In a new interview with IGN, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer talked about 2022 being "too light on games," the recent layoffs, the role of 343, the Activision Blizzard acquisition, and more.
What absolutely astonishes me is that people are hitching a ride on a console manufacturer/publisher that has literally provided nothing to them over the past decade besides backwards compat (awesome feature) and a subscription service. Why do Xbox fans keep making delusional excuses? You literally are told by Phil to just wait, and wait, and promise, and promise. Then he says the obvious truth that “we were light on games” then everyone forgives him since he is addressing the issue and providing new fake closure. The tribalism is out of this world
Good interview. Some humility, none of the backhanded compliments he used to throw at the competition. No real new information here that I could find though.
No more words and lip service we know he loves the sound of his own voice and we've heard this song on repeat for years now but it's time to show some action for once
Phil admitting it was 100% his fault is a good start to Leadership.
The question is Phil. What are you gonna do about it?
For the 3rd time get your studios and gear and start crunching Redfall, start crunching Starfield. I know I got blasted for wanting this but as far as I'm concerned MS doesn't have a choice unless they want more delays.
Being everyone's friend is great and is encouraged when leading. You and Matt Booty need to turn up the heat on these studios now especially Redfall and Starfield if we're going off of not so good rumors surrounding those two games.
This is what I would do if I was Phil and Matt Booty.
Ok Arcane. I know you guys have been working on Redfall really hard but the game is still in a rough state. I'll need you guys to work extra shifts, longer hours. With the promise of a extra bonus on top of whatever incentive they're getting. This game needs to land at launch.
That's still not going to change things. How many times will the X Box fanboys allow Phil to manipulate them into believing his BS? Yall gonna get Matt Booty'd again. I'm a PlayStation guy, and I will say this to X Box fans. IF you want to see change then the entire community (or atleast the majority) need to speak up and come at ol' Philly on twitter. X Box has not been great since the 360 days let's be honest.....and that is when they had exclusives on X Box. The ''putting your games on all devices'' has completely devalued the X Box but the fanboys of X Box won't admit it. IF you won't ever admit it and try to fix this problem by coming at Phil, then X Box will continue to suffer. You have to stop riding Phil and actually come at him and DEMAND what will make X Box GREAT. Otherwise, it will be a never ending spiral of disaster. DEMAND AAA games exclusively on X Box and watch how GREAT X Box will become again.
I mean, they're promising AAA games this year. What's left to do at this point but wait and see how they do? Love em or hate em, they're spending a crap ton of money and giving away the fruits of their labor on GamePass. What else would you have them do at this point? They're even trying to buy Activision for crying out loud. Ok, Phil, good job. You can stop buying now please lol
"That's still not going to change things. How many times will the X Box fanboys allow Phil to manipulate them into believing his BS?"
I really hope you didn't apply I'm a fanboy just now.
Fanboy talk aside So what you're saying is you want Phil to stop putting their games on Steam, PC, gamepass cloud and Epic game store where they can make more money and greatly widened the fanbase and sales.
Sorry but you didn't bring anything thoughtful in your reply. What MS needs is consistent AAA games not lessening where their games should go. Especially when it's worked out very well for them so far.
How bout you take your own advice tell Sony to stop putting there games on PC then. Aw that's right because it's not hurting them and they're still selling console despite what a console warrior wants.
Platform agnostic isn't the issue. That's a stone age dead argument that nobody is even remotely complaining about so I don't even know why you would bring that up. Come up with another argument.
Most failures in software development aren't due to devs not working hard enough. It's usually bigger things like not working on the right things or not having the right people in the right positions. And it takes a really good leader to even recognize the issues. Chronic crunching is usually indicative of those larger problems and at that point the initiative will fail no matter what. Yeah sure if you have to work a weekend in the home stretch, but what happened to, say Halo, was a lot bigger of an issue.
Halo got gutted and released all Terrible leadership is gone. The issues lies in MS still Entrusting Halo to 343. Idc about 343 or Halo like that tbh.
The difference between the two is that Arkane has a great track record of games. There's concerns the game is in rough shape still. If they want to get in a acceptable state, not bug free obviously there will be issues at launch but as long as it's not in a Cyber punk state.
They need to bunker down and work longer hours or do something to get it all polished up.
I can see headlines coming out in the future saying "MS induced crunch on Arkane and Bethesda and other studios. going back on their word of a healthy work environment"
To there credit they've only had a handful of good years. The X1 launch which was the most controversial console ever had a good launch. 2016 was Quantum Break, Gears 4 and others. They just can't stay consistent at all. 2020 dry, 2021 good/decent, 2022 dry, 2023 should be excellent. Keyword "should be" 2024 probably dry again because more delays into 2025 then that year would be a good year.
I really do miss the days of OG Xbox and preKinect 360. They always pushed really weird and new ideas, games like Halo, Voodoo Vince Blinx, Otogi, Armed and Dangerous, Crackdown, Condemned criminal origins, Phantom Dust, and tons of other games you just didnt see anywhere else. It really was a great contrast to Sony and Nintendo and really made for a well rounded industry. Now..... they just suck man, 1 solid game every couple years is just trash, and they have been making huge moves but after over 3 years we get one good delivery even though this was being developed well before the acquisition. I just want them back, but all they seem to do is dangle that promise and exploit everyone taking the bait.
"games like Halo, Voodoo Vince Blinx, Otogi, Armed and Dangerous, Crackdown, Condemned criminal origins, Phantom Dust,"
Otogi and especially Phantom Dust was my favorite game of all time. The funny thing is the OG Xbox had less games than 360, X1 and Series but yet still way more impactful.
"It really was a great contrast to Sony and Nintendo and really made for a well rounded industry."
That's a good way of putting it. It was well rounded in terms of offerings. And a nice blend between platforms. I would love for a Otogi remake. That game graphically was amazing for its time.
MS can do that again. If they can get out of there own way. In 2020 they blamed Google and Amazon, now it was the pandamic then they blamed Sony last year for their lack of output.
Pointing fingers and blaming everyone but themselves. No MS its a YOU problem. Nobody else can stand in the way of 2 trillion dollar company except YOU.
@Lighting good post. That 2 trillion is probably why they seem to never change this issue. Microsoft doesn't need their gaming portforlio to be successful the way the other 2 platform holders need theirs to.
Well this year is the year for seeing is believing. After the release of Hi Rush they have started this year better than the last.
Also he reconfirmed 343 being in charge of Halo for better or worse and getting more support for them. So I see this as MS commitment to the franchise.
But as we all know consistency will be the key to righting the ship moving forwards.
Is this the same Phil who said he was excited about the games they haven't shown, or that cancelling scalebound was good for gamers or coming to xb high fidelity vr? The guy lies for a living, he needs to go. If your a real fan don't you want the best rather than never ending promises and wait until e3.
So truth is, after years of the same old song and dance filled with empty promises and even emptier calendars, he’s right. It is about to change on Xbox. The fruit of the Zenimax purchase will be showing. The fruit of the Obsidian purchase will start showing. So on, so forth. Like Hi-Fi, a game that was undoubtedly coming to PlayStation as well seeing as how that team also made ghostwire Tokyo, the games that will no doubt be announced at E3 were most, if not all, going to be on every system. Now they are only on Xbox, like the FTC has argued, and PlayStation gamers are out. In essence, Xbox gamers haven’t LOST anything and have only gained the titles being on gamespass. They were coming anyway, just not for *free*. The games that have been in development for years, like hi fi, that nobody knew about will pop up this year and not only will it be announced, it’ll be coming out soon. It will look like Microsoft is just pumping out games when in reality Zenimax, for example, simply had these in the pipe anyway and they are masters at preventing leaks. These aren’t new teams that were formed and funded who are brainstorming. These are existing teams with existing projects that simply decreased their workload by scrapping a version no matter where it was in development. At the cost of ruining the way the industry has ran for years by financially taking over, they will soon have a steady flow of games. Xbox truly will be different and it wasn’t done by good management. It wasn’t done by creativity. It wasn’t done by adding to the industry. It was done by a checkbook and consolidation. *I have had an Xbox day one of every generation, I won’t be missing out on anything, never have. It’s just crazy that these games are games NOBODY had to miss out on.*
2014 New Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says E3 2014 Will Have “The Best Lineup In A Long Time” 2015 Microsoft to have ‘greatest games lineup in Xbox history’ at E3 2016 Xbox head Phil Spencer: E3 2016 could be 'one of our most special years ever'' 2017 Xbox in 2017: Phil Spencer promises “more exclusives games” than in 2016 2018 Xbox One games news: E3 2018 will be Microsoft's 'BIGGEST Xbox show ever' 2019 E3 To Be Xbox's BIGGEST Conference ever''
I’m with you all day and twice on Sundays but this time, it has no choice but to be different. It’s nothing he’s doing or anyone at Xbox is doing to make it happen either. If Chevy bought Ford that 2024 mustang was always coming in 2024. Chevy has nothing to do with that, it’s just now it’ll have a Chevy symbol. They had been making it since 2017, before the purchase. Same deal here. Games are definitely coming to Xbox and this time, for the first time since the 360, it’ll be true.
He said and I quote ""every year is critical" . So how come every year they underdeliver and rely on promising new games announced too early (and which sometimes get delayed due to mismanagement-I am looking at you Perfect Dark, Everwild, State of Decay 3 etc)?
But I am now assured because he told us that "he feels "good about Xbox's momentum". /s
Even if they have one good year that’s not good enough , you need good years almost every year . Also Phil says good but doesn’t mean the games are good . Remember the best Holiday launch lineup ? I don’t remember those games at all.
XBOX exclusives were almost nowhere to be found. But on the other hand PS5 was very light on "exclusive" games too - It was mostly PS4 cross-gen games the whole year. However, I'm deferring that to business decisions more so. Quite a few of those titles that were released could have benefitted from being PS5-only, but releasing on both platforms really maximized Sony's output for the year. This is not counting the positive outlook they've had from releasing some of the classics on the PC platform.
Sony's decisions on the Software end have been quite smart in my honest opinion, without relying too much on its subscription model. Unlike its main competitor, whenever I play on my PS5 it always feels like a premium experience.
Let's hope 2023 goes even better for both developers and thusly, us players!
He's said this before... actions speak louder than words. No more talking...
JUST DO IT!
Good interview. Some humility, none of the backhanded compliments he used to throw at the competition. No real new information here that I could find though.
No more words and lip service we know he loves the sound of his own voice and we've heard this song on repeat for years now but it's time to show some action for once
Phil the pr guy at it again I'm still waiting for the best lineup in history tagline we know how that one was
It'll be big if you release big titles. We're already in 2023...no point in waiting to announce 2023 titles.