davidjaffe
Been thinking about our call we had yesterday on your stream. I truly think Phil is a good guy but looking at his track record, I think the role he took over from Mattrick had reverse effect on Xbox Division. I think Phil has a great vision like you said for Xbox, but I don't think that vision is based off just great software that gives the division Identity.
Gamepass for sure right now gives Xbox Identity, but it's not Synonymous with Quality and consistent Quality at that. Don Mattrick was a suite, but the guy new Products. Knew when to pull the plug on a product when it wasn't working out. I feel Phil was Microsoft needing a non suit sounding friendly face that developers could confide in on top of being friendly presences wise with Community/Fans.
But his track record with management of Products is just bad. Matt Booty is not that great either, but I wonder if his hands are tied by Phil? I wonder if Matt wants to put more pressure on developers to meet deadlines but I wonder if Phil vetoed it?
I find the difference in leadership very interesting when looking at all the mishaps at Sony as well with Jim Ryan. The guy is a suit, but produces results like Mattrick did. He's not likeable and is someone thats not a gamer centric type of person community wise like Shue or even Layden for that matter.
But he produces results.
Layden had a lot more games delayed, and longer in development under his tenure than Ryan did. I think what needs to happen is someone else needs to take the reins from Phil decision making wise, and just let him be the PR face for XBox.
Let someone else behind the scenes make hard decisions when shit isn't working, and axe projects./positions.
Back in the Mattrick days it was like watching Jim Ryan in early 360 days. Mattrick knew the value of software at launch. Hence XBox one's launch window software was actually really great.
I think Phil needs to take a different position, or his duties in terms of software management decisions trimmed.