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Phil Spencer finally reveals his video game playtime

Not unless his working hours are 120/week. And even for MS execs that's excessive.

What? His gaming hours at work would be within his work hours?

Jesus Christ. What console demands you to be connected online or needs to check if you are online to work once every 24 hours? Plus Kinect included and mandatory.

That man was a joke lmao

I mean both the Series and PS5 basically require you to be online most of the time, and some features out the box require it to.

Kinect included was a bad move. I understand they didn't think it was dead, but adding $100 to a console before it has a user base was a pretty dumb idea, They should have waited a year and then introduced Kinect as an optional accessory.

Like Sony did with move when PSVR came out 3 years after launch.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Unimpressed Spongebob Squarepants GIF

He should kick his developers their asses so they release some great games.

Where are the exclusives from their bought studios?

Some are coming next year. Gamepass is stacked for this fall and beyond though. So Xbox gamers will have plenty of great stuff to play.
IYYZ66v.png


Data dies 😭
 
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15 hours a week of leisure time for an executive of that level is a little suspect. Being the executive of a huge gaming platform probably means he actually experiences games as a part of his work routine, if not then MS really does have an exceptional work-life balance for their execs.

This is not console warring in the slightest, CEOs for companies much smaller than MS's gaming division work 100+ hour weeks. Never think that your boss does less work than you do.
 
Tell me this is a rhetorical question, please.

His job requires him to interact with studios and therefore often games. I am saying that combined with his personal time, his hours spend playing games are likely higher than people think. I don't know where you are getting 120 hour work weeks from when games would also be within his work hours on occasion.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
His job requires him to interact with studios and therefore often games. I am saying that combined with his personal time, his hours spend playing games are likely higher than people think. I don't know where you are getting 120 hour work weeks from when games would also be within his work hours on occasion.
Executives/Senior leader roles in tech companies (particularly at scale and culture like MS) spend 90% of work-time in meetings. And that's generally inclusive of overtime, which is quite common for such roles as well.
Spending 25hr/week of that time on playing-games would be 60% of a 40hr work/week, or 30% of an 80hr/week - both % are substantially too high to be realistically justifiable in their role. So yea - 120hr/week.
 
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lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
What? His gaming hours at work would be within his work hours?



I mean both the Series and PS5 basically require you to be online most of the time, and some features out the box require it to.


Kinect included was a bad move. I understand they didn't think it was dead, but adding $100 to a console before it has a user base was a pretty dumb idea, They should have waited a year and then introduced Kinect as an optional accessory.

Like Sony did with move when PSVR came out 3 years after launch.
I believed PS5 fix the DRM, while Xbox is not.
 

Robb

Gold Member
That’s a lot. I think it’s great to see though, having gaming as a hobby outside of work probably gives some good perspective on things.

Makes you wonder how much Sony or Nintendo’s CEOs play. I’m sure Iwata played quite a lot of stuff, not sure about the “new” guy.
 
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Hendrick's

If only my penis was as big as my GamerScore!
People so want to believe Phil Spencer's persona is legit.

It's not.
It actually is. He plays Xbox, that is a fact. I see him online all the time and have even joined some of his games. He legitimately seems to enjoy playing them and it's clear he has put time in. He definitely spends a lot of time in Destiny.
 
Executives/Senior leader roles in tech companies (particularly at scale and culture like MS) spend 90% of work-time in meetings. And that's generally inclusive of overtime, which is quite common for such roles as well.
Spending 25hr/week of that time on playing-games would be 60% of a 40hr work/week, or 30% of an 80hr/week - both % are substantially too high to be realistically justifiable in their role. So yea - 120hr/week.

You are literally making up random numbers.

If Phil works 45 hour weeks, and during the job plays 5 hours of games each week, than that adds tot he 15 hours a week he plays on personal time, that means that he would in this example, be playing 20 hours of games a week, or 80 a month which is pretty sizable.

This 120hr week you bring up doesn't make any sense and I still have no idea where you are getting it from, the games he plays or interacts with from the job are part of his job, they don't ADD hours to his work hours.
 
Well there's a metric I couldn't give less of a shit about as if anyone with a criticism will suddenly change their minds because that person has __ amount of game time in.
 

Fredrik

Member
Dude is in his mid 50s, has a wife and two kids, and probably a pretty stressful job.

As someone in a similar place in life, I can say that 15 hours per day week is actually quite a bit.
Mid 40s here, not too stressful job though but I can still relate. It’s not easy to find time to play, especially not in the living room with kids around. When do you let them see detailed AAA gaming violence? 11? 13? 15? I played games like Barbarian with head-chops at 9 but the graphics and violence is more detailed now. 17 seems overkill though, or maybe I’m just desentizised.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
You are literally making up random numbers.
I am?
15 hours personal time outside that is above average, because he may be really playing 40 hours a week or more if you combine the two.
You just went from 40h/week (or more) in the op to 80h/month in the last post. It's fine if you want to move your own goal post, but don't pass the blame for it.


This 120hr week you bring up doesn't make any sense and I still have no idea where you are getting it from, the games he plays or interacts with from the job are part of his job, they don't ADD hours to his work hours.
I explained where it's coming from. The whole point is that yes - 120hr work week is crazy even for a MS exec. But not any more crazy than 25work-hours/week playing games.
If people outside the industry really believe that's what our jobs are - no wonder 90% of people 'burn-out' of games in under 3-5 years - it must be quite a shock to see real-world industry from that.
 
You just went from 40h/week (or more) in the op to 80h/month in the last post. It's fine if you want to move your own goal post, but don't pass the blame for it.

The post you quoted literally says "if you combine the two" as in if Phil works a 45 hour week, and he plays 15 hours outside of work, if he deals with games in some fashion ON the job, for 25 hours, than that would total 40 hours a week. You seem to have not notice the combined part and assumed i was adding hours to Phils work week, but you don't need to do that if it's part of the job.

Now that was a hypothetical anyway, 25 hours for games in a week during work hours would likely be a bit too much for one week, but that was hypothetical to illustrate my point we don't know how many hours he plays games on the job, you skipped over the most important part of the post, which is why you are getting numbers like 120 hours.

If Phil games for 15 hours a week at home, and 10 hours on the job of his 45 hour work week, why would that ADD hours to his work week? it just means he games in this scenario 25 hours in one week work and home combined.
 
I'm still in my late 20s and can barely play two hours a day on average. Playing 15 hours a week is out of the realm of possibility for me most of the time, even when I have the time I just don't have the will.
 

Moses85

Member
They bought Bethesda less than 2 years ago

Inxile and obsidian were less than 4 years, and covid ate up at least one of these years.
They bought Bethesda less than 2 years ago

Inxile and obsidian were less than 4 years, and covid ate up at least one of these years.

They own so much great IPs from Rare and do nothing with it..

They shall source out the IPs like they did it with PD..

But wait, they already fucked up Killer Instinct and Battletoads...
 
They own so much great IPs from Rare and do nothing with it..

They shall source out the IPs like they did it with PD..

But wait, they already fucked up Killer Instinct and Battletoads...
You might not like how they handle rare ips, but people love sea of thieves.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I'd much rather them work on new ips than ki or bt

We'll know a lot more about how rare is being handled once everwild comes out
 

PaintTinJr

Member
https://gamerant.com/xbox-boss-phil-spencer-how-many-hours-playing-every-week-reveal/



Considering this isn't including games he plays on the job to give approvals, check progress, or stay in the know, 15 hours personal time outside that is above average, because he may be really playing 40 hours a week or more if you combine the two.

I'm really glad Phil was able to share the story with us, now those who accused him of faking or being tricky about being a gamer, & how he games has finally been debunked.
Okay, so that shows what he's currently doing, but compared to say(the late great) Iwata's story - where he went against his family's wishes to pursue something they thought was a worthless endeavour - or Atsushi Inaba's story of PlatinumGames - that had him as a kid willing to spend time with a bully up the street to gain access to more game experiences - it feels a little thin for substance, don't you think?

If someone was asking any regular gaf member about their gaming habits wouldn't you expect a more colour picture from when they started gaming ,first of all, rather than a weekly metric?

My response would have probably started about a weird Polaroid photo - showing colours on a black and white tv - of my sister and me playing the brick wall on a borrowed 48K Spectrum a month before the xmas back in 83 when we got our own, or ...

I've got friends that have played 40hrs a week burning the candle at both ends at times in their life, with 5hrs after the pub with late night MP game sessions, or them doing the original GT challenges, etc, but they aren't gaf level gamers. They had more dedication to expensive clothing than gaming, maybe even put their haircut reading material above gaming in their lives.

I'm not saying he's definitely not a life time gamer, but if Iwata had said he only gamed 2hrs per month it wouldn't have made him any less gaf worthy, would it?
 
If someone was asking any regular gaf member about their gaming habits wouldn't you expect a more colour picture from when they started gaming ,first of all, rather than a weekly metric?
LMAO what???

No, I'd literally expect weekly metrics, not their gaming life story.

Similarly, if someone asked how they got into gaming I'd expect a bit of a story and not gaming metrics.

"hey captain slay-a-ho, how often do you play video games?"

"well it started back in the early 90s...."
 

Deerock71

Member
Dude is in his mid 50s, has a wife and two kids, and probably a pretty stressful job.

As someone in a similar place in life, I can say that 15 hours per day week is actually quite a bit.
That's 2 hours outside of work a day and change. That's a lot.
 

Alebrije

Member
15 Hours per week!!!, well it seems he will finish God of War Ragnarok before me...
 
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PaintTinJr

Member
LMAO what???

No, I'd literally expect weekly metrics, not their gaming life story.

Similarly, if someone asked how they got into gaming I'd expect a bit of a story and not gaming metrics.

"hey captain slay-a-ho, how often do you play video games?"

"well it started back in the early 90s...."
My point is that most life time gamers would be defensive to that question, because they gamed for a lifetime and would want the answer to reflect that, not some gym time type metric for today.
 
My point is that most life time gamers would be defensive to that question, because they gamed for a lifetime and would want the answer to reflect that, not some gym time type metric for today.
I've been playing games adamantly for a quarter of a century. If someone asks me about my gaming habits I'd give them a daily/weekly rundown, not my life story.

I promise you, that that's the case for most people into gaming. He wasn't having a casual conversation with a friend at a bar, he was answering an interview question about his gaming habits
 
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