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Hiku on 10 May 2024
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Machiavellian said:
Hiku said:

I'm not yet convinced that Phil Spencer agreed with this decision, mainly because of how it contradicts the language Xbox had from a year ago, and because the level of distrust this has caused among the community reflects so poorly on him.

CEO's don't always agree with the decisions made by the suits above them. Because they can lose their job over it when they're made the scapegoat if things turn sour.

I'll see what his initial statement will be, and maybe that will give a hint to whether or not he tried to push back against this. I don't think he will outright ever blame Microsoft though. But it doesn't really matter either way, because if he doesn't hand in his resignation in protest, he may as well have agreed to it.
Do I expect him to do that? Not really. But I'll give him a chance to speak his mind before I write him off.

You guys really need to divest yourself from PR statements that are always made to shine a positive light on everything.  None of those PR statements mean anything when it comes to large corps like MS, and you do not get into a C level position being weak to making decisions that were made by Phil and his team.

From MS financials, it's clear that a change needs to be made.  The issue is that people believe that someone is making these decisions and then telling Phil what to do.  I am saying that Phil has looked at the industry, he has looked at where MS gaming is at including Xbox and all the other studios they have purchased, and he made the decision that this is what is needed to make sure that MS gaming can continue to thrive.

The difference with myself is that I never get emotional over this stuff because I know I just do not have enough of the data.  Meaning that we all just knee jerk and get into our feelings about certain decisions but never really know the full extent why they are made because a lot of times we just do not have the full clear picture.  I have no real opinion yet on these decisions because I do not have full details on the whole story.  We may never get the full details but one thing I am sure of is that everything is from Phil.  We just do not know the full details as to why, but I doubt he was forced but instead came to these decisions because he felt they needed to be done and there is no better time than now.

That's the thing about PR. It's supposed to shine a positive light on everything. This would very obviously have the extreme opposite effect once the closures happened, and he didn't have to say those things. It's now weaponized against him by every news outlet, and quoted under every new tweet made by an Xbox account. The reactions are much stronger and more widespread than they were with the other closures, to a large degree because of what they said.

If we assume this was Phil's idea or decision, do you believe he had any suspicion that he might close down Tango a year later when he made statements like that? I don't.

So it seems something drastically changed in between then and now.
In fact, the recent email from Matt Booty stated that they are now focusing more on "high impact titles" by sacrificing the lesser ones, so we know for a fact that their strategy about nurturing creativity with Gamepass has changed to a notable degree.


But one year is a relatively short span in time to go from "Hi-Fi Rush is a hit in all key aspects", to closing them down. Especially when things proceeded as planned with those games. And when they've been clamoring for a foothold in Japan, or for a game to review well in the past two console generations.

This is not just a feeling people from the outside are getting looking in, but numerous industry veterans have spoken out about believing this was decided from the very top, and why. Here's one example, who worked at both Microsoft and EA.

You mentioned how the emails from the court documents gave you the impression that Phil made all the decisions at that point.
And that doesn't contradict what's presumed to have happened here. This change presumably happened after Xbox became responsible for the $68 Billion aquisition of AKB (coupled with the cost of Bethesda, etc).

Before then Xbox was "barely a rounding error on Microsoft's books", and they let Xbox manage itself for the most part. But this crazy amont came with more scrutiny from Microsoft.

I've never owned an Xbox, and have no interest in the "goodguy Phil" narrative.
The 180 after what they said a year ago with their whole chest makes me lean towards this not being their idea.

Last edited by Hiku - on 10 May 2024