the general consumer, they were for devs and were Sony attempting to communicate that they were incredibly valued.

There is 100% a companion piece to this wherein we go back and look at the weirdly mixed, but not entirely negative, legacy of Don Mattrick. People forget, but Mattrick's career prior to joining Microsoft is kind of incredible. He co-founded Distinctive Software at the age of 19 and programmed the company's first game, Evolution by himself. He also conceived of the Test Drive franchise. When he orchestrated a sale to EA, the studio became EA Vancouver. While in EA, he was the one that spearheaded the company's investment in original titles like Mirror's Edge and Skate during the Riccitiello era. And while the wheels came out from underneath him at the end, his strategy of bringing studios to the negotiation table to start making 360 ports was highly effective.

And then he thoroughly shit the bed (kind of like Michael Eisner).

That certainly wasn't the best look, but again, Spencer wasn't exactly the only person who thought service games were the future. Also, Spencer has come forward to indicate that he shared how much he hated Mattrick's de-emphasis on single player games in the lead up to the Xbox One and screamed bloody murder when the division first developed its no used games policy.

Again, to play as a bit of a devil's advocate for Spencer, creating an environment for the projects that Sony and Nintendo are churning out takes time. The Mattrick era invested so little into internal and even second-party games development for nigh ten years that Spencer was forced to either start from scratch, or use the blank check he got from Nadella. He opted for the second of those options because I think he knows there's not a lot of time for Xbox to stave off irrelevancy. So, their latest batch of games have been a mix of everything imaginable. You have fun smaller titles like Hi-Fi Rush to tentpole titles like Forza Horizon.

Here's the one thing I would toss out there as a mini-thought exercise. Even if the Xbox division wasn't making money, Spencer still gets into Nadella's inner-circle and he still sticks around. They even still make the big to buy Activision. The company overall is making multiple pushes to invest in long-term projects and business strategies.

Ah, OK, I get what you're saying now. I was interpreting "good faith building" as referring to something Sony was doing with end-users/consumers, when what you meant was smoothing things overs with devs. Fair enough. I do think this probably mattered less than exclusive titles and the 360's hardware failures when it came to Sony catching up to MS by the end of the 360/PS3 generation, since the PS3 had already shipped with an awkward architecture anyway that couldn't be fixed until the next generation.

@lego_my_eggo: Good faith alone isn't going to sell a product, or sell Xbox consoles. Because if it was Xbox would be in "the lead" and Sony would be firing Jim Ryan. But it sure as hell sold a shit ton of PS4's. You can have a company/leadership that people loath, but has a good product that people will still buy. But having people like your brand helps grease the wheels and sell a product, but you still need a good product. And one of the main problems with Phil is he still has not figured out that games are the main product he should be selling for a video game console/platform.

I'm pretty sure Spencer knows nothing else matters unless you have the games, but game development is getting longer and needing a lot more people. They essentially started from zero in 2018 with their acquisition spree, it took Sony years and years building up their first party. You can't buy Obsidian hire 200-300+ people give them 5-6 years with the hope something awesome happens, this will be a very very long road probably bearing fruit well into the next generation. The average consumer will have no idea who Jim Ryan or Phil Spencer even are, they won't have a view on a companies leadership either way.

@zombiepie: Oh yeah. He definitely wasn't the only one. But as far as reassessing Phil specifically, is that mentality partially to blame for Xbox's first party output under his leadership? Not that I'm trying to paint some picture that Xbox is in some dire state. Even if they aren't the biggest, flashiest releases, stuff like Grounded and Sea of Thieves has it's fans.

@brian_: Hi-Fi Rush was a hit;. Pentiment is a critical hit. Starfield is a huge game. Psychonauts 2 was a critical hit (and while it wasn't started at Xbox, Xbox paid to finish it.) I think the death of the Xbox single player game was exaggerated. They're doing a sequel to Outer Worlds. And they put out stuff like Quantum Break and Recore so this is not new. I think that statement was taken too seriously. And a lot of the multiplayer games have big single player campaigns or can be played single player and enjoyed. Ever tried to play Forza Horizon single player? There's a massive amount of content!

@bigsocrates: I don't know. They had some hits with smaller games in the last year or two, we'll see where things go from here on, but things were pretty dire for a while. From, let's say, 2014-2020ish. Recore and Quantum Break weren't exactly hits. There's the saga of Crackdown 3. Halo never quiet hit the way it used to. A lot of stuff just got canned. Even Forza took it's lumps for having to apologize about their microtransactions.

@brian_: None of those games were hits, but they show that Microsoft never abandoned single player games. They also get plenty of single player stuff on Game Pass.

I mean you can criticize the output during the Xbox One generation, and they deserve it, but it wasn't caused by a focus on live services over all else.

@bigsocrates: I don't know. I like Recore more than someone probably should, but that game felt like it very specifically was abandoned.

I'm not saying they completely gave up on putting out any single player game ever, I'm just wondering if the head of the division going out there and saying that they're specifically prioritizing service games as the future of their brand had any adverse effects on the resources and attention that could have gone into those "big, single player, prestige" games they now seem to be looking for.

Phil was promoted to the Senior Leadership Team in 2H 2017.

In just the first year he bought 6 studios and founded another (Playground, Ninja, Undead, Compulsion, inXile, Obsidian and Initiative). He put his (company's) money where his mouth had been as soon as he was able.

The first wave was announced at E3 2018. That is less than 5 years ago, 3 of which were during COVID. And most of those studios had prior commitments to work through before they could start on new, exclusive games. So even under ideal cirumstances their games would only have started coming out this year.

If Xbox were still in the business of forcing games out to fill a release calendar, we would have been playing Starfield last November. Redfall was an example of when being hands off goes wrong, but I expect them to not make that mistake again.

I’d much much rather have him than Jim Ryan.

Xbox and Spencer are losing a lot of the goodwill they've acquired with these constant acquisitions. The ZeniMax deal was already pretty crazy by industry standards, and then they followed that up with a deal almost 10 times bigger, a deal so big that it's having trouble getting approved by regulators. It's not a good look for Spencer to be constantly on the news talking about how poorly they're doing and how this deal is actually really bad for them, while at the same time trying to convince people to buy in to their ecosystem.

My problem with Microsoft is that they keep making the same games. Halo, Gears, Forza, repeat. And I imagine it's pretty boring for the developers too. Yes there's a lot of interesting smaller titles but those aren't system sellers. Yes, Nintendo sort of does the same thing except that those games continue to be really good and innovative. Are Microsoft aware that they can buy exclusives to their platform without buying entire companies? Alan Wake is one example that was once a Microsoft exclusive and I was pretty shocked to see Alan Wake 2 on the Sony showcase.

My theory is - Spencer's biggest hurdle is he want to STAY at Microsoft and move up the ladder.

Why is that theoretically the problem?
Well he will never tell CEO Satya Nadella something he does not wnat to hear, he will never CFO Amy Hood am budged she won't wnat to spend and he won't tell CTO Kevin Scott that what the rest of Microsoft does technologically is not good for Xbox. He is not having the hard discussions with the Sr executives at Microsoft about what XBOX need to succeed and win, so all he does is half-efforts that toe-the-line that Microsoft wants even when antithetical to XBOX's needs.

Spencer is just spending time at Xbox even if he does love games in my opinion. From my point of view, he is looking for the next jump up the chain at Microsoft. CEO anywhere else is not good enough, he wants the be in change of something big at Microsoft. Server and office-related products accounted for the bulk of Microsoft's revenue at $31.4 billion, which represented 60% of its top-line; so he WANTS that. He has been a loyal soldier he is not making waves with other divisions especially the "Server" and "Cloud" divisions.

I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. Spencer is still climbing the ladder and he is being very 'politic' about who he steps on whiel on his way up. Bluntly - he is making XBox stable at the expanse of making it excel with some risk so as to be ready for the next step

@monkeyking1969: If launching Game Pass, putting out a console with a cheaper budget option, and buying Activision aren't big, risky, moves then what exactly would one of those look like?