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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Is this Phil Spencer's final test for Microsoft? Is his job on the line?

 

Could Phil Spencer's job be on the line?

Yes. 132 53.66%
 
No. 114 46.34%
 
Total:246
thismeintiel said:
I doubt his job is in trouble. I think the HW division of Xbox is, though. If Scorpio does little to nothing for the XBO's sales, then MS is going to seriously reconsider having a XB2 come out. Sales that are really declining lately. We're probably going to see two months in a row, now, that the XBO hasn't been in the Top 100 on Amazon, while the Switch and PS4 remain in the Top 20. And when this is your strongest region and right now the #100 thing for the month is a cheap 3rd party Joy-con Wheel peripheral, that's not good.

It's still possible they may try again next gen, but it's going to be a little hard to match the PS's world brand status, especially if Sony is going to be launching PS5 in 2019. That'll be less than 2 years after the Scorpio launches that MS would have to tell its consumers they have yet another piece of upgraded HW that they want them to buy. I think that'll tick off a few people.

I think we may see them focus even more on PC gaming. They already have started in that direction with every Xbox exclusive now going to PC and their focus on Windows at E3 last year. So, the HW portion would be gone, but the SW one will remain. Though, they may rebrand the whole thing with Windows.

I don't think Microsoft can do anymore rebranding. Xbox no longer just means the consoles, but represents the multiplatform effort to spread Xbox to PC and phones. Microsofts goal is just to be the end all be all hun for multimedia. They don't have an identity because they are trying to be everywheee m.



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SegataSanshiro said:
He wants to do away with single player games so either he or Xbox may not last much longer. This kind of thinking killed Phantom Dust and Scalebound. meanwhile the highest rated games this year and best selling are single player games. He needs to rethink his stance.

When and where did he ever say anything that would lead to you thinking he wants to do away with single player games?



SegataSanshiro said:
VGPolyglot said:
I thought that he's been considered to be a success? Especially after following Don Mattrick.

Eh Xbox sales still less than half of PS4. Very little Japanese support. Cancelled 3 games people were looking forward to. Damaged releations with a major 3rd party in Japan which they are in need more of not less. While PS4 has dominated with exclusives so far this year and Switch making a lot of buzz and sales with Zelda and a Wii U port. They are eating Xbox's lunch. MS has made little effort so far to respond. All they really did was stealth release Halo Wars 2...or at least felt like a stealth release. Better than Don yes but still seems like he's not doing a great job. Phil feels more like a yes man who is a PR guy while others calls the shots and he is just the public face.

Agreed.  I think Mattrick was the same way, only he was worse at the PR.  Of course, Spencer has had it backfire on him lately.  Calling out people for practices that MS practically invented or perfected.  OKing NPD PR that means nothing.  Constantly hyping up the Scorpio as the next big thing, an entire year before it even launches.  Practically saying its better to have less games, since all the ones he's cancelled were going to be stinkers anyway.  Or so he says.

It's why I hate people who just blindly use Mattrick as a scapegoat.  Sure, he sucked.  But he was just a symptom, not a cause of Xbox's problems.  The problem is MS's attitude towards console gaming.  They entered the market for the wrong reason.  Not because of passion, like Nintendo and Sony.  But, to defeat the PS because they saw it as competition for Windows/PCs.  And MS got very arrogant after last gen, and thought they could push some very bad policies onto the gaming community, trying to control many aspects of their customer's gaming life.  Only God knows why they thought they could get away with it, since they came in 3rd.  Sure it was a close 3rd, but that doesn't change that they came in last.



niceguygameplayer said:

Exclusives still matter. Phil doesn't seem to get that. Also, he seems to fail to recognise that ppl still want single player games too. I prefer single player games with deep stories myself.

He does understand that exclusives still matter.

He also doesn't discount that people still want single player games and he even stated he prefers single player games over multiplayer games himself.
I think people have twisted and blown his single vs multiplayer statements out of proportion.

It's a fact that in general multiplayer games tend to draw in bigger crowds, sell more copies than a single player experience.
Take Overwatch for example at something like 30? Million copies. Even the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty are popular because of their multiplayer and not the singleplayer...
Of course you have the likes of Horizon and Zelda, but for every one of those games you have 10X big multiplayer games.

In general it's hard to dispute that multiplayer games are dominating the industry right now and that's the point he is making.

niceguygameplayer said:

Also, there are little Japanese games (my favorite) on XB1. Phil took a trip to Japan recently. Maybe he is just realizing his mistakes. I hope his trip made a difference. Hopefully there will be many more Japanese games coming to Xbox.

Xbox is never going to be big in Japan. The Japanese seem to be fairly xenophobic, I would love to see more Japanese games on the platform... But after three console generations if you expect the Xbox to be a Japanese game powerhouse, then you are kidding yourself, it's never going to happen. And that's okay.

niceguygameplayer said:

With the Nintendo Switch, XB1 is now running 3rd place weekly. Crackdown and Sea of Thieves won't be near enough. Phil still has a chance however!

I agree, Crackdown and Sea of Thieves won't be enough. They don't seem to have much in the way of Hype surrounding them either.
I hope they are both extremely successfull, especially in regards to Sea of Thieves, would hate to see Microsoft close down Rare.

niceguygameplayer said:

1. Stop with the PC crap. If someone is going to pay high dollar for Scorpio, you might as well invest in a PC instead if the games are coming to PC too. Make the Scorpio games exclusive, or at least 6 month timed exclusive. I mean Xbox exc!usive, not just Scorpio. That brings me to my second point.

As a PC gamer I will own both a Scorpio and a PC. I like my games on both paltforms so I can seamlessly move between them.

niceguygameplayer said:

2. Have Scorpio games be compatible with XB1 for one year so that XB1 owners will get five full years of support. Then go to Scorpio games only, because it is powerful enough to be next generation. Staying XB1 compatible will hold it's potential back... and sales.

It really isn't powerful enough to be classed as next-gen.

niceguygameplayer said:

3. Do not price Scorpio higher than $450. Even if it means short term loss, it will get the system out there. Remember guys, PS4 Pro could be cut to $350 with Horizon packed in.

I don't think you understand the point of Scorpio if you expect a low price?

niceguygameplayer said:

4. Get more games out! This E3 had better be full of new game announcements.

Yasss. More games are good.

niceguygameplayer said:

5. Get aggressive again. Get Call of Duty back in 2018 for a start. It's a sales console war. Start acting like it Phil. He seems to be a nice guy, but nice won't win the console war.

Ehh. Microsoft seems to have drifted towards Battlefield instead anyway, which is Call of Duty's main competitor.
Leverage that partnership instead.


craighopkins said:
He seems to be letting rare do its thing and he gave us halo wars 2

Halo Wars sold pretty terribly though didn't it? Even on PC I don't think it did well.

craighopkins said:
Killer Instinct was awesome too, so he know hardcore fans need games. I think he has plans for fable

Killer Instinct is probably the best fighting game of the generation.
Hopefully they do bring Fable back for a 4th entry, but how good will it be without Lionhead at the helm?

LudicrousSpeed said:
Xbox still makes money. He has done a phenomenal job cleaning up the mess of Mattrick. I don't think he is on any tight rope of any sort.

Agreed. I think the Xbox has done well considering how badly it did initially.

Snoopy said:

I liked Halo 5 (sp story was meh, but the mp was better than the previous Halo games). What Phil needs to do is keep investing into service based games, because that is the future.

Halo 5 was horrible.
The campaign was garbage and the Multiplayer was minimal/bare-bones and lacked basic features like Split Screen and Forge.
It only had a tiny selection of maps and the Multiplayer got infected with Microtransactions.
The graphics were also pretty mediocre, but that was a compromise to hit the 60fps target, even though the entire game doesn't run at 60fps anyway.

Sure, they have invested time and money to turn that around, but they did end up bleeding allot of gamers who moved onto other games.

niceguygameplayer said:

Billions? Are you sure? I don't know about that lately. Anyway, they could do much better. Phil has done well, but maybe someone else needs to take the wheel now. To take them to the next level. 

At this point I think this generation has been sealed. I don't think you can do anything to change things around substantually.
Just try and keep current gamers happy, maybe draw in a few more and start planning for next gen.

S.T.A.G.E. said:
Hes better than Mattrick, but he still has not fixed Microsoft's first party problem and keeps relying on third party to create IP (which means they are beholden to their effort and talents for sequels. 

If anything he has potentially made the 1st party issue even more severe by closing down a few studios.

Nothing wrong with sequels though. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassins Creed, FarCry, Halo, Gears, Forza and more have been stupidly successfull because of that. It's when you don't have anything to break the cycle that things gets tiring.

thismeintiel said:
I doubt his job is in trouble. I think the HW division of Xbox is, though. If Scorpio does little to nothing for the XBO's sales, then MS is going to seriously reconsider having a XB2 come out. Sales that are really declining lately. We're probably going to see two months in a row, now, that the XBO hasn't been in the Top 100 on Amazon, while the Switch and PS4 remain in the Top 20. And when this is your strongest region and right now the #100 thing for the month is a cheap 3rd party Joy-con Wheel peripheral, that's not good.

Microsoft has attempted to hide any financial losses by juggling the Xbox between departments during financial briefings.

I don't think the Hardware Division of Xbox is in trouble though, I think at most it might be spun off into it's own entitiy where profit becomes extremely important.
Otherwise, just like Surface, Microsoft will keep the Xbox around, it's brand/platform helps sell more services, so losses on the hardware is okay.



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

Natsu said:
SegataSanshiro said:
He wants to do away with single player games so either he or Xbox may not last much longer. This kind of thinking killed Phantom Dust and Scalebound. meanwhile the highest rated games this year and best selling are single player games. He needs to rethink his stance.

When and where did he ever say anything that would lead to you thinking he wants to do away with single player games?

Recent interview. He wants Xbox to become more of a Netflix for games and focus more on Multiplayer games and less SPGs.

http://n4g.com/news/2053341/did-you-hear-single-player-games-are-dead

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/27/xbox-chief-netflix-video-games-episodes-subscription-downloads-phil-spencer



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Pemalite said:
niceguygameplayer said:

Exclusives still matter. Phil doesn't seem to get that. Also, he seems to fail to recognise that ppl still want single player games too. I prefer single player games with deep stories myself.

He does understand that exclusives still matter.

He also doesn't discount that people still want single player games and he even stated he prefers single player games over multiplayer games himself.
I think people have twisted and blown his single vs multiplayer statements out of proportion.

It's a fact that in general multiplayer games tend to draw in bigger crowds, sell more copies than a single player experience.
Take Overwatch for example at something like 30? Million copies. Even the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty are popular because of their multiplayer and not the singleplayer...
Of course you have the likes of Horizon and Zelda, but for every one of those games you have 10X big multiplayer games.

In general it's hard to dispute that multiplayer games are dominating the industry right now and that's the point he is making.

niceguygameplayer said:

Also, there are little Japanese games (my favorite) on XB1. Phil took a trip to Japan recently. Maybe he is just realizing his mistakes. I hope his trip made a difference. Hopefully there will be many more Japanese games coming to Xbox.

Xbox is never going to be big in Japan. The Japanese seem to be fairly xenophobic, I would love to see more Japanese games on the platform... But after three console generations if you expect the Xbox to be a Japanese game powerhouse, then you are kidding yourself, it's never going to happen. And that's okay.

niceguygameplayer said:

With the Nintendo Switch, XB1 is now running 3rd place weekly. Crackdown and Sea of Thieves won't be near enough. Phil still has a chance however!

I agree, Crackdown and Sea of Thieves won't be enough. They don't seem to have much in the way of Hype surrounding them either.
I hope they are both extremely successfull, especially in regards to Sea of Thieves, would hate to see Microsoft close down Rare.

niceguygameplayer said:

1. Stop with the PC crap. If someone is going to pay high dollar for Scorpio, you might as well invest in a PC instead if the games are coming to PC too. Make the Scorpio games exclusive, or at least 6 month timed exclusive. I mean Xbox exc!usive, not just Scorpio. That brings me to my second point.

As a PC gamer I will own both a Scorpio and a PC. I like my games on both paltforms so I can seamlessly move between them.

niceguygameplayer said:

2. Have Scorpio games be compatible with XB1 for one year so that XB1 owners will get five full years of support. Then go to Scorpio games only, because it is powerful enough to be next generation. Staying XB1 compatible will hold it's potential back... and sales.

It really isn't powerful enough to be classed as next-gen.

niceguygameplayer said:

3. Do not price Scorpio higher than $450. Even if it means short term loss, it will get the system out there. Remember guys, PS4 Pro could be cut to $350 with Horizon packed in.

I don't think you understand the point of Scorpio if you expect a low price?

niceguygameplayer said:

4. Get more games out! This E3 had better be full of new game announcements.

Yasss. More games are good.

niceguygameplayer said:

5. Get aggressive again. Get Call of Duty back in 2018 for a start. It's a sales console war. Start acting like it Phil. He seems to be a nice guy, but nice won't win the console war.

Ehh. Microsoft seems to have drifted towards Battlefield instead anyway, which is Call of Duty's main competitor.
Leverage that partnership instead.


craighopkins said:
He seems to be letting rare do its thing and he gave us halo wars 2

Halo Wars sold pretty terribly though didn't it? Even on PC I don't think it did well.

craighopkins said:
Killer Instinct was awesome too, so he know hardcore fans need games. I think he has plans for fable

Killer Instinct is probably the best fighting game of the generation.
Hopefully they do bring Fable back for a 4th entry, but how good will it be without Lionhead at the helm?

LudicrousSpeed said:
Xbox still makes money. He has done a phenomenal job cleaning up the mess of Mattrick. I don't think he is on any tight rope of any sort.

Agreed. I think the Xbox has done well considering how badly it did initially.

Snoopy said:

I liked Halo 5 (sp story was meh, but the mp was better than the previous Halo games). What Phil needs to do is keep investing into service based games, because that is the future.

Halo 5 was horrible.
The campaign was garbage and the Multiplayer was minimal/bare-bones and lacked basic features like Split Screen and Forge.
It only had a tiny selection of maps and the Multiplayer got infected with Microtransactions.
The graphics were also pretty mediocre, but that was a compromise to hit the 60fps target, even though the entire game doesn't run at 60fps anyway.

Sure, they have invested time and money to turn that around, but they did end up bleeding allot of gamers who moved onto other games.

niceguygameplayer said:

Billions? Are you sure? I don't know about that lately. Anyway, they could do much better. Phil has done well, but maybe someone else needs to take the wheel now. To take them to the next level. 

At this point I think this generation has been sealed. I don't think you can do anything to change things around substantually.
Just try and keep current gamers happy, maybe draw in a few more and start planning for next gen.

S.T.A.G.E. said:
Hes better than Mattrick, but he still has not fixed Microsoft's first party problem and keeps relying on third party to create IP (which means they are beholden to their effort and talents for sequels. 

If anything he has potentially made the 1st party issue even more severe by closing down a few studios.

Nothing wrong with sequels though. Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassins Creed, FarCry, Halo, Gears, Forza and more have been stupidly successfull because of that. It's when you don't have anything to break the cycle that things gets tiring.

thismeintiel said:
I doubt his job is in trouble. I think the HW division of Xbox is, though. If Scorpio does little to nothing for the XBO's sales, then MS is going to seriously reconsider having a XB2 come out. Sales that are really declining lately. We're probably going to see two months in a row, now, that the XBO hasn't been in the Top 100 on Amazon, while the Switch and PS4 remain in the Top 20. And when this is your strongest region and right now the #100 thing for the month is a cheap 3rd party Joy-con Wheel peripheral, that's not good.

Microsoft has attempted to hide any financial losses by juggling the Xbox between departments during financial briefings.

I don't think the Hardware Division of Xbox is in trouble though, I think at most it might be spun off into it's own entitiy where profit becomes extremely important.
Otherwise, just like Surface, Microsoft will keep the Xbox around, it's brand/platform helps sell more services, so losses on the hardware is okay.

Some mp games sell better not all. Don't forget ther e are games like Evolve, Battleborn, Street Fighter 5 etc. 

 

Then you have single player games like Bloodborne, Fallout, Skyrim, Witcher 3, Uncharted 4 etc that all sold really well thanks to their sp campaigns. 

 

A game will sell well whether it's mp or sp focused based on the quality and marketing it receives. 



Pemalite said:
niceguygameplayer said:

Exclusives still matter. Phil doesn't seem to get that. Also, he seems to fail to recognise that ppl still want single player games too. I prefer single player games with deep stories myself.

He does understand that exclusives still matter.

He also doesn't discount that people still want single player games and he even stated he prefers single player games over multiplayer games himself.
I think people have twisted and blown his single vs multiplayer statements out of proportion.

It's a fact that in general multiplayer games tend to draw in bigger crowds, sell more copies than a single player experience.
Take Overwatch for example at something like 30? Million copies. Even the likes of Battlefield and Call of Duty are popular because of their multiplayer and not the singleplayer...
Of course you have the likes of Horizon and Zelda, but for every one of those games you have 10X big multiplayer games.

In general it's hard to dispute that multiplayer games are dominating the industry right now and that's the point he is making.

The problem at hand is that Xbox fans are not supporting exclusives as much as they should (and the Xbox One is outselling the 360), let alone single player exclusives. This time last gen (third year)Halo was selling record breaking numbers. Its not all Phils fault. The guy tried. He got Ryse, Sunset Overdrive and Quantum Break and the fans did not respond promptly like all the other fans did of other brands to single player experiences.



Hmm. I think if scorpio doesn't turn things around, I wouldn't be surprised if he steps down. He's doing better than the last guy but that's not good enough in all honesty. Offering xbox exclusives on windows 10, closing studios, still focusing on the us too much, not getting Japanese games, not producing enough 1st party games are all dumb ideas.



He is a nice guy.



Aeolus451 said:
Hmm. I think if scorpio doesn't turn things around, I wouldn't be surprised if he steps down. He's doing better than the last guy but that's not good enough in all honesty. Offering xbox exclusives on windows 10, closing studios, still focusing on the us too much, not getting Japanese games, not producing enough 1st party games are all dumb ideas.

If Microsoft does not produce at least one hot new IP this gen that they can define their brand with, they are in serious trouble. This is Sonys third year...and we all know what that means. Almost all of their developers are ready with something new. This is the same year Sony started closing the gap with the 360 because of exclusives. Now imagine what will happen when they are in the lead. They will pull alway from Microsoft, even further.