Phil Spencer Has Now Been Head of Xbox for 10 Years; We Look Back at His First Decade - IGN
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Ten years ago on March 31, 2014, then-Xbox Game Studios boss Phil Spencer was named Head of Xbox. And he inherited quite a mess. You all know the story; there’s no need to beat the horse corpse for the ten-thousandth time. The brand was in disarray after what can, without hyperbole, be called a pretty disastrous launch of the Xbox One. So how far has Xbox come under Spencer’s tenure? And where’s it going from here? Let’s look back and then look forward.
  • dan1101@lemm.eeEnglish
    192·
    8 months ago

    Buy more studios and release more mediocre games, that’s gotta work eventually.

    • FippleStone@aussie.zoneEnglish
      4·
      8 months ago

      I didn’t down vote, but I’d assume that people on lemmy skew towards a dislike of centralised corporate structures, especially when they’re pushing a subscription service in place of game ownership, and so they’re not so much disagreeing with you as they are simply upset by what you’re saying. Of course, I may be wrong on that. Personally I think it could go either way, I think their aquisitions have not yielded the return that they may have hoped for, and I really hope that gamepass fails, but it doesn’t seem like it will. Que sera sera I suppose.

    • HocEnimVeni@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      8 months ago

      Man I wish gamefly would go digital the way that gamepass is instead of trying to be a game streaming service

  • mindbleach@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Next step might be killing the Xbox, by the sound of things. A move I mused about, uh, possibly closer to when he started than to now. Pre-PS5, certainly.

    A few years back, I wrote that Microsoft’s goals allow for a joint console. They can offer Sony a generation without an Xbox, and charge a nominal fee for providing the new Playstation with DirectX drivers, and accept whatever hardball licensing deal Sony offers. The money is irrelevant. Sony would be paying them to end the concept of gaming consoles as competing platforms.

    When Sony recently hinted at the PS5 specs, I realized Microsoft could do this without Sony’s cooperation. They can just… not make a console. They’d die-shrink the Xbone, sure, and maybe give Nintendo a hard time with a portable version. But they can - at their leisure - leave the Playstation as the only traditional home console.

    In either case, Sony may not realize they still need exclusives. Right now they understand that’s the only thing separating their $400 television rectangle from other $400 television rectangles. If theirs is the only one besides “computers” they might not acknowledge their competition. Microsoft would gamely publish Halo 7 or whatever on Playstation let’s say 5. Sony would keep making money on games big and small, which have a historically easy time porting to and from their machine. Developers love reaching more customers.

    Now they are at the very least winding down any physical game sales. Which by itself is just awful. But if it’s part of turning the Xbox brand into a weird PC, a Windows storefront, and a game streaming service for any gizmo with a browser, hey sure sounds great. Not sure that plan needed another generation of slumping market share whilst gobbling up other publishers.