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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - I'm starting to give up on Phil Spencer...

Now when Don Mattrick was replaced by Phil Spencer back in 2014, I was giddish. The guy who actually brought us the games... games! He was now the head of Xbox, and I honestly thought things were looking great.

E3 2014 comes, and we see Scalebound, Crackdown 3, Sunset Overdrive, Fable Legends, Ori, and plenty of great 3rd parties. Well today, 2 of those are canceled, and one of them still isn't released. But oh how little we knew...

E3 2015 comes along, and we hear of Xbox 360 B/C!!! HOLY SHIT! That probably won them the conference, but we also had Rise of the Tomb Raider, Halo 5, Rare Replay (holy shit), Cuphead, Sea of Thieves, Recore, Forza 6, and even some GOW 4 gameplay! Well Rise of the Tomb Raider today is a PS4 and PC game, Halo 5, Rare Replay and Forza 6 were decent, Cuphead and Sea of Thieves still hasn't been released, and GOW 4 wasn't out till the end of 2016. So not spectacular overall (in hindsight), but at least we had a big megaton! Probably the best conference they had.

2016 starts with shock. Fable Legends is cancelled, and Lionhead closes down. I honestly couldn't believe it. They had been there almost since the beginning, and now they were gone. I didn't know what to believe, except that MS probably thought Fable was going poorly, and decided to scrap the whole project and liquidate the studio. I was unhappy, but that was only the beginning.

E3 2016, and it is a little bit eh. Yeah, we see GOW4 (which was announced the year before) and Forza Horizon 3, but those were expected. We saw more Recore gameplay (once again, a game already announced), as well as Scalebound (which is cancelled now), so overall not that great (though Halo Wars 2 was a welcoming inclusion). Scorpio announcement was great, but overall a big step down from 2015, and honestly disappointing. 

So it is 2017. We see Scalebound cancelled, and now I really start to get mad. Its been 3 years, and 2 major titles from 2014 are gone! I was mad, but I held my head and hoped for an amazing E3...

...that we never got.

E3 2017 was by far the biggest mix of disappointment you could imagine. Instead of giving us new first party IPs, we see a slew of 3rd party timed exclusives that are either already on PC or are indie titles. For the whole year, we have 3 AAA exclusive titles (and thats if you count PC). We've gone from a slew of great games to just 3. We didn't see any surprise 343 announcement (which we were told of), we didn't see the "greatest lineup of gaves", we only saw disappointment. To make things worse, the Scorpio was announced with a $500 ($600 CAD) price tag. So you have a powerful console, but with no first party titles to show it off. Terrible, just terrible. This was by far their worst E3 since 2013, and honestly I really can't defend it.

And at the heart of this is Phil Spencer. Now I use to feel a little sympathy for his positon - being in a company were higher ups can end you at any moment, it sucks. But over his 3 year tenure at the brand, we've seen a gradual DECLINE in the amount of games we see, we've seen major studios CLOSE under his direction, exclusives have been cancelled...

...it goes on and on. The terrible mistake of announcing a 2nd console at $500, even though they KNEW the Xbox One did horrible at that price point makes me wonder what MS was thinking. The reason I don't say you Phil is because of your reaction to the announcement, you knew it was too expensive, and you tried to shove it to the side. 

In the end, Phil is nothing but a corporate mouthpiece. He won't stand up for the brand like Peter Moore did, and he certainly won't try to do what gamers want. But, I will give you ONE more chance Phil. One more chance to prove that you can do this brand right. E3 2018. And I will know for certain if your years at Xbox did shit.

But so help me god, if E3 2018 is as bad as this one, I will never, ever, invest in this brand, because I honestly feel like MS is treating it like it is dying. I will buy Playstation (in case you didn't know, I bought a PS3 at launch, so yes, I was into that bramd at one point), or maybe a PC, but I will not look back. 



Made a bet with LipeJJ and HylianYoshi that the XB1 will reach 30 million before Wii U reaches 15 million. Loser has to get avatar picked by winner for 6 months (or if I lose, either 6 months avatar control for both Lipe and Hylian, or my patrick avatar comes back forever).

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well I don't think they won E3 2015 because of b/c, I think that is a tiny minority opinion given what Sony showed that year

but the main issue, there is only so much one man can do. We will never know how much Phil fights for things, but it's clear overall MS isn't interested in having a great first party lineup. Even what they do have isn't great - crackdown 3 for instance, where was all the destruction they touted 3 years ago, why are the graphics so underwhelming and the city so bland? Seriously, take a look at the in game faces from that trailer, it looks like a 360 game

When Scorpio doesn't move the needle much, I do wonder what kind of appetite MS will continue to have in the console space.



double post

damn site is all over the joint



Papa Phil dun goofed!



celador said:
well I don't think they won E3 2015 because of b/c, I think that is a tiny minority opinion given what Sony showed that year

but the main issue, there is only so much one man can do. We will never know how much Phil fights for things, but it's clear overall MS isn't interested in having a great first party lineup. Even what they do have isn't great - crackdown 3 for instance, where was all the destruction they touted 3 years ago, why are the graphics so underwhelming and the city so bland? Seriously, take a look at the in game faces from that trailer, it looks like a 360 game

When Scorpio doesn't move the needle much, I do wonder what kind of appetite MS will continue to have in the console space.

This makes me feel a little better...

...just a little.



Made a bet with LipeJJ and HylianYoshi that the XB1 will reach 30 million before Wii U reaches 15 million. Loser has to get avatar picked by winner for 6 months (or if I lose, either 6 months avatar control for both Lipe and Hylian, or my patrick avatar comes back forever).

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Phil Spencer just gave the grandest admission that 2017 is going to get swept in exclusives by Sony and Nintendo. LOL I like Phil as a representative, but ....just lol at that conference. They did a good job padding everything out with multiplats though. All Sony had to do is show three AAA games to beat Microsoft imho. Fifteen minutes.



Well with Phil lets see here

Cancelled games like Phantom Dust, Fable Legends, and Scalebound.

Killed any reason to get an Xbox One by giving us Playanywhere

Promises but under delivers more times then Peter Molyneux

Learned nothing from the Xbone Launch by having the most expensive console on the market.

Has yet to successfully launch a new franchise.



Sorry but Phil is a massive Hypocrite, no new 1st party games that he said were so important for Xbox and now all of these garbage time exclusive deals that he said that he hates. Seriously I can't trust no one at Xbox anymore Phil Spencer is all talk and no show.



animegaming said:
Well with Phil lets see here

Cancelled games like Phantom Dust, Fable Legends, and Scalebound.

Killed any reason to get an Xbox One by giving us Playanywhere

Promises but under delivers more times then Peter Molyneux

Learned nothing from the Xbone Launch by having the most expensive console on the market.

Has yet to successfully launch a new franchise.

Play anywhere is a great feature thoug. If you dont want an xbox onbe just play the games on windows 10 no big deal.

OP- Phill sucks but this E3 was one of Microsofts best when it comes to games games games.



animegaming said:
Well with Phil lets see here

Cancelled games like Phantom Dust, Fable Legends, and Scalebound.

Killed any reason to get an Xbox One by giving us Playanywhere

Promises but under delivers more times then Peter Molyneux

Learned nothing from the Xbone Launch by having the most expensive console on the market.

Has yet to successfully launch a new franchise.

+ no (big) japanese rpgs/exclusiv-games. I miss that, the x360 was much better.

My question to Phil Spencer: What is more important to you: New large exclusive games ("AAA games") or backward compatibility? I have the feeling the answer is clear, backward compatibility -.-