Opinion: For Xbox, The Phil Spencer Era Is Over
“In Phil We Trust”
When Phil Spencer took over as head of Xbox in 2014 fans were elated. The previous Xbox lead, Don Mattrick, represented everything wrong with Xbox and bore the brunt of criticism for its failures during his reign. The Xbox One launch was an unmitigated disaster. Focusing on seemingly everything but video games and the conversation about the console always being online was the dagger that the competition was all too willing to take advantage of. In stepped Daddy Phil, as fans have called him, to save Xbox and guide it to dominance once again. Flash forward to 2023 and Xbox is again at a crossroads. One which may be even more dire than with its stewardship under ole Don, so what happened?
The above was Phil Spencer’s 3-point strategy to save Xbox and move the company forward. To his credit, he did all of those things for better or worse. While he’s credited with saving the brand, I’ll propose that’s dubious. Microsoft was far too invested in XBOX to abandon ship following the smash hit that was the 360. The fan outcry following his promotion was gung-ho because he represented a breath of fresh air, he also wasn’t Don Mattrick. Phil wasn’t corporate, he wore cool t-shirts and handled himself well on stages like at E3. He was open with the media and fans. Constantly keeping them informed and apprised of what was going on with Xbox. Phil was likable, we like that in our corporate overlords. That likability has given Phil Spencer a long rope but there’s always an end to every rope.
In the years since Phil has taken over though, Xbox hasn’t gained any ground on its competitors. There was initially a ton of optimism surrounding the launch of the Xbox Series X. That optimism has bred a loyalty that’s carried forward the goodwill from fans and media for a lot longer than it deserved if you’re asking me. The Xbox Series X was touted as being the most powerful home console ever made, it isn’t. Xbox Series X launched with no exclusive games and the major AAA offerings that followed were mostly disappointments. Xbox routinely sells fractions of software compared to its competitors on third-party releases and quite often, these third-party games released on Xbox perform technically worse than the competitors’ PlayStation 5 versions.
The lone bright spot this generation has been Gamepass, a service only a company the size of Microsoft could provide. Promising subscribers a massive catalog of older classics, third-party titles, and most importantly, day and date XBOX exclusives. This level of value is unmatched in the video game landscape and fans ate it up, at least at first. As of 2023 reports on the state of the service are in a word, conflicting. Gamepass has seemingly hit its crescendo with dwindling growth targets 2 years running. The numbers released by Xbox’s most recent financials are muddy and somewhat misleading given the lack of total data transparency. Xbox hasn’t given hard numbers on the state of its Xbox division since the end of the 360 generation and without the necessary context of costs going out, it’s hard to determine just how reported revenue is indicative of a healthy Gamepass service. The truth is we just don’t know. Many media members state Gamepass isn’t profitable at all and even Phil himself wavers back and forth on the subject. Sustainable =/= profitable.
Further on this, Xbox’s CEO has again flip-flopped, this time on the effect Gamepass has on software sales. After initially claiming the service actually INCREASED sales of video games on Xbox, it’s since been shown through CMA financial data that this statement is false, Gamepass cannibalizes sales on Xbox. The Gamepass situation gets even murkier the more you delve into the data and using year-over-year comparisons for revenue is futile when you aren’t taking inflation into account. Needless to say, if Gamepass was doing gangbusters, it wouldn’t be this hard to find that out. If this all sounds familiar that’s because it is: another disappointing next-gen console launch, underpowered hardware, and few exclusive games to speak of, I think you’re getting my point.
Pretty much everyone can agree that they’ve seen enough to admit something is wrong with Xbox, and if something is wrong with Xbox then someone has to be blamed…
It’s not about Redfall, but it’s also about Redfall
Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media and all of its studios in March 2021 for US$7.5 billion, becoming a sister organization of Xbox Game Studios. Arkane Studios is a widely respected studio under the ZeniMax and Bethesda umbrella. While not slapping commercial successes left and right, critically, games like Dishonoured, Prey, and Deathloop have fit the bill. Rare is it to hear someone criticizing the actual quality of Arkane Studio video games. That is until the recent launch of Redfall.
Don’t let your favorite Xbox pundit sway you on this, Redfall absolutely sucks. It performs horribly, visually looks worse than launch PS4/X1 games, and the enemy AI is inadequate, to put it kindly. And all of this was after a significant delay! Not only that but pre-release messaging misrepresented key components of how the game ran and played. How does a studio known for quality video games suddenly release a dud of this magnitude? Redfall isn’t a one-off unfortunately, it’s a symptom of a years-long AAA title, Xbox trend that many have tried their best to ignore.
Unlike others, I don’t find it coincidence that Arkane suddenly releases the worst game in its history after being acquired by Microsoft. Long-standing questions have surrounded the management and day-to-day running of Xbox’s first-party studios and rightfully so. Halo Infinite was touted as a return to form for Xbox’s biggest exclusive gaming brand. After being pushed out of the launch window for Xbox Series X, it released without promised features and visually wasn’t up to snuff at all. It’s taken over a year to get the game to its promised launch state and by now, people have more or less forgotten about Halo Infinite outside of diehard fans. How does this happen? How does a brand as big and as prominent, with almost infinite resources continually fumble their most valuable properties? Mismanagement, that’s how, and more specifically? Phil Spencer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akn9w6xrcA8?start=289&w=560&h=315
Recently, Ryan McCaffrey at IGN spoke about the state of Xbox after the Redfall debacle. Always a staunch supporter, Ryan seemed at a loss for words at the state of the game and really, the brand itself. Everyone on the panel of IGN’s Podcast Unlocked looked and sounded bewildered, betrayed even after the vertical slice they all had played during preview coverage was not at all indicative of what was delivered at launch. What I want to latch onto is Ryan’s analogy to sports and how video games don’t work the same in terms of hiring and firing executives. Well, video games are a business and in business, there are winners and losers just like sports. Maybe not at the trigger finger level, but at some point after repeated misses at the first-party level and a distant last place in relation to your competitors. You have to look to the top of the mountain and take a hard look at what is going on.
When All Else Fails, Throw more Money at the Problem
With any console, exclusive games are paramount and to that, Phil Spencer has yet to be able to solve the first-party enigma with Xbox game studios since he’s taken over. It’s difficult to argue their game situation is in better shape now as a result of his tenure as big boss. Sure there have been smaller hits, Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment are recent examples of excellent video games but these experiences are infrequent. They’re also not what sells consumers hardware. Games like the aforementioned insulate your tentpole, AAA exclusives, not supplant them
To Phil’s credit, he somehow sold Microsoft on pivoting the brand’s strategy with the Xbox Series X‘s launch to one of assimilation. If they couldn’t beat their competitors with what they had in their first-party stable, Xbox would simply throw as much money as possible at their deficiencies and buy their way out of their problems. But that has only exacerbated the issue. Phil Spencer’s Xbox definitely transformed, becoming an acquisition-first venture but without fixing the mismanagement issue that had plagued their studios and games. That strategy, at least in the short term, has failed with the CMA rejecting Xbox’s purchase of Activision/Blizzard and now with Redfall‘s disastrous launch representing the first release after their purchase of Zenimax.
If your studios are constantly having management issues, with multiple losses at the executive level happening repeatedly, you have to look at the people who are in charge. You can’t keep blaming the players/studios, if you’re making the big bucks along with all the big decisions you have to be accountable. It’s also convenient to claim success on the back of a new Gamepass service-based strategy when you are getting clobbered in the only ways the video game industry has measured success historically since its inception; console and video game sales. The moving of the goalposts seems all too convenient from a business standpoint, especially when you aren’t being entirely transparent with the data to back up those claims.
The Interview and the Proverbial White Flag
What spurred me to write this though wasn’t Redfall, or Microsoft’s history, acquisitions, mergers, or cool t-shirts paired with a blazer, it was Phil Spencer’s recent appearance on Kinda Funny’s Xbox Podcast. In my nearly 4 decades of playing video games and subsequently being a part of the industry’s media, I’ve never heard someone wave the white flag quite like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKwfEQ1eEyM?start=2186&w=560&h=315
“We are not in the business of out consoling Sony or Nintendo. There is no real solution or win for us”
Wow, just wow. In one capacity I respect the candid nature of the interview. You rarely if ever get someone at Phil Spencer’s level to speak like this. But, this admission of defeat is astounding. A testament to how poorly it’s going at Xbox when your CEO flat-out admits it. That said, this quote, along with other statements, made here are entirely misleading, a few being flat-out lies. Let me break down why with Phil’s own quotes:
“It’s not true that if we go off and build great games all of sudden you’ll see console share shift in dramatic ways”
This is false and it’s unbelievable to hear the head of Xbox say this when the direct competitors Phil is referencing specifically fixed generational dips by releasing great, first-party video games. PlayStation 3 was losing to the Xbox 360 and rightfully so. They were arrogant, the PS3 was overpriced and everything around it was convoluted. Sony pivoted mid-generation and embraced a mantra of releasing as many great first-party video games as possible, listening to developers, and facilitating relationships with indies to gravitate to PlayStation. Here is Shawn Layden, former PlayStation CEO, describing exactly this: (please forgive the fan nature of the source here)
Tip No 2 pic.twitter.com/zqNPx6p0dR
— M (@Ps5ver) May 5, 2023
Layden called it PlayStation’s “Icarus Moment” and that “they hadn’t listened to their customers“. What followed was a miraculous turnaround for the PlayStation 3, ultimately outselling the Xbox 360 with a year less on the market, and the launch of the PS4, the third-best-selling home console in video game history.
Further, Nintendo bounced back as well after 2 straight home console flops in the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube. While their strategy was slightly little different, they proved that mediocrity was not a mainstay, simply temporary, and that great gaming companies battle back. How do they do this? By releasing great video games.
I’m not naive, Phil isn’t saying that Xbox’s goal isn’t to still try and release great games, but what is he saying then? An admission that Xbox is resigned to a distant third in the video games business comes across as defeatist and even if you do believe this internally, you definitely don’t say it out loud. Why? You insult the fans that have backed you and send the message that all their support was mostly in vain. “Gee, sorry guys, I know you backed us with your hard-earned money after we promised that Xbox would be the best place to play games this generation, but we can’t do anything about it even if we tried. You were wrong to believe in us” I’m paraphrasing of course but that’s what I got out of Phil’s statement here.
“We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation where everyone built their digital libraries”
This is a stunning quote that shirks responsibility entirely. Yes, Xbox lost the X1 vs PS4 generation but what role did Phil play in this? Don Mattrick took the fall but who was right there beside him? It was Phil Spencer and he had plenty of time to pivot mid-generation once he took over just like PlayStation did with the PS3.
One generational miss doesn’t squander the loyalty built from the 360 and what you see from Xbox fandom today tells that tale. Phil continued to double down further, that even by releasing great games, Xbox wouldn’t be able to shift the needle as fans were now too entrenched within their digital loyalties. Nonsense and even if that were true, you’re not even going to try to change the tide? It’s one thing to say that you can’t change hearts and minds with great games but it’s another entirely to make this claim while not releasing the number of great games required to put up the necessary fight!
Resigned to Last Place
Whether Microsoft wants to admit it or not, this is the end of Phil Spencer’s tenure as head of Xbox. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t some sort of mutual parting of ways within a year’s time. It’s hardly unprecedented, PlayStation themselves moved on from an undeniably successful CEO in Shawn Layden simply because Sony felt his vision for the future was too small. No CEO in video game history has resigned his company to its last place fate like this outside of Phil Harrison and that was right before SEGA announced they were leaving the home console industry entirely. A truly sad day for this proud SEGA fan, but I digress…
I like Xbox, I want them to do well and competition is pivotal in the video game space. We’ve all seen what an arrogant Sony PlayStation looks like when they’re alone at the top. Xbox is the home of wonderful franchises born purely because of the brands’ existence. Sadly many of those have either all but disappeared (Fable) or are in a state of turmoil due to gross management issues (Halo).
Xbox Must Learn from their Lessons
Going all in on acquiring new studios gave fans fleeting wins but it was duct tape to mask the real issues. Instead of the billions spent on buying shiny new toys, Xbox should have invested in their current studios to figure out what was going wrong. Fix communication, patch up pipelines, give support where and when your current studios need it, and get some quality first-party video games out the door in a consistent manner.
It wasn’t like Xbox’s competition was clamoring to buy up rival publishers at the beginning of this generation. Not before the billions started getting tossed around anyway. Xbox got that ball rolling and set the tempo for the new reality in the video game landscape. PlayStation begrudgingly followed their lead and by doing so, broke a tradition of only acquiring companies they had long-standing relationships with.
I like Phil Spencer, he’s hard not to like and he’s been refreshing to see in terms of his candor and openness. But I can confidently say in 2023 he’s done a poor job as the head of Xbox. Their first-party game situation is actually in worse shape to me than when he took over. The console has gained no ground on its competitors, not in the traditional sense we measure this anyway, and Xbox have raised spending by billions and billions with little to show for it. The gross mismanagement that’s badgered Xbox hasn’t rectified itself at all. Redfall does not happen to Xbox’s competitors at scale, it just doesn’t. Under Phil Spencer, Xbox has proven an inability to rectify mistakes. Now with his admission in recent interviews and podcasts, he’s driving the most staunch Xbox fans to the brink.
Year after painful year Xbox faithful were told the games were coming. “I know 2021 didn’t work out but wait until 2022” Now with 2023 hinging on the hope of Starfield it’s almost looking like never, isn’t it? I’ll end this with one final quote that summarizes a lot of what I’ve put forward here and why it’s time for a fresh set of eyes on the multi-billion dollar experiment that is Xbox.
“There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5s”
Read between the lines people, this is called lowering expectations and for Xbox, expectations have been lowered enough.
This is nonsense. Phil didn’t wave a white flag, he reiterated what he’s said for the past 5-7 years. Xbox isn’t about trying to outsell PlayStation. Sony has a stranglehold on the industry that forced Nintendo to use gimmicks to compete (Wii, Switch). Microsoft pivoted years ago. If they were ONLY after selling plastic boxes they certainly wouldn’t put all their games on PC and Cloud. They pivoted to a way to make money, be successful and get active players without having to outsell Sony.
Many Xbox Game Studios games over the past 3 years were contractually forced to be on other platforms, but over the last 3 years the first party releases have all scored amazing. Redfall being the lone exception. Let’s say Forza Motorsport, Starfield and Hellblade 2 all release this year and score 90+ on Meta…what would be the consensus? I can promise if they released a dud after releasing 3 straight 90+ rated games people would jump right back to this type of nonsense.
Terrible article, but you’re entitled to your opinion.
He can’t say otherwise because he doesn’t know how to overtake them. Xbox was a lot more cocky and shoving it in PlayStation’s face every chance they got but once they got humbled, they got humbled. Phil Spencer just hasn’t had his shot. Every time he thought he had them with more powerful hardware, he just knows he can’t make it work. He’s surrounded by the wrong people that aren’t as smart as the people that Scott Rhode surrounds himself with. We don’t know how much longer Nintendo will be able too either. Nintendo has been outsourcing their first-party IP to other devs. If you think Nintendo have been developing Super Smash over the last while, you’d be kidding yourself. It’s been Namco-Bandai.
So, no. Phil Spencer would be cocky and say otherwise, if he could get there, but he can’t figure out how. Move him to PlayStation and if Sony were to put him to work, yeah, you’d see it. Xbox just doesn’t know what to do and can’t figure it out or they’d go back to their Xbox 360 days.
No, last gen we all got huge digital libraries that we won’t leave. You can be a PS5 owner and play Xbox games on PC or cloud day one. I argue with many PS fans who refuse to buy an Xbox.
I haven’t owned a console since the 90’s and I haven’t missed a thing. Consoles are crap.
You’re making his point for him. All of your potential scenarios are just that, potential scenarios. Because after years and years, Microsoft hasn’t used their library of IP’s well. It’s not about outselling Sony, it’s about making great exclusive first party games and they have absolutely failed to do that in every respect.
Great article and I want Xbox to compete and give Playstation and Nintendo a run for its money. If not just pack things up and become a 3rd party developer like Sega.
Nintendo isn’t even competing with PlayStation or Xbox. They pivoted to gimmicks to compete. If they ever dropped the gimmick angle, and came out with a regular console that’s powerful, they’d get crushed.
Not really, they make pretty awesome games for kids. That’s always been their thing
And how did Gamecube work out when they had a machine just as powerful as PS2? How’d Wii U work out? I mean even the Nintendo 64 tanked compared to PS1. Nintendo would be the next Sega if they went traditional.
Nothing you wrote is true. All those systems were critical and financial successes. Not selling as many consoles doesn’t mean you’ve tanked. Any system that sells nearly 40 million units is a success. You’re an absolute moron, let the adults speak.
Nintendo didn’t pivot to gimmicks unless the steamdeck is also a gimmick. Nintendo has a core philosophical tenet of “lateral thinking with withered technology” that has been a driving force behind their emphasis on mechanics in game development.
That’s the dumbest comment here. I don’t play with kiddie consoles so I don’t have a dog in the fight, but if I were to buy a console, Nintendo would be the only one I’d consider. What you call a gimmick they call over four decades of uninterrupted success in one of the most competitive entertainment markets in the world. They’d never get crushed and their “gimmicks” always top the charts. Maybe Sony and MS should learn from their “gimmicks”.
How did people not see this coming? Was no one watching years of Microsoft E3’s
The only 2 things Xbox has done is Buy studios and muh Game Pass
Game pass is Microsofts 2013 play but the long way around.
Buying studios. I remember when microsoft announced they are buying/bought studios people were cheering. YAY MICROSOFT IS BACK BABY. Meanwhile microsoft couldnt even handle the studios they did have… look at Halo for gods sake. Lets just add more stuff to manage surely thats going to make everything all better right….RIGHT.
What Microsoft needs to do is they need to pull an Elon and just clean house. They have produced barely anything of value in 10 years, its time to reboot.
They had 4 studios, so funny when people say they couldn’t handle them. What was there to handle? Forza has always been top notch, Minecraft continues to flourish, Gears Of War continued to score well. Halo had poor management and it happens.
Microsoft had to pivot due to Sony’s stranglehold on the industry, Nintendo also pivoted away from traditional console tactics and went with more of a gimmick. Nintendo isn’t competing with Sony or Microsoft right now. If Nintendo dropped the gimmicks and just came out with a powerful console they’d get destroyed too.
Microsoft set themselves up to be able to be a success without outselling PlayStation or Nintendo consoles.
Microsoft set themselves up?
They just didn’t spend a lot on R and D and didn’t have red ring of death . Not to mention more revenue via MT, ads etc (sony did the exact same thing. Nintendo doesn’t really need to cause their games don’t cost a lot )
Sure Xbox makes money no one is disputing it business wise. But game wise it’s done. And Phil Spencer admitted it.
Wow you drink the coolaid don’t cha?
He’s straight up butt-chugging that kool-aid, man lol
They had more than 4 studios and bought studios in the past.
Still not much to write home about in 10 years
This article is garbage. This is the first time I ever heard of lords of gaming website..
So what part do you think he’s wrong about?
First off, Redfall was a failure from both a concept as a video game, and as something released with no real pulse with the video game populace atm. That has nothing to do with Phil, or xbox. Having a shitty looter shooter co-op survival vampire game sounds a decade or two old. L4D was a long time ago… Anthem too, idk what about recent releases told zenimax this was a good idea. Even if they perfected it, it wouldn’t of been praised like God of War or the Recent Fallen Jedi game from EA.
People seem to forget that while yes Microsoft will always be losing on xbox, as playstation has an industry stranglehold, Nintendo has literally transformed their console into a hand held and haven’t released new IPs in what feels like forever. Just the same nostalgia cash grab it has been for a hot min while appealing to casual family friendly gamers who enjoy their beloved characters and easily approachable games.
Let’s not kid ourselves, xbox is microsoft. They make more money on their operating system then should be humanily possible. They’re a giant corporation with a ton of fingers in all the pies. Xbox? Literally could drop dead today and they’d be fine. Now cloudgaming technology? That’s something else entirely. And it seems microsoft and xbox want to dive into that for the future of gaming.
No one even comes close to offering what gamepass does, on as many devices, with cloud streaming, at a fare price. For poors like me, it’s literally the best thing to happen in gaming since f2p games were conceptualized as a kid. Did they become fucked up cash grabs and pay walls? Sure, but it gave the poorest gamer the chance to have some fun and escape their shitty lives, even if only for a moment.
Phil ain’t going anywhere, xbox is fine, they clearly have a very long road planned out and while no plan is perfect. I’ll thank them for gamepass any day
Um….. No. Game Pass is NEVER in the best interest of gaming unless is like Xbox Live Arcade was. Game Pass is a huge slap in the face to developers and only stands to benefit Microsoft. Developers have stayed as far away as possible and directed their attention toward Steam and the Switch, and then PlayStation. Game Pass doesn’t help the industry move forward, it kills it.
What good is it to have the “Worlds Most Powerful Console” when you won’t even use it. If I wanna play 16-Bit Games, I’ll go play my SEGA Genesis. If I wanna dip into 32-bit games, I’ll pull out the Saturn.
Gaming isn’t about dwelling on the past, it’s how technology advances to move games forward. The PlayStation 3 was the very definition of this. Ken Kutaragi wanted power under the hood and PlayStation made it worth it. It took some time to figure out but not only did it create Next-Gen experiences but it transformed the way we look at hardware and how we design it. It advanced hardware tech, even though Sony spit the 512MB of RAM. Xbox wants to give you the most powerful consoles to live in the past. They thought backward compatiblity was gonna be their bread and butter, but it wasn’t.
Finally, the pandemic clearly isn’t an excuse because PlayStation went through the same thing, and while it hasn’t been the PS3 level where Uncharted 2, InFamous, and Killzone 2 all competed for Game of the Year in 2009, PlayStation still made it work and got a lot more games out the last two years.
Phil Spencer didn’t do anything for Xbox. I would argue on the contrary for Don Mattrick. Mattrick sold Kinect on Xbox 360 and made it a bigger deal than the Wiimote for a time. I had a harder time selling the Wii and PlayStation Move combined against Kinect. Also, Don Mattrick got Final Fantasy onto the Xbox 360. Final Fantasy XIII was no longer a PS3 exclusive and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots almost saw Xbox 360 shores but couldn’t quite pull it off thanks to uncompressed audio on Blu-ray. But, Don Mattrick still came back getting Hideo Kojima on an Xbox 360 E3 stage. NOBODY else could do that and Don Mattrick got Metal on Xbox 360, even though they were old games, Sony could no longer hold Final Fantasy and Metal Gear over Xbox’s head, and Square are starting to lean back in PlayStation favor. Phil Spencer isn’t the savior everyone thought and, in the long run, Mattrick was the better and in a shorter period of time.
Developers aren’t forced to be included in Game Pass. But I’m sure it’s nice to get money and have that risk taken away that if the game doesn’t sell well you close down. Instead, they get paid and 30 million people have access to the game.
The Game Bakers basically said that the only way to have ROI from the Xbox platform is to be on gamepass. They were trying to get the Onnamusha dlc for Furi into gamepass but Microsoft wasn’t interested and as a small studio they had to make the call to not release an Xbox version of their game.
So you’re not technically forced into gamepass, but practically that is not the case.
I’ll be back in a year to laugh at your dumbarse self’s dogshit prediction. xD What an utterly trash “article”. Microsoft had next to no involvement in Redfall’s development dingus. All the fundamental problems with that game were set in stone BEFORE Microsoft bought Bethesda.
True but Microsoft still approved it to be released. Did no one play test it before hand?
Microsoft was too desperate to get a game out, they rushed the devs when they should’ve delayed it but Phil Spencer said Ship It, because they don’t have anything else and now they’re nervous about Starfield and rightfully so. It’s not just framerate, Starfield flat out looks boring a Barron land PlayStation fans were looking forward to in Forespoken and lost, except Sony hasn’t been dependant on Forespoken, Microsoft IS dependent on Starfield, but it’s not looking good either
Fam, nothing about Redfall looked even on paper like a massive blockbuster. Vampires? Looter shooters? Procedural grind dungeons? Survival co-op shooters? The fuck of an unholy nightmate from the 10s created that? It’s like twilight had a thing with fortnite graphics all while cheating with anthem on how not to engage players with your shitty unoriginal ripoffs of other industry titans… With gimmicks… Ooo flight. Oooo vampires instead of zombies or militants. They could of taken another two years and only got 5 to 7. No one was ever giving redfall 90s or 10s. That’s not on microsoft they did not greenlight the game concept or start the development of it. Bethesda/zenimax came up with redfall when their company was strapped and falling apart. It was never going to be anything more than a cash grab, not anything innovative
Lack of involvement is a problem when the game comes out like this. Plus we already know Microsoft was involved enough to cancel the PS5 version, so they were involved with and aware of the game to make decisions impacting development.
This is the biggest load of nonsense I’ve read in a while. Reminder to myself to ignore this website if it ever pops up in my newsfeed again. The writer clearly doesn’t know what they’re talking about.
The author is an Idiot and a terrible writer. No wonder I have never heard of this lame ass news site until now. Picking a tweet from a playstation fanboy account for your article makes you look like either a biased fanboy yourself or the normal standard for the brain washed morons that this world calls journalists.
LoL I almost spit my coffee out reading your comment. You offer up nothing of value to counter why you disagree with the author or to validate or support your opinion when in fact the author is correct. I’m surprised Phil Spencer has lasted this long
Just like other people, he is blindly supporting this sideshow at MS. Look over at N4G where this story is being carried. People are saying, their faith can be restored with the upcoming Microsoft show. See how they are part of the problem too? They will be faithful is MS just promises them something. Show them something flashy and they are instantly under Phil’s control.
Their supporters are not saying, deliver games that aren’t like Redfall. Or deliver games period. They are saying, tell me a story. That is all Microsoft has done for years. Tell stories and make promises. Until these supporters start making Redmond actually deliver on these show promises, they are never going to get what they should and instead will just be another MS water float to keep Xbox aloft in the public eye.
Guys like James are the reason Xbox is in this sorry state. Xbox has been known to both speak and listen to fans and influencers, so you need look no further than the Xbox apologists to see why their standards have fallen so low. Their two reactions are to attack the source or shift blame (usually to Sony, “lazy devs” or Don Mattrick).
I always laugh at the notion that red fall doesnt look impressive graphicly. Are you kidding me? Its the exact same art style as dishonored, prey and Death loop. Arkane games have never been grohically realistic or pushed the tech to its limit. Red Fall is mediocre, it has some redeeming qualities but you can tell the game was released galf baked and unfiinished. It was an unacceptable release. At least Halo infite was in a playable state
Redfall looks worse than launch PS4/X1 games and many of the assets are lower quality than previous Arkane entries from generations ago as well. Couple that with the abysmal performance and no, the game is not impressive visually, or in any way.
LOL such a stupid clickbait article
Great games do not sell hardware. I know manchildren are crying, but it’s true.
See Wii U, amazing list of exclusive titles, system still flopped hard.
As for spencer, the biggest playstation fanboys of us all, he isn’t wrong about people starting and building up their digital libraries last gen.
But he’s wrong in stating great exclusives wouldn’t help. Many would pick up an XBSX or S in addition to their PS5, I know I would if MS had some games I couldn’t skip on. So far nothing released interests me but what is incoming has me watching
Phil Spencer was painted into a corner and he did what we don’t expect people to do. He didnt fight back he became passive and just rested on the strength of the company and in turn it has really changed gaming. Personally to me its for the worst. The media was/is a major part of the equation too. They created a negative culture around Xbox and pretty much destroyed the brand and in doing so competition in the way it was set before. It would have been better if they just said MS isnt delivering to the standards we think a major company should so we are no longer covering them. Instead they chased customers away from the products and were so bias that even good games that should have become news major franchises fell and when you have an industry were good products fail your industry weakens.
For MS part they were too apologetic and broke away from their vision. They should have been more combative and basically gave the gaming media the finger and invested heavy in their marketing and branding the gaming media as shills working against them. It would have worked. Instead they stayed behind them chasing approval hoping that they would give one of their games a good score and some support like the old days.
MS created Gamepass and though its a great value it has destroyed what gaming was. I was expecting to one day retire and as an old man be buying some games here and there at midnight launches and having big communities of gamers all playing different genres and just enjoying the stories and challenges….. Nope.
Nintendo games are baby games
Sony games are pretentious and more like playing movies than games and
MS can’t generate any excitement so even if the product is good it doesnt make you want to be part of it.
1) It’s a joke to criticize the Series X as being underpowered, at least in comparison to its direct competitors in the market.
2) The punctuation in this article is really unprofessional.
The XBOX Series X is underperforming on nearly ever third party game compared to its direct competition. This was true at release and it’s true now. Xbox themselves have acknowledged this. So, not a joke.
The punctuation in this piece is spot on based on apps like Grammarly dissecting it as well as multiple editors looking it over.
Thanks for reading.
I think this is undoubtedly one of the best sourced video game focused articles I’ve seen in a long time and you should be commended for that regardless of how people feel about the article. In a field where we get opinions treated like fact with the source being “trust me bro” this article is a breath of fresh air.
And man, I can see that this article has people feeling a certain kind of way. It’s kind of sad to see people blowing their own backs out doing mental gymnastics trying to twist Phil Spencer’s comments into meaning what they want or somehow blaming Sony. I doubt you’re surprised though, an article on this interview was bound to kick the hornets nest.
For whatever it’s worth, I think mostly the same as you do. I think Spencer should be removed from his position if this is his mindset. I don’t care about Xbox “winning” anything, but I do want them pushing the industry forward by making great games. That isn’t going to happen if they don’t think games are that important.
Sadly I’m not sure if Phil Spencer is alone in feeling that way at Microsoft. I would LOVE to be wrong, but I think the emphasis over there is on all the periphery surrounding games as opposed to games themselves