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Is Phil Spencer actively hurting the Xbox brand at this point?

Is Phil Spencer hurting the Xbox brand at this point?

  • Yes

    Votes: 256 40.8%
  • No

    Votes: 156 24.9%
  • I don't give a shit

    Votes: 128 20.4%
  • Yes but I love it!

    Votes: 87 13.9%

  • Total voters
    627

Men_in_Boxes

Snake Oil Salesman
They’ve failed to deliver great games regularly for a while. Spending all the money in the world while delivering nothing is not something to be lauded.

They just bought Bethesda and ABK. Games now take 6+ years to make. People who thought the ship would turn around overnight are casual gamers. Don't be a casual gamer. Be a hardcore gamer.
 

Banjo64

cumsessed
It'll be okay, Phil Spencer doesn't even know you exist.
Implying Sifo-Dyas doesn’t know about the Clone Army

Star Wars Army GIF by Voodoo Ranger
 

BlackTron

Member
Phil's always sounded like a used car salesman to me and having been in sales I can appreciate a good salesman but he's not even good! The guy has been caught lying way too many times and you can tell when he's embellishing in contrast Peter Moore makes him look like a light weight just imagine him with the full backing of Microsoft, Halo would've NEVER been shown in the state it did under him first party would be a lot better. I don't think people realize how good Phil has it he can literally do whatever he wants and there's just very little creativity in his decisions.

Holy shit if Peter Moore had the resources Phil has Xbox would be the bane of Sony's existence
 

Noxxera

Member
Absolutely. He is completely out of touch with audiences and has delivered nothing but L's since he started. The Xbox brand has severely deteriorated since 2014, and if it was gone it would not be a loss for gaming.
Speak for yourself, you circlejerkers think the world circles around you literally, when you circlejerk hate towards him. All you guys do is sit in a circle and jerk off to him lmao.
I swear you guys don't even live in reality.
 

BlackTron

Member
Don’t think 99.99% of the people who buy consoles are weirdos obsessed with corporate execs so no not really

Do you need to pay attention to Phil Spencer for him to hurt the brand?

Or are we assuming that the poll implies that he is hurting it through direct PR interactions with gamers?

Would OP like to clarify?
 

MarkMe2525

Member
He has hurt the brand with Neogaf, maybe a few twitter communities. I don't think he has with the general gaming public.
 

Brigandier

Member
The idea that releasing a digital only XSX at the end of 2024 with no upgrades or updates to it's hardware which will be 4 years old when it's released, When strong rumours have it that Sony will be releasing a PS5 Pro end of 2024 is absolutely disastrous.

Outside of these type of cultist people:

6afVwb9.jpg


Who the fuck is going to buy a XSX digital over a PS5 Pro during holiday 2024????

If I was MS I would seriously look at making a new gen console for 2026 to get the jump on Sony because otherwise it's going to be a bloodbath and it'll just continue in 2028 when PS6 comes along.

I think he's too nice with his staff and it's leading to serious complacency within their studios, He needs to get ruthless.
 

Gamer79

Predicts the worst decade for Sony starting 2022
Phil needs to shut his trap and stay off the social media. I think at this point, Microsoft should jump in and make this guy step down. Terrible PR and what a stupid message to send. They invested billions in all those third party purchases, but also talks about possibilities of getting out of the console busness. Just bad
 
Is he really hurting anything though? The average person/gamer, outside of ultra obsessive gaming forums, is completely oblivious. In the end I feel like it just doesn't matter.
 

SenkiDala

Member
Honestly and sadly yes.

Once again : I love Xbox, I bought all on them on day one (yes included the One and XSX), I am just too "attached" to Xbox.

Why ? Because I fell in love with the first Xbox, I have too many good memories on it, of course Halo 1 and 2 (which I played on couch coop hundreds of hours with my best friend, who passed away more than a decade ago), Dead or Alive 3, PGR, Rally Sport Challenge, Fable, Obscure, Buffy, Outrun 2, Splinter Cell 1/2/3, JSRF, Ninja Garden (never could finish it, too hard), Panzer Dragon Orca... and so many more.

Xbox 360 was the perfect successor, innovative (media center dashboard, achievements, gamer profil, chat with friends from day 1, awesome 1st and 3rd parties exclusives, XBLA, etc). And little by little, once Ed Fries and Jay Allard went away from Xbox it started to get... "less good". After Gears 3 things started to get complicated.

Kinect came out and curiously it was a success, at that time I was living in Japan so I spent less times on games during 2 years (but still played) so I didn't really get the success of Kinect, the games looked random, but it worked. And then all their strategies came into those shit, that plus MTX / multiplayer 1st (and almost only) priority.

Then Don Mattrick gained power and went the "wrong way", so the One was "good" but not as good at it used to be.

When Spencer arrived many saw in him a "messiah" because they needed to see a savior, so whoever they would have put in that place would give this image to people... And this communication based on "look I am a gamer I have video games t-shirts" I mean come on... And fuck it WORKED, people believed it.

But then he lied, once, twice, etc etc etc and never stopped. And ok sometimes plan change so you can say 1 thing in March and it changed in August, sure, but it is ALWAYS the same with this guy. That bullshit "when everybody plays, we all win"... I even bought that fucking controller, to finally say "ES6 will be exclusive, all upcoming solo Bethesda games will be exclusives and we will just release multiplayer games with MTX" (or something like this). And OK, do it but don't say things like "when EVERYBODY plays we all win" if you're using the unlimited wallet of MS to purchase every gaming publisher in the world to remove multiplaform games from Sony platforms...

So yes, Spencer with all his lies and agressive actions (which are opposite to words coming out if his mouth) is bad for the image of the Xbox brand.

But anyway, games are being made, in development. And I am a passionate gamer. I am looking forward to play Fable, Perfect Dark, Avowed, and many exclusives to come (but I forgot the names). And we cannot blame a whole company, a whole gaming division, to the pathetic behavior of its "leader". If so we wouldn't play PlayStation anymore since Jim Ryan is the boss of PlayStation, since this man said at least as much bullshit as Spencer.

I will keep supporting the creative teams at Xbox, the game makers.

But yeah Phil, get out, you're doing more wrong that good to Xbox. You're embarrassing the fans. (Well it depends which fans, I don't talk about dumb fans who'd keep sucking Spencer's dick even if he announced that console is over for MS and they're going all in and exclusively to cloud Gaming)
 

twilo99

Member
He convinced Microsoft not to dump the division with his netflix of gaming gameplan. That's fair.

On the other hand, other than gobbling up studios, he's done nothing for xbox. It's in the same place (or worse, if the negative trend continues) as last gen.

Acquiring new talent seems to be only option they currently have. Phil gets a lot of hate but he also gets a lot done and if he closes Activision we will get to see what he has in mind for the division.

People don’t think about this, but convincing a parent company to spend close to 100 billion US dollars on anything is kinda of insane..
 

SteadyEvo

Member
He’s doing fine. This and next month GP additions are crazy in terms of quality. And bringing someone new in wouldn’t change the games and plans already in motion. It would take years for his plans to come to fruition.
 

BbMajor7th

Member
His record speaks for itself. XBOX took a tumble with the One, PlayStation with the PS3, Nintendo with the Wii U. Two of these companies took the L, learned from mistakes and bounced back stronger than ever, one of them walked around in circles for a decade talking loudly but doing little, burning good will and making excuses. Guess which one Spencer runs?
 

LakeOf9

Member
Do you need to pay attention to Phil Spencer for him to hurt the brand?

Or are we assuming that the poll implies that he is hurting it through direct PR interactions with gamers?

Would OP like to clarify?

The OP says this:

But I haven't bought a series x and as time goes by Phil is becoming just a douche. Spouting bullshit and never following through. Always promising next year will be the year.

So I assumed it was about Phil Spencer the personality.
 
Other than “saving” Xbox when Nadella was trying to kill the division, I can’t really see anything positive the guy has done for the brand. Xbox is in arguably the worst shape it’s ever been in. Halo Infinite is on life support, Forza is good but it doesn’t move the needle like it used to, same with Gears. Starfield while good/decent is also very flawed and definitely not the game to carry the brand like Halo once did. The console being down year on year in NPD and European charts every month shows the sad state Xbox is in. It’s even trending lower than the XB1, a feat I didn’t think was possible.

These recent leaks have shown that the guys running Xbox (Spencer and Co.) have no fucking clue what they are doing and are just throwing shit on a wall and hoping something sticks with these acquisitions. The guy has been at the top position for a decade and other than creating a cult for himself he hasn’t really elevated the brand. I’m struggling to think of one IP he brought to the table in the past decade that can hold a candle to Halo, Gears or Forza which his predecessors brought, and I can’t think of a single game. His only legacy is GamePass and while GamePass is the only silver lining with Xbox nowadays, the leaked news of it having stagnant growth show that it’s not grabbing the wider gaming audience. In fact, it has lead to even less software sales for Xbox over the years (both with 1st and 3rd party) while Sony and Nintendo continue to report record software and hardware sales.

I think it’s time to let Phil go and bring some people in that know how to make games that move hardware. Phil is a good talker but he hasn’t really delivered anything in 10 years and 10 years is a long time in gaming.
 
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There is a really interesting thing you notice when you see fanboys talking about the opposite companies CEOs.
Playstation fanboys want Phil Spencer sacked, while Xbox fanboys want Jim Ryan to stay at Playstation forever.

I think that's all you need to know about it.
 
Yet PS sales are through the roof YoY and Xbox sales are down YoY, tracking lower than XB1, virtually non existent in key regions. They don't live in reality. Cult of personality vs. actual results.
It's also tracking higher than the Xbox 360 at the same point, so you can spin that anyway you like.
Xbox will never sell the same as the Playstation, as it also shares the PC as its ecosystem.
If the PS put its games day and date on PC, it would not sell anywhere near the amount it does. It's just a fact.
Xbox doesn't need to out console Sony, it just needs to be successful. If at the end of the generation, Xbox sells 70-80 million, and Sony sells 120 million, it doesn't matter. It only matters to Sony fanboys who are looking for a win. Tencent makes billions and billions from gaming, and don't make a console.
MS is looking at a hybrid model of the old console buisness and the Tencent one.

As for Jim Ryan, I think Xbox fanboys are loving his new direction of GAAS games, buying PC Porting studios instead of new game ones, spending a shit ton on Bungie, and releasing more games on PC.
The first party release schedule for 2023 and 2024 is looking pretty rough I think everyone can agree on.
The fanboys really want him to stay.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
It's also tracking higher than the Xbox 360 at the same point, so you can spin that anyway you like.
Xbox will never sell the same as the Playstation, as it also shares the PC as its ecosystem.
If the PS put its games day and date on PC, it would not sell anywhere near the amount it does. It's just a fact.
Xbox doesn't need to out console Sony, it just needs to be successful. If at the end of the generation, Xbox sells 70-80 million, and Sony sells 120 million, it doesn't matter. It only matters to Sony fanboys who are looking for a win. Tencent makes billions and billions from gaming, and don't make a console.
MS is looking at a hybrid model of the old console buisness and the Tencent one.

As for Jim Ryan, I think Xbox fanboys are loving his new direction of GAAS games, buying PC Porting studios instead of new game ones, spending a shit ton on Bungie, and releasing more games on PC.
The first party release schedule for 2023 and 2024 is looking pretty rough I think everyone can agree on.
The fanboys really want him to stay.
Man, it's like a talking point manifesto. Those leaked emails would disagree, but keep it strong.
 
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