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Head of Xbox Phil Spencer will be on the Kinda Funny XCast tomorrow

Jaybe

Member
“Phil Spencer Opens Up”? Phrased like a victim’s tell-all. What’d Satya make you do for that 70 billion?
 

skyfall

Member
Seems to be taking responsibility ''Im upset with myself'' he says and ''We will re think our process''
 

GHG

Member
They just uploaded it:



"I'm upset with myself"

Jesus christ this guy.

Throw The Towel GIF


Edit: it actually gets worse the more he talks.

"what can we learn"

Dude, you've been doing this for how long? You're in what position again? No time for learning my friend, this should be your area of expertise.
 
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DJ12

Member
"I'm upset with myself"

Jesus christ this guy.

Throw The Towel GIF


Edit: it actually gets worse the more he talks.

"what can we learn"

Dude, you've been doing this for how long? You're in what position again? No time for learning my friend, this should be your area of expertise.
Exactly, there's a gif in this very thread from years ago asking about releasing games in a broken state.

At least he's not trying to say its Bethesdas fault like that windows central piece, was fully expecting that to be his narrative.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Can we get bingo card predictions for what will be in this interview?
  • "We are more committed/hopeful than ever for the ABK acquisition to pass." ✅ (he literally used the word committed. I can't 🤣)
  • "We believe gaming is for everyone, no matter where you choose to play." ✅ (he said this again lol!)
  • "Redfall > Arkane did a wonderful job. We will learn from our mistakes." ✅
  • "Starfield is fantastic." ✅ (didn't use the word fantastic, but he did imply that it's much better)
  • "I have never been this excited for the future of Xbox games and Xbox." ❌ -- (didn't say this)
  • "We have the best lineup of games in the pipeline now in the history of Xbox." ✅ (didn't use these exact words but pretty much said exactly this)
  • Complaints about Sony in the context of ABK. ❌ (didn't. but sitll complained and took a dig at Sony for making exclusivity deals)
  • Phil talks about at length one old game that he has been playing recently. ⚠️ (named-dropped a couple of games, but didn't mention it in any detail)
  • Avoid questions about Game Pass and Xbox's profitability and sustainability, if asked. (the question didn't come up)>
  • At least one extremely long-winded nothing-burger answer of a straight-forward question. ✅ (Parris asked about Hellblade 2, Fable, Everwild, etc. and games that were showed years ago, and he didn't address that question directly at all; Phil only talked about better communication)
Just finished watching the episode. This is how I did with my Bingo 😄 ^^^
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.

I'm time-stamping the video here. I'll post the full quote here as well after transcribing it.



"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter.

When you're third place in the console marketplace, and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, a very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that make being Xbox hard for us, as a team.

I see commentary that if you just build great games, everything would turn around. It's just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation, where everybody built their digital library of games. So when you go, and you're building on Xbox, we want our Xbox community to feel awesome. But this idea that if we just focused more on great games on our console, that somehow we're going to win the console race, I think doesn't really lay to the reality of most people.

There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. That's not going to happen."

^^ The above is a summarized version. Full version in the following spoiler.

 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Also, special Kudo to Parris. He asked some tough questions, while others were just sucking up to Phil as always.

I've always disregarded Parris because of his fanboy-ish tweets, his affiliation with Xbox related content, and his participation with Xbox's events. But credit where credit is due. He was much better than the other two panelists.

I'm especially disappointed in Gary. Instead of asking tough questions, he was sucking up to Phil and blaming PlayStation fans for their response to Redfall's failure, properly fueling console wars.
 

DJ12

Member
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.
Oh dear. Defo pulling out of the console hardware market.

If xbox continues, think it will just be a pc gaming box they sell for a premium.
 
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azertydu91

Hard to Kill
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.

Are you guys ready to fight hard to be on third place like always?


The team:
 

Bojanglez

The Amiga Brotherhood
When Gary mentions “It’s always the Brits isn’t it” there is a clear edit just after. So I wonder what was said that they cut out?
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
His attitude has changed a bit and he looks completely devastated. This doesn't feel confident for their upcoming games...
 

killatopak

Member
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.
That's such a defeatist attitude wtf? That just fosters them to not do enough effort to make great games.

Do you really want your leader to say that you lost before the battle has even begun?
 
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Also, special Kudo to Parris. He asked some tough questions, while others were just sucking up to Phil as always.

I've always disregarded Parris because of his fanboy-ish tweets, his affiliation with Xbox related content, and his participation with Xbox's events. But credit where credit is due. He was much better than the other two panelists.

I'm especially disappointed in Gary. Instead of asking tough questions, he was sucking up to Phil and blaming PlayStation fans for their response to Redfall's failure, properly fueling console wars.
I think the Redfall response is a mixture of things. Console wars? Certainly. Lots of fanboys relishing the fact that this game is not good, and if you don't see that, you are blind. It's also happening right around the time of the CMA decision, so that adds fuel to the fire. I think Phil's response is good for the most part, and I do think the review scores would have been 5-10 points higher had the game launched with 60fps, little things like breakable car windows and building windows, stealth kill animations and less bugs in general. All the current circumstances led to the traditional pile-on we see in these cases, and now the websites are joining the pile-on with late review scores like a 4/10 from IGN. An IGN 4/10 is pretty much a 1/10 from any other publication, and Redfall is bad, but it's not IGN 4/10 bad. I do agree that 3 months delay wouldn't have fixed the creative problems with the game, so Phil was in a hard place. Cancel the game and kill team morale of a good team that made Prey or just push out the game and cut your losses. I'm not sure what the right decision was, but obviously the game is a stinker. Dark times ahead for Microsoft since all eyes on Starfield, fair or not.
 
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PillsOff

Banned
Can't WAIT

Another really "authentic" interview by the REAL game journalists

Really hope they ll have some really good set up to segway into pre written PR monologuing... I ment questions to be answered by the XBox CEO who let's be honest... is just a gamer like you n me guys!
 
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.

I don’t get or like that attitude at all. It’s clearly a people problem. If you have the right people, invest, go after big talents to boost your internal teams across the board of course they can compete.

I know people take the piss, it’s cool, I get it but I’m disappointed in what’s happening at Xbox. It’s like people are deliberately putting road blocks on things that can be fixed. Creating a narrative that it can never be possible to compete with Sony or Nintendo, of course it can, it needs the right people to do that.
 
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The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.
Was my biggest take away. Also, like maybe try? How can you honestly say that without even trying it.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
This is HUGE!!

"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter.

When you're third place in the console marketplace, and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, a very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that make being Xbox hard for us, as a team.

I see commentary that if you just build great games, everything would turn around. It's just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation, where everybody built their digital library of games. So when you go, and you're building on Xbox, we want our Xbox community to feel awesome. But this idea that if we just focused more on great games on our console, that somehow we're going to win the console race, I think doesn't really lay to the reality of most people.

There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. That's not going to happen." -- Phil Spencer

The above is a summarized version. Full version in the spoiler below.

"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter. When you're third place in the console marketplace, and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, a very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that make being Xbox hard for us, as a team, that's on us, not on anybody else. Our vision is that everybody who's on console has to feel like they have a great experience and they're a first-class citizen. They've invested a ton in our platform, but we are not in a position, and I see it out there, I see commentary that if you just build great games, everything would turn around. It's just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation, where everybody built their digital library of games. So when you go and you're building on Xbox, we want our Xbox community to feel awesome. But this idea that if we just focused more on great games on our console, that somehow we're going to win the console race, I think doesn't really lay to the reality of most people. Like 90% of the people every year who walk into a retailer to buy a console are already a member of one of the three ecosystems, and their digital library is there. This is the first generation where the big games that they're playing were games that were available last gen. When you think about Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft, the continuity from generation to generation is so strong. I see a lot of pundits out there that kind of want to go back to the time where we all had cartridges and discs, and every new generation was a clean slate, and you could switch the whole console share. That's just not the world that we are in today. There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. That's not going to happen. So what we have to do, and we have this unique vision because we see what creators want to do, creators want to build games that can meet players on any screen, people play with their friends regardless of what other screen they're on, and the console is the core of the Xbox brand, there's no doubt. So, we will stay focused on making sure that console experience is awesome. But I know some people want to hold us up of just being a better green version of what the blue guys do, and I'm just going to say, there's not a win for Xbox in staying in the wake of somebody else. We have to go off and do our own thing with Game Pass, with the stuff we do with xCloud, and the way we build our games
 
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Zuzu

Member
Phil says internal mock reviews were double digits higher than the official public reviews…

I am finding that hard to believe, unless of course the mock reviewers were the likes of Colt, SenjetsuSage, and Klobrille…

Yeah, there’s something seriously wrong with their reviews process if it reviewed fairly well internally
 
I'm not an Xbox gamer but man it is concerning hearing what Phil is saying, he lacks so much vision, which is something the Xbox brand needs right now.

Games always sell hardware, it's a tried and tested method for success in the console space, it always has been and Xbox should have known that since the 360 era.
 

Sony

Nintendo
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.

He's not wrong. I've been saying this for years. Having more games, better games and a cheaper pricepoint didn't help Xbox 360 outsell the PS3. The PS3's early years were also a PR disaster. Yet YoY PS3 outsold the 360. You can't compete with Sony and Nintendo on unit sales. The only thing you can do is increase your revenues in new markets, which they have been doing.
 
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Thirty7ven

Banned
The most shocking thing for me was his admission of failure -- that Xbox will never beat Sony or Nintendo in console sales "even if we make great games."

That is an extremely weird attitude to have for a leader that manages over 5,000 employees. Would be doing wonders for morale.

I'm time-stamping the video here. I'll post the full quote here as well after transcribing it.



"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter.

When you're third place in the console marketplace, and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, a very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that make being Xbox hard for us, as a team.

I see commentary that if you just build great games, everything would turn around. It's just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation, where everybody built their digital library of games. So when you go, and you're building on Xbox, we want our Xbox community to feel awesome. But this idea that if we just focused more on great games on our console, that somehow we're going to win the console race, I think doesn't really lay to the reality of most people.

There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. That's not going to happen."

^^ The above is a summarized version. Full version in the following spoiler.



Laying the groundwork for a shift in concept. Basically removing Xbox console from the board.
 

Nydius

Member
When you're third place in the console marketplace, and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, a very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that make being Xbox hard for us…

I see he had to throw out some obligatory red meat for the rabid fanbase and their constant Xbox persecution complex.

As if Microsoft didn’t have a “discreet focus” on limiting Sony’s access to COD content when they began moneyhatting timed exclusive DLC back in the 360 era? Or they didn’t have a “discreet focus” on removing products from PlayStation when they bought a multiplatform developer group and immediately told them to can development on PlayStation versions?

Anything to pass the buck and play victim. “It’s not our fault guys, Sony keep targeting us!”

Mmhmm.
Sure Phil.
 
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So here is the summary and take from the video.

1) Phil admit that they are not going to follow Sony approach with Exclusive and Xbox Games will be more diverse.

2) He knowledge that game was not a early access and it was a priced at $70 so bug, performance and AI issues has no justification.

3) He knows that what Xbox fans are saying on social media like "MS should sell Xbox to another company" or "change the management".

4) He said that Redfall was in the middle of development and as many "Sony Fans" were right that Xbox management has a terrible communication and no studio tried to help them even Xbox management did not care as he admitted himself.

5) He was not really in a happy mood at all. Looked very pissed and upset.

6) He admitted that Redfall IGN preview were running on PC, which everyone kind of know that most of Xbox exclusive run on PC ,therefore, Xbox fan had a expectation of this game running at 60 fps, which he thought this was an error from our side, and now these things will not happen.


Summary is that He knows that his management and his team is totally incompetent that is all i can say by seeing the interview.
 

Kacho

Member
This is HUGE!!



The above is a summarized version. Full version in the spoiler below.

"We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a ton of people, but it's just the truth of the matter. When you're third place in the console marketplace, and the top two players are as strong as they are, and have, in certain cases, a very discrete focus on doing deals and other things that make being Xbox hard for us, as a team, that's on us, not on anybody else. Our vision is that everybody who's on console has to feel like they have a great experience and they're a first-class citizen. They've invested a ton in our platform, but we are not in a position, and I see it out there, I see commentary that if you just build great games, everything would turn around. It's just not true that if we go off and build great games, all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation, where everybody built their digital library of games. So when you go and you're building on Xbox, we want our Xbox community to feel awesome. But this idea that if we just focused more on great games on our console, that somehow we're going to win the console race, I think doesn't really lay to the reality of most people. Like 90% of the people every year who walk into a retailer to buy a console are already a member of one of the three ecosystems, and their digital library is there. This is the first generation where the big games that they're playing were games that were available last gen. When you think about Fortnite and Roblox and Minecraft, the continuity from generation to generation is so strong. I see a lot of pundits out there that kind of want to go back to the time where we all had cartridges and discs, and every new generation was a clean slate, and you could switch the whole console share. That's just not the world that we are in today. There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. That's not going to happen. So what we have to do, and we have this unique vision because we see what creators want to do, creators want to build games that can meet players on any screen, people play with their friends regardless of what other screen they're on, and the console is the core of the Xbox brand, there's no doubt. So, we will stay focused on making sure that console experience is awesome. But I know some people want to hold us up of just being a better green version of what the blue guys do, and I'm just going to say, there's not a win for Xbox in staying in the wake of somebody else. We have to go off and do our own thing with Game Pass, with the stuff we do with xCloud, and the way we build our games
This is thread worthy
 

Tsaki

Member
I think the Redfall response is a mixture of things. Console wars? Certainly. Lots of fanboys relishing the fact that this game is not good, and if you don't see that, you are blind. It's also happening right around the time of the CMA decision, so that adds fuel to the fire. I think Phil's response is good for the most part, and I do think the review scores would have been 5-10 points higher had the game launched with 60fps, little things breakable car windows and building windows, stealth kill animations and less bugs in general. All the current circumstances led to the traditional pile-on we see in these cases, and now the websites are joining the pile-on with late review scores like a 4/10 from IGN. An IGN 4/10 is pretty much a 1/10 from any other publication, and Redfall is bad, but it's not IGN 4/10 bad. I do agree that 3 months delay wouldn't have fixed the creative problems with the game, so Phil was in a hard place. Cancel the game and kill team morale of a good team that made Prey or just push out the game and cut your losses. I'm not sure what the right decision was, but obviously the game is a stinker. Dark times ahead for Microsoft since all eyes on Starfield, fair or not.
The reviews are late because Xbox sent the review codes late and the review embargo was on launch day. This just reinforces that the game is a 4/10. They could have given a review embargo a week before release but of course that would tank the game's sales and engagement even more.
 
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