He steered Xbox in the right direction. He has been the most progressive person in Xbox history with Gamepass, Backwards compatibility, the addition of 9 Xbox studios, Elite and adaptive controller and the future Xcloud. Now, all we need from the Xbox game studios are the games.
Yea he steered it in the right direction alright. Nearly all their 1st party games flopped and they’re getting dominated in hardware sales.
Killed this generation, Lionhead, Fable Legends, Project Spark, Scalebound, VR for Xbox One X, Cortana, Kinect, Snap, UWP, Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack, the Phantom Dust reboot, and Shangheist by The Coalition.
Let me guess, just wait until E3 and next generation.
Went a whole generation with almost nothing to show for it. Imagine if at the start of gen they said this would be xbox this generation, people would have laughed at you. But its not Spencer, he is just a PR mouthpiece. The decisions are coming from above him.
Every company has to end up closing development studios and games at some point. Scalebound was a failure on both sides, and again, that was a deal made before Spencer was in full control... in fact a lot of what you're stating were things and promises made before Spencer was in full control. VR was never even in production for an Xbox. Features, services, and such all go through phases and if they aren't viable they get cut. That's part of business. Super Duper Graphics update wouldn't have worked on all platforms they probably figured why waste the development costs on an update for only 2 platforms. The Phantom Dust reboot is a bummer though and Shangheist was never even a thing, it was a tech demo much like Infiltrator demo for UE4 back in 2013.
@jester, I agree with most of what you said, every game company closes what's not working, Vr was deffo being worked on though, without a shadow of doubt in my head.
Okay so they may have had some design concepts in the works, but they put it on hold until better tech was available. It was never formerly announced as a thing and then cancelled though. I'm sure big tech and software companies like this have 100's of different things they conceptualize to see if it's viable.
Tell me exactly which 1st party games flopped besides crackdown 3? State of Decay 2 just reached 5 million players. Sea of thieves last reported 8.4 million players. Halo 5 made more money than any Halo game before. Same with Gears 4. Did Cuphead flop? Ori? Forza? Nope. Even Recore did decent numbers.
Only 2 of the games you mentioned that are cancelled are legit. Fable and Scalebound. Nobody cares about the rest lol, stop it. Phantom Dust release date was never announced. It isn't cancelled either, they are looking for a developer. Shangheist was never even an official thing.
Since we're making nitpick lists, i'll help you with a Sony version. Sony killed this generation. Agent, Deep down, basic security features, streaming to mobile phones, not censoring games, PS Vita, Playstation home, Playstation Eye camera, Ustream, E3 Conference, Gnomageddon, PSX 2018, Evolution studios, Guerilla Cambridge, Sony Online Entertainment.
You may have forgotten that the Xbox One era started without him. He had just began fixing the platform after the last executive nearly ruined it.
But hey, let blame Phil right?
“VR for Xbox One X, Cortana, Kinect, Snap, UWP”
Beside VR, how are those any feature that the gaming fans want? I mean, Kinect, really? Didn’t you guy sh*t on it everytime? Now that they stop supporting it, you guys sh*t on it as well?
Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack is still in the works. Mojang said. And Phantom Dust wasn’t killed. It was released a year or so back on X1 for FREE. https://www.microsoft.com/e...
The Xbox ship has sailed for me and I will not be buying their next generation console, but I think it is incredibly glib of you to suggest Microsoft has not made some significant strides under Spencer that largely appeals to their customers: Gamepass, the Games with Gold offerings, backwards compatibility, and new studios are definitely steps in the right direction. Granted, I don't like anything tethered to subscriptions (I don't even have PlayStation Plus anymore) but there is a lot of appeal, especially if you primarily play multiplatform games because xCloud will be something you may wish to take advantage of. Sony has done phenomenally this generation, but let's not pretend Microsoft has been reliably anti-consumer, because they're offering a lot.
Hey honey just take a deep breath and go to the restroom and change your t-pon and when you get done with that come over here and I'll give you a hug(be sure to wash your hands first though). No matter what your current mood is I still think you're a sweetie.
Ps2 was the king then Sony got cocky with ps3 pissed off gamers and they went to xbox 360 who because the new king. Xbox got cocky with the xbox one pissed off gamers who went to ps4 and they became the new king. Now Sony is doing everything right and not pissing off gamers so they will continue to be king. Just a short history lesson.
Man, I get it. He s very likeable in his own way. It's cool that a lot of people like Spencer. Isn't there some sort of myth though? Both ps4 and xbox had incredibly successful launch with a very diverse list of exclusives. The xbox reveal (of which Spencer was completely part of) was already turned around except for the hardware with kinect needed to go (which was done later on,) and double down on games. (And of course a slim revision later on as is normal) E3 2014 an impressive conference (which turned out to be smoke and mirrors in the delivery). From then on xbox one success went down hill but Spencer 'pushed Nadella to acquire Mojang, the Swedish developer of Minecraft, for $2.5 billion'. (Couldnt that money be better spent on pushing console gaming? On Visceral? Respawn? Idk, Instead of capitalising on Minecraft on all platforms?) I mean, I can understand people appreciate some things he did but 'turn xbox around'? Or 'saved xbox'? It's all fine with me though.
I love these replies, and if I actually had a framed poster of Phil Spencer, I'm not sure where I'd hang it. Perhaps a position of prominence in my town - just to see the reactions.
I love how the first pro xbox post always gets like 100 likes while everything else is largely all dislikes.
If you guys are going to inflate likes to try and make Xbox look good you should try to be less obvious about it. We all know what you guys are doing, and it certainly isn't going to make people want to join your side.
@sega, yeah but we do it freely and because it's how we feel. When Xbox suddenly gets 200 likes out of nowhere, it's fraudulent fake upvotes. Like how Microsoft PAY people to stream. They PAY people to cheer very loud in the crowd at their press conferences. It's so bloody obvious. Phil and Microsoft are as fake as the day is long. They'll get destroyed next gen.
You know what I don't like Phil and the Xbox Team but I have to agree that they tried their best and I really hope it pays off in the end... One thing we have to keep in mind that games is a Japanese thing and they know this shit... and Xbox Team gave their best and YES they have some good games to play Halo Gears and Forza are tired franchises but they are still good games I wish I could have Forza Horizon 4 on my PS4, I have it for PC but I don't have a power house PC and I would like to play it on my brand new 77 OLED C9 but I won't buy an Xbox just for that but still the game is wonderful and we don't have anything close to that on PS4 so yeah I don't identify myself with Xbox but it's good to have healthy and good competition for the sake of the healthy of the industry as a whole...
If a car is about to go off a cliff because the driver fell asleep at the wheel and you as a passenger grab the wheel and turn it, that don't make you a hero and great race car driver.
You didn't want to die.
Xbox was about to go off a cliff trying to remove game ownership away from gamers. It only made sense to make a course correction or die as a brand.
But as passenger, Phil was in the same car. So he was along for the ride with DRM2013. He's lied and mislead gamers by not telling them scale bound was canceled until after Christmas sales. He lied and mislead with the power of the cloud with Crackdown 3. Mislead gamers with Hololens at E3. He lied about "high fidelity VR." Was part of the misleading E3 with "world premiere exclusive," "launch exclusive" and just what "exclusive" means when games are going to PC.
He's just going to keep lying and misleading and telling gamers to give them time and wait. This Gen has shown that some gamers aren't willing to wait and made an exodus to PlayStation, Switch and PC. Wasn't Don Matrick that did that above. That was all Phil. Putting your future trust in him is like dancing with rattlesnakes. You're going to get bit.
His words and actions have definitely come back to bite him on his ass. Listing his infractions won't sway his fans one bit though. Although you've focused on his negatives he has made some strides even if forced to do so like you implied. Alas, to some, dude can do no wrong and so many excuses are made for him like he wasn't present during the rough spell. The fact xbox has performed worst than last gen is lost on some whilst other shift the blame and scapegoat don or whoever else they can name just never ever Phil. He's bulletproof. .
I'll still give him a pass for stabling a sinking brand but I see through his slight of hand excuses via comments about things being 'less impactful' and bet anyone on n4g he won't utter anything like that when speaking about sp projects being developed under Microsoft. Bet you any money.
“implied. Alas, to some, dude can do no wrong and so many excuses are made for him like he wasn't present during the rough spell.“
But it is a real fact that he wasn’t present when Don Mattrick was running the X1 brand to the ground at the start of the gen. That is no excuse. Under his leadership, MS has acquired 8 studios, so what is your explanation for that?
Did you not read anything apocalypse stated. Are the points too hard to tackle?
Did you not see where I've said it's not all his fault in this same comment section. Your comment makes little sense. Why don't you tackle the points made instead of deflecting. We know he's not solely to blame. I've also stated he has done some good too but it's very ignorant to act like he's not had failings. Jeese. . You're the type I mentioned. He's been in the job for how long now and look where xbox is now? 8 studios. . . Yeah but what about the closures, cancellations, crap output, false promises and slight of hand speak ?. . . .not him right?
Nowhere that did I ever mentioned he is perfect. The crap output and the cancellation is on him, but the closure of studios happen before he took on the job. You can blame the man all you want but the fact is Xbox did an almost 180 after he took over (more focus on games than the “entertaiment” bs”) and I don’t think people can argue with that with a straight face.
They did do a 180. They went to having quite a few games lined up, supposedly with more in development, to having almost nothing every year. Buying some studios 3 years in, is not progress. It's a slow and methodical approach to trying to quell the criticisms that exist, and they aren't buying these studios to compete in the way people are talking about, but to build Game Pass and make a service based gaming structure more appealing.
Xbox is changing what it is at a fundamental level, and while it won't be a quick change, nor is MS going to abandon the Xbox console altogether, they certainly are setting themselves up to make the console less relevant, and moving back towards PC. More so, they're taking Xbox in the same direction they're taking all their other software, which is service based, where the actual hardware doesn't matter. That leads to a streaming service, which ironically, gets them where they wanted to go with the original Xbox One reveal.
One thing I didn't expect is 'Spencer. He pushed Nadella to acquire Mojang' I always thought it was a Ms push since it's really all about investment and making more money rather than game development and pushing xbox and gamers interests. But it was actually Spencer's idea I dont get it.
That's a pretty loaded title, considering people's feelings on who they think he is exactly.
I think he tries too hard to pander to people's feelings to try and sell a product, instead of working to resolve their concerns, and I think that he, along with MS as a whole have been more than happy to marginalize their responsibility for what they've sold to customers this gen.
Yippee, he's being progressive in other areas while my $350 X1 purchase sits around wondering when all these great games they said they had coming for it 3-4 years ago are going to show up, or where all these great new IP's are going to be. If it were my only or primary console it may not be so bad, but the X1 was purchased to play these great exclusives I couldn't play anywhere else.
My problem with him is not that he's doing all this other "progressive" stuff, it's that he's doing it in lieu of making sure that I'm taken care of as an adopter of Xbox this gen. When they talk more about how great they're going to be, and about next gen, and how they want to bring everyone together, more than just deliver some damn games, it tends to not sound progressive, it ends up sounding like bullshit.
It's like going to the store to get a DVD, but they don't make DVD's anymore, but you have some lowly crap still there to choose from, but while there, the salesman dismisses your concern that you can't use your cool DVD player, then tries to sell you on the Blu-Ray. Then you buy the blu-ray player, because it's better, then they don't make enough Blu-Ray movies for it....but now less than a year after the blu-ray player purchase, they start talking about how they're coming out with a 4K player in the future, and now they brought some movie studios, so, no need to worry that they'll have movies for that 4K player in the future.
I hope my analogy isn't taken literally for how all three of those technologies came about. Consider the hypothetical, and what you would think if that happened.
I'm happy with his performance. Gamepads is great, love my 1x, tons of new studio acquisitions, halo infinite on a new engine in time for the launch of Scarlet. Good times ahead.
Yep, and that is a win win in my book. I'm not interested in silly console wars and their exclusives. All I care about is games and the more I get to play on pc the better.
Sorry but my biggest problem with xbox this gen and almost half of last has been their mouth pieces, promises of games coming, promises of 4 times the power of xbox one with the cloud, promises of all sorts really and hardly anything to show for it, i feel like I got suckered in by ms to be honest. Nothing like the early to mid 360 days, dont know how ms hasn't seen it yet. services are good but it's never going to work without more games, something ms has said they are working on....again. hopefully this time they are telling the truth, I'm not buying the next gen xbox till I see some actual proof of their support. Been shocking for the most part to be honest.
He has done a good job steadying a sinking ship but not much else. They are way behind Sony and Nintendo when it comes to creating quality first party exclusives in both quantity and quality. Credit where it's due though, Microsoft seem to be making positive moves but Spencer still has a point to prove going into next gen.
He steered Xbox in the right direction. He has been the most progressive person in Xbox history with Gamepass, Backwards compatibility, the addition of 9 Xbox studios, Elite and adaptive controller and the future Xcloud.
Now, all we need from the Xbox game studios are the games.
A slick oil salesman as well. as a savior
a talking head?
Flim Flam.
If a car is about to go off a cliff because the driver fell asleep at the wheel and you as a passenger grab the wheel and turn it, that don't make you a hero and great race car driver.
You didn't want to die.
Xbox was about to go off a cliff trying to remove game ownership away from gamers. It only made sense to make a course correction or die as a brand.
But as passenger, Phil was in the same car. So he was along for the ride with DRM2013. He's lied and mislead gamers by not telling them scale bound was canceled until after Christmas sales. He lied and mislead with the power of the cloud with Crackdown 3. Mislead gamers with Hololens at E3. He lied about "high fidelity VR." Was part of the misleading E3 with "world premiere exclusive," "launch exclusive" and just what "exclusive" means when games are going to PC.
He's just going to keep lying and misleading and telling gamers to give them time and wait. This Gen has shown that some gamers aren't willing to wait and made an exodus to PlayStation, Switch and PC. Wasn't Don Matrick that did that above. That was all Phil. Putting your future trust in him is like dancing with rattlesnakes. You're going to get bit.