I don't think anyone would like Mattrick more than Spencer. Mattrick is an idiot and should have never been put in charge of xbox.

The beginning of the 360 was not great.  Sure, they tried harder in Japan, but it didn't work.  And not only did you have some horribly rushed HW that lead to RROD, but the 360 did less than 8M in its first 2 years on the market.  In comparison, the $200 more expensive PS3 did over 9M in its first 2 years.  The Mattrick era oversaw the revision on HW to fix RROD and the release of the 3 tier 360 model that led it to sell 11M in 2008.  It also sold on par with the first 2 years in just 2007, when he took over.  And while I dislike the Kinect, you can not ignore that it lead to increased interest and sales in the 360.  Basically, the beginning of the 360 era was fucked up.  The middle was good.  And then the ending sucked, too, since MS was focusing more on getting ready for the XBO and far less exclusives were launching.

Of course, just like with the XBO launch, Mattrick was only one spoke on the wheel that really helped and then hurt the Xbox brand.  Ballmer was ultimately in charge.  Spencer played his part in all of that, too.  He wasn't exactly the mail guy when all of this went down.  As someone said in another thread, Spencer just seems like a yes man who is just better at PR than Mattrick.  Mattrick just became the scapegoat to easily push aside the bad policies, as if he was the only one at MS who liked them and OKed them.

Well, I guess it did help some.  But, how much of that was the exclusives on 360 and how much was that because the PS3 was $200 more expensive than the 360?  In the end, stopping the Japanese support was most likely a cost benefit analysis.  It cost them much more to make those games than they were getting back in sales.

When I say 2 years, I mean calender years, not an actual two year period.  Still, if you do the full years, the 360 sold 13.7M, where the PS3 sold 16.6M.  Either way, it's not great. You also can't take everything away from him by using the pipeline argument.  There were a lot of games in the pipeline before Spencer took charge, yet I'm sure we don't take that away from him.  Hell, Spencer probably isn't responsible for much, in terms of games, except maybe cancelling them.

And it sucked because for a year and a half, MS denied any HW issues with the 360.  They claimed it was a very small problem that was due to user error.  Same goes for it scratching discs due to MS buying cheap drives that had little to no stabilization.  Even slight vibrations could cause it to scratch them.  So, that's over a year that people had to buy new systems and games because MS lied about the issue.

To be fair, Spencer can't do much with the Xbox brand because Mattrick dwindled the fanbase so much. If the Xbox was toe to toe with playstation or just a little bit behind, investors would likely pour in more money to make it get ahead of the Playstation, but since the fanbase is half of the PS, investors would just think its a waste of money to catch up with the PS fanbase.

The 360 was out for about 2 years before Mattrick arrived. So, chances are he had nothing to do with them.

He did well with the first Kinect. Did well with some 3rd party deals but.. It's a no for me.

I would say my experience with him was excellent until the Xbox1, though based on what I'm reading that has more to do with him living off of what others had established.

Phil is much more likable, but honestly I feel he's had his priorities for the system ass backwards. He does all kinds of lip service for the importance of exclusives and fun single player experience, but to say they've not delivered is an understatement. While I enjoyed my time with my Xbox360 more than my PS3, I know I'd have serious buyers remorse if I'd not jumped ship back to the PS4 this time around.

In fact, as a PC owner I'm pretty sure if I had to select between the Wii U and Xbox1 with the PS4 being off the table, I'd have gone Wii U. With the Xbox1 they managed to wedge themselves between two systems that both had superior exclusives, but it was weaker than one and more expensive (much of the time) than the other.

Still, I have hope it's all about to turn around. There's a few interesting announced games and the Scorpio actually has me interested.

In hindsight it would have been worth it for MS to pay him $5million a year to stay. 

That's very unfortunate for MS. 

Nope. The one prior to Mattrick was the best. Whoever was responsible for overseeing the original Xbox and launch era 360 Xbox was the best they've had.

I had nothing agaisnt Dons vision. If it went his way we would have gotten a digital world like Steam with no Discs required and newer innovation with Kinect 2.0. Unfortunately now, all we have is two identical consoles that offer nothing but the same things apart from there 1st games.
1 main reason i like the Switch is because its different and is taking risks. Now consoles are just PCs with paywalls. As a PC gamer, consoles (aside from the Switch) dont interest me anymore.
No risk taking from Sony or MS. Just heres more power.

You really can't expect too much from Phil Spencer. That poor guy has to clean up the gigantic mess that Mattrick left. He'll get his chance next gen, but right now, he can't do more than damage control.

Don Mattrick was just horrible. Microsoft worked for a whole decade to build up their brand and it was an uphill battle. They invested countless billions to get a foot in the console market and to be able to compete with Sony. They finally did it and Don Mattrick destroyed all of it in mere days.