• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Phil Spencer Receiving Lifetime Achievement Award

episode 7 no shit GIF by RuPaul's Drag Race's Drag Race
haters know GIF
 

CatLady

Selfishly plays on Xbox Purr-ies X
Well deserved. We love you Papa Phil.

It really is well deserved. He's done such an amazing job of turning Xbox around and that's evident by the amount of hate he gets from the most extreme Sony fanboys.

There was so much negativity back in 2013 and now it's nothing but positivity and good news almost daily. I just hope he remains with Xbox and Microsoft for a very LONG time.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Well deserved. For those of us who stayed through the XBO generation the turnaround is completely obvious.

Even from a business point of view the turnover of the gaming business increased by 75% between 2015 and 2021, despite the awful XBO generation.
 

ZehDon

Member
Hold the phone. Bonnie Ross is on the same list as John Carmack, Gabe Newell and Dan Houser? Maybe I've missed a step. Apart from being head of Microsoft's worst developer, what puts her on this list?
 

EDMIX

Member
Yeah, not like he can stand up there with Bing Gordon the famous CEO of EA for 10 years that no one has heard of.

lol nah, you couldn't be any more wrong. Gordon is massive staple, even if not as well known.


From 1982 working alone marketing by himself at EA, to making games, to running EA. If you need to hear anything about business, marketing etc, this is one of the people I'd recommend listening to. So I'd say both deserve that award for different reasons.
Good news. i like the way Phil changed Xbox games division .

Agreed. We can only imagine how MS would have turned out if he was running XB from the start.
 
Such a luke-warm response to such a polarizing figure on GAF has me disappointed. I was hoping to see how some posters here truly felt about this. Oh well.

On topic, to be recognised at the level of some of the previous recepients is an achievement in itself. He's definitely pushed gaming forward, made it more accessible while also elevating the business side of it within Microsoft. I'd say he has a lot to be proud of. Congrats Phil.
 
Last edited:

Kokoloko85

Member
The teams they did have were mismanaged, a great many of their relationships with 2nd party developers broke down and lots of games were cancelled. Yes the budget is smaller than it is today, but he mismanaged what he did have. For a while it was Fable, Forza, Gears and Halo on repeat, and then Fable fell off, and Halo dipped, and Gears went stale…

Crackdown was mismanaged.
The remedy situation was mismanaged.
Relationship with Crytek wasn’t managed well.
Scalebound.
Fable Legends.
Etc.

All of those were within his control.

And people think they are gonna do so much better with IP’s they just bought

A lifetime achievement for basically spending money, buying studios and publishers. And spending billions on gamepass lol. What a turn around…..

please dont ban me for expressing my views on phil spencer lol
 
Last edited:

The_Mike

I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Love this! I think it's great when leaders of rival companies demonstrate they aren't at war and don't actually hate their competitors.
Anyone with a brain and non fanboy knows that these companies aren't in a war.

Fanboys in here throw around with sales speeches like they are stock holders, but at the end of the day it's a job Ryan and Spencer love, and of course they are trying to earn money.

Anyone who wouldn't take a CEO spot on either company is a wack fanboy and are more in it for the feelings than the entertainment.

It's no secret that I ain't a fan of sonys exclusive, but I would still feel it would he fucking awesome as a CEO there.

Haven't Spencer also said that he even has a ps5? Ryan i don't know much about he seems more like a suit than a gamer.
 
Last edited:
I would have said this is premature but the guy has been working there his entire life since being an intern. He wasn't some asshole imported from another company to run the ship who will pull the golden parachute if things get tough and because of that he's taken some big risks. He's worked his way up from the ground floor and as such I imagine he has a lot personally riding on the success of the brand he helped shape.

He's done a lot since getting in after the Xbone almost destroyed the brand. When you consider the condition of things when he was promoted after Mattrick bailed it's even more impressive. All the execs that were basically running on auto-pilot bailed out and the options were to shit-can everything or go all-out. He's checkmarked a lot of things that people were complaining about like power, first-party studios BC, PC support, hell he even started getting their games on Steam day one giving PC players a choice of where to play instead of the heavy-handed GFWL platform. Gamepass is an industry darling right now with nothing but praise and will likely continue to grow as the new studios ramp up and start releasing exclusive titles to fill it even more.
 

sainraja

Member
Stadia's gotta be #1 right now. Someone check the charts
Give them another 3 generations and put Phil in charge. You'll see it happen :D.

In all seriousness though, he had a big hand in shaping Xbox to be what it is now. He has been there a while, right? Not just after Xbox One.
 
Last edited:

Ozriel

M$FT
I’m glad Phil is getting some recognition because he is moving things forward, but let’s not forget that he didn’t manage Xbox first party very well at all while he was in charge of it. He’s a much better leader of Xbox than we was in charge of the studios.

He reported to someone who held the purse strings and had to okay the decisions. All in an era where MS wasn’t exactly investing heavily in Xbox gaming that wasn’t tied to Kinect.


Without the unlimited money from daddy Bill Gates I think Xbox would have died long ago already. So doesn't seem very lifetime achievement awardly to me.

Bill Gates? 😂
 

TLZ

Banned
He's done a great job, but imo it should be given to the real saviour who saved Xbox back during 360's RROD. The brand could've died a horrible death then. I'd also give it to the original creators of the Xbox.
 
He reported to someone who held the purse strings and had to okay the decisions. All in an era where MS wasn’t exactly investing heavily in Xbox gaming that wasn’t tied to Kinect.

I understand that, but he also was there when games broke down or were cancelled and he was in charge.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
I understand that, but he also was there when games broke down or were cancelled and he was in charge.


That’s not an issue. Sunk cost fallacy. If you’ve put in $100m in fable legends and you clearly see from testing that it’s a stinker, you pull the plug. Better to lose $100m than to lose $130m. Ditto for Scalebound.
 
That’s not an issue. Sunk cost fallacy. If you’ve put in $100m in fable legends and you clearly see from testing that it’s a stinker, you pull the plug. Better to lose $100m than to lose $130m. Ditto for Scalebound.

The thing about Fable Legends is that it wasn’t bad at all. Like Sea if Thieves, it could have launched and had content added to it. Scalebound was a class Microsoft mismanagement.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
The thing about Fable Legends is that it wasn’t bad at all. Like Sea if Thieves, it could have launched and had content added to it. Scalebound was a class Microsoft mismanagement.

I don’t think the core gameplay was good enough.
They made a fundamental mistake from the start, going with that instead of a traditional Fable game.

Scalebound was a class Microsoft mismanagement.

Both sides share the blame. Platinum games have publicly accepted they messed up.

In a way, I’m glad that happened. Scalebound cancellation and the failure of Crackdown 3 seems to have given xbox leadership a kick in the pants.

To this day, I have no clue how someone at Microsoft would choose a cel shaded Crackdown with mediocre visuals to lead the charge for the new Xbox one x.
 

ANDS

King of Gaslighting

This seems like a MUCH better award to give the man and what he's done for XBOX. Like he's not even finished in his position yet. Honestly the cult of personality around this guy is amazing. People act like MS was the scrappy company that was fighting for nickels when he took over after DM.

How many people here don't even know that Bill Gates is not the CEO of Microsoft lol.

Bill Gates is an easy standin for "Microsoft Overlord." Relax.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom