Microsoft's Phil Spencer on Xbox growth, recent job cuts and the future of games on discs

Plus: A brief chat with legendary Nintendo composer Koji Kondo

[MrDead]

Anyone see Respawn devs comments left at Phil's recent Helldivers should be on Xbox tweet? "not exactly sure who it helps in the industry to acquire a company and then layoff 1900 of their developers Mr. Spencer"

Phil and MS, you suck

[purple101]

Offffh that’s spicy
I like it

[PapaBop]

He's just welcoming them to the Xbox family.

[Barlos]

Burn! Love that

[gold_drake]

love how he justifies the lay offs with "we need the right people".

its the usual talking-out-of-his-arse interview.

its also very odd that he never really acknowledges that xbox is tanking this hen again and only that "we found ways to get money from people" haha

my god haha

[Asplundh]

He says
"I need to make sure we have enough of the right people and the right number of people in the right places for us to succeed."

Which is funny because he clearly hasn't been the right person for his job for Xbox to succeed.

[M3talDiamond]

Whats with this buzzword "growth" ???

[fr0sty]

A concept Xbox has never been able to understand.

[Barlos]

They think growth is buying up every publisher and developer that they can.

[badz149]

Yea...like what growth? The Xbox Series consoles are already selling fewer units than the Xbone during the same period of its life and is already dropping fast. How does Phil see "growth"?

[Name Last Name]

Investors only care about business growth. So that they can sell at a profit from what they paid before.

[NotoriousWhiz]

And this is the problem. Endless growth is just not possible. There is always going to be a limit. Companies really should start caring more about profit and less about growth.

[EvertonFC]

And "anywhere"

[Inverno]

It's a kinder way of saying "we will step on our employees", cause these companies don't grow they just like to look big.

[Nyxus]

His comments on physical games don't inspire much confidence.

Also, he says Microsoft ships games physically and digitally, but both Hi-Fi Rush and Hellblade II are digital only.

[-Foxtrot]

The guy just can’t help contradicting himself

[EvertonFC]

He's just waiting until the end of the gen and let the next guy or gal take the 3rd party fall.
He will 100% step down and take the cheap way out and pretend he left not knowing there going full 3rd party.

[crazyCoconuts]

He says they support physical media but not disproportionately to what customers want. Man this dude won't answer straight.
So if customers are only buying digital they'll only support digital. He basically made zero commitments

[Nyxus]

The problem is they don't give players a choice when some first party games release digital only.

[The_Hooligan]

I support physical media 100%. And I call bs on studios that say it cost $20 to do physical packaging, so if that is true then all digital games should be $50 compared to $70 and if you are not selling it as such that means you are charging your customers more for one format than the other even though the product is the same.

[purple101]

“ But I will say our strategy does not hinge on people moving all-digital,” he said. “And getting rid of physical, that's not a strategic thing for us.”

Again, absolutely lying through his teeth.

[badz149]

Proceed to making Hellblade 2 - their most anticipated game for this gen, digital only. Classic Phil Spencer

[Hereandthere]

I'm glad he is ass hurt about helldivers 2 never coming on xbox, he seethes because he can't do anything about it but cry online and ask xbox players to port beg.

[EvertonFC]

Phil is just passing the days until he steps down at the end of the gen imo. He will leave the new guy to give the message all games are coming to other consoles so he doesn't get remembered for it.

[andy85]

Where is this growth exactly? GP lost subscribers. The sooner Pinocchio Phil is gone the better for XB

[obidanshinobi]

Microtransaction money from Activision Blizzard games on console, PC and mobile.
This is their bread and butter now, billions of dollars every year from selling crappy microtransactions in crappy little mobile games, COD and Diablo.

[jznrpg]

They paid almost 70 billion for those revenue streams. It’s going to take a while to get that back and that’s if they don’t mismanage the studios and ruin the revenue stream they have enjoyed in the past. I don’t buy CoD since forever , this is the first Diablo I won’t buy. People are catching on that these games are made to milk you for money not to be fun. The games are going to lose players over time if they don’t make them worth playing and I’m not sure ABK or MS is going to be able to do that.

[purple101]

I kind of like, snorted + had forced convulsions,(of laughter). thats like the gold star standard, for comedians, well done. - I needed that

[EasilyTheBest]

When did they lose subscribers? I never seen any news on this. Link please

[purple101]

Don't think it's ever been reported, but it kind of got revealed through take two (rockstar) leaks, that leak contained information that current console generations are sitting at 77 million, ps revealed they are 54.8, leaving 22 million xbox.

then people worked out from their game pass numbers before / after they combined gold into gp core, so they can report it as one big number, that number, was 3 million below what they previously reported total xbox were at when it was gold/gp numbers, leaving some clever lad to work out, they've lost 3 million.

[fr0sty]

I don't know about losing numbers, but Moore's Law is Dead reported that their annoucned 34 million number for GP, which includes XBL Gold numbers, is basically the same as it was 2 years ago, when it was 33.6 million.

[CrimsonWing69]

This is a guy who is beyond out of touch. One thing I said this company needs to do is what they with the 360 and get some third-party exclusives from heavy hitting developers. Get a FromSoft exclusive, get some Capcom exclusive, get a Square Enix exclusive, but don’t half-ass it.

Yes, he’s right that overnight that won’t make a difference, but the key here is consistency. Once you have an enticing library and you’re not putting it on a competitor’s platform and you’re CONSISTENT with delivering these I guarantee you there’ll be people coming over or buying both an Xbox and PlayStation.

The problem I’m seeing now is there’s no incentive to choose Xbox. Sure, you got Gamepass, but they’re already changing that up.

They need someone who has a finger on the pulse of the gaming community. This guy ain’t it.

[badz149]

There has been ZERO reason to get an xbox since the day they decided to launch their 1st party games day and date on PC. Online is free on PC, that's like no contest. Amd you can easily use a controller and also play on TV.

[Unknown_Gamer5794]

A friend of mine actually has a PC TV setup and has for over a decade now. I remember the first time I saw it and being really intrigued, as up until that point I thought of PC as either being a desktop setup or on a laptop, but he essentially set up the console experience on a PC, with Steam.

[badz149]

Steam's big picture mode is a God(Gabe)send for console gamers looking for a more console like experience.

[OneLove]

Bro Phil is pure PR talk.

[Agent75]

Console growth with painfully slow game releases. Not much growth then.

[contra157]

The kids keep downloading 🤦‍♂️

[Barlos]

What Xbox growth? It's sinking!