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www.ign.com

Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out, Matt Booty Promoted as Microsoft AI Exec Asha Sharma Named New Xbox Boss – EXCLUSIVE - IGN

Big changes are being made at the top of Microsoft's gaming division.
www.ign.com www.ign.com

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People who have been calling for Spencer's head for the last few years are about to learn just how much worse it gets. Xbox made some bad calls over the years (betting the farm on gamepass, 80 billion dollar acquisition and more) but ultimately Spencer was a person who cared about games. His replacement is only going to care about money, and the difference will become apparent very soon.
 
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lashman said:
www.ign.com

Phil Spencer Retiring, Sarah Bond Out, Matt Booty Promoted as Microsoft AI Exec Asha Sharma Named New Xbox Boss – EXCLUSIVE - IGN

Big changes are being made at the top of Microsoft's gaming division.
www.ign.com www.ign.com
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  • (Not defending an exec, just sharing facts.) Phil has been with Xbox from the start. Helped OG Xbox and X360 expand in other regions outside US. Took charge after the disastrous Don Merrick era. Opened the ecosystem for Xbox ( Eg. advocating for crossplay), almost too much. Helped with ID@Xbox program, Adaptive Controller, Backwards Compatibility and Game Pass. Pushed for Minecraft to become the global phenomenon. Also led gobbling of studios, leading to this mess. I will fault him fumbling Xbox brand post-2020. But, I won't fault him for rest of the things.
  • Matty Booty needs more scrutiny. Midway closed under his leadership. After he headed Microsoft Game Studios, all interesting games that came from 360 Era suddenly stopped. Now guy got a golden parachute to being an AI exec (currently possibly one of the highest paying roles on earth)
  • Idk what Sarah Bond did. Current Xbox is either by Phil + Booty decisions running course or Bond making it worse. Her resignation doesn't inspire confidence either.
 
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AHA-Lambda said:
Following my post earlier about Sony, was thinking should put my money where my mouth is and pick up the off kilter games of theirs from years ago I’ve not played

Sackboy, SOTC, Gravity Rush

And then I see the PS3 section with games like Puppeteer and Rain.
Fuck sake Sony, the PS3 legacy is so tarnished and it’s their own fault

Jesus Christ that is grim watching. Like we all know things are tough but all of it laid out like this fuck it’s bad
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Nice to see someone mention Rain. Puppeteer despite being very underrated still gets mentioned but sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who played Rain.
 
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Seems like they did their best when following after SEGA and when that ran its course they shat the bed. Whatever happens is a direct follow up of the current seemingly unfixable situation that may as well be spelling the end of Xbox, at least in the form previous followers cared, even if the name persists in other bs...
 
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Phil did a lot to save Xbox's image post Xbox One's horrific launch, but that Activision Blizzard deal sealed their fate. The shareholders demanded immediate revenue after that big acquisition, Xbox started porting everything into Playstation and Phil's power was undermined. Retiring makes sense, why keep trying to save a dying brand when you can just retire with the bazillion dollars he made at Microsoft.
 
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Sobatronix said:
Phil did a lot to save Xbox's image post Xbox One's horrific launch, but that Activision Blizzard deal sealed their fate. The shareholders demanded immediate revenue after that big acquisition, Xbox started porting everything into Playstation and Phil's power was undermined. Retiring makes sense, why keep trying to save a dying brand when you can just retire with the bazillion dollars he made at Microsoft.
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Phil is also the one who was like "hey lets pivot to doing stuff on PC" and then completely stopped paying attention to that until there were Windows handhelds he could take on business trips.
 
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Sobatronix said:
Phil did a lot to save Xbox's image post Xbox One's horrific launch, but that Activision Blizzard deal sealed their fate. The shareholders demanded immediate revenue after that big acquisition, Xbox started porting everything into Playstation and Phil's power was undermined. Retiring makes sense, why keep trying to save a dying brand when you can just retire with the bazillion dollars he made at Microsoft.
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Guy also helped with European expansions of OG Xbox and X360. No one could've handled Don Merrick's disaster, yet he took charge some how. Guy also pushed for accessibility with Adaptive Controller and push for crossplay.

You should definitely fault him for post-2020 Xbox mess. But you can't ignore the other stuff.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Matt Booty and Bond deserve more scrutiny.
 
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Phil Spencer can eat shit. Just a series of baffling decisions and massive layoffs, that, as the head of Xbox, he's directly responsible and accountable for.

Xbox might die for sure now, though. But who gives a shit, they can burn until Microslop stops being a genocide collaborator (so they will burn for eternity it seems).
 
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It's probably an unpopular opinion but I couldn't care less about any of the console manufacturers woes. The drama is fun, don't get me wrong, but if they all went away tomorrow I wouldn't lose a single second of sleep.
The industry doesn't need them like it did before, it's not 2005 anymore. Big publishers had their place and use in the past, nowadays?... I have serious doubts about their overall utility.
 
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Todd Howard is right there. He is far more deserving of leading Xbox than whoever these other people are.

I don't really see it getting worse tho. They can't sell hardware for shit and they priced everyone out of gamepass ruining a good thing.

They've been at rock bottom for years now so only way they can go is up.

The only splash they can make going forward is Bethesda. Make ES6 a new hardware launch title and push out some cheap Xbox to as many people as you can. But cheap seems to no longer be an option for this industry so yea...they will probably just be third party only soon and kill hardware all together.
 
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Dinjoralo said:
Phil is also the one who was like "hey lets pivot to doing stuff on PC" and then completely stopped paying attention to that until there were Windows handhelds he could take on business trips.
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We've gotten so used to getting first party console games on PC that we've forgotten what a pivotal moment it was when Xbox did it for the first time about a decade ago. They initially tried to set up their own distribution with the Windows store and kept at it for about 3-4 years but it never took off because of the UWP disaster (which was also not their fault). And then they realized that Steam was where the audience was and also went ahead with simultaneous releases. Phil figured out that PC was the way to go to grow their businesss a good few years before it finally dawned upon Sony. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that they stopped paying attention?
 
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spindoctor said:
We've gotten so used to getting first party console games on PC that we've forgotten what a pivotal moment it was when Xbox did it for the first time about a decade ago. They initially tried to set up their own distribution with the Windows store and kept at it for about 3-4 years but it never took off because of the UWP disaster (which was also not their fault). And then they realized that Steam was where the audience was and also went ahead with simultaneous releases. Phil figured out that PC was the way to go to grow their businesss a good few years before it finally dawned upon Sony. I'm not sure what you mean when you say that they stopped paying attention?
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There are many months-long stretches of Xbox not doing anything to improve their shitty app and ecosystem, after they moved away from UWP.

I'm pretty sure Phil does actually play video games in his spare time, on his personal console. He was dogfooding, essentially. But I'm confident he's never played a game on a computer in his life. It's extremely telling that he rarely had anything to say about their PC services until after he got a ROG Ally and Legion Go, at which point he suddenly started bring up specific issues with the Xbox app, and that the pace of updates for it suddenly picked up around the same time.

I also refuse to to accept the notion that their move to PC was really strategic on their part. Xbox putting their games on the Windows Store was likely something they were forced into doing as part of Microsoft's push for UWP and Windows Everywhere. Either that, or it was considered the best option they had when the Xbox One flopped and the audience for their first-party titles became too small to sustain them. Regardless of the reason, moving to Steam is basically the only thing they could do after the Windows Store failed to gain traction. They needed a quick win after two massive back-to-back misfires, and they had already spent years training all their studios to do simultaneous PC releases. Phil didn't figure out shit, he stumbled his way into being in the right place at the right time.
 
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AI tech is getting good enough to do movie fight scenes so its only a matter of time it starts doing something crazy with games. But there will have to be a full on big quality game people play and enjoy a lot before the gaming community is fully convinced.

But really I don't know what Microsoft will do with it. An AI assisted console will be something people disable.

Gamers don't need assistance as most are tech savy enough....so I don't know what Copilot would offer.

It has to be full on games.

I still think the best use of AI will be remaking and remastering games. That is something both devs and gamers will benefit from by feeding current games into a prompt (or wtvr) and getting a modded remake of some kind in return. All this type of stuff will be pioneered in the PC space tho and not consoles so yea even less reason for Xbox to have an AI person at the lead. They need people who can market and sell hardware. That has been their weakness for the past 15 years.
 
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Lashley said:
Somehow, Xbox will get worse.
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That's what I'm worried about. As bad as a gaming executive can be at their job, an executive that comes to gaming from other industries will be so much worse. Bobby Kotick is the most infamous example. When someone has a background in gaming like Spencer there is some hope that they might care about it even a little bit. For an outsider it will be just another business. I am expecting dark days ahead.
 
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I didn't expect Spencer leaving Xbox so soon. I'm not even sure the Activision deal was his idea. Anyway, Microsoft makes so many bad decisions that I haven't bothered playing their games for years. I don't trust them, especially with PC gaming. The moment they have something successful, the enshitification begins. I'm afraid this will only get worse now...
 
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With all this news, I have a dilemma.

It turns out that from my console days (PS2 and Xbox 360), I have a lot of physical games from that era. I'm not worried about the PS2 because it still works perfectly today and I have another one at home, but my Xbox 360 has been giving me a lot of problems for a while now, and if it breaks, I'll have a lot of games that will become nothing more than paperweights.

Is now a good time to buy a secondhand Series X? I see that they are still somewhat expensive. Or would it be more cost-effective to try to find another 360 in good condition or even an Xbox One? I'm not interested in Game Pass or anything like that, I just want to be able to keep playing my 360 games.
 
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Jav said:
With all this news, I have a dilemma.

It turns out that from my console days (PS2 and Xbox 360), I have a lot of physical games from that era. I'm not worried about the PS2 because it still works perfectly today and I have another one at home, but my Xbox 360 has been giving me a lot of problems for a while now, and if it breaks, I'll have a lot of games that will become nothing more than paperweights.

Is now a good time to buy a secondhand Series X? I see that they are still somewhat expensive. Or would it be more cost-effective to try to find another 360 in good condition or even an Xbox One? I'm not interested in Game Pass or anything like that, I just want to be able to keep playing my 360 games.
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Beware that xbox backward compatibility isn't perfect. Series X only supports a number of games.

You can check the compatible games on wikipedia.

List of backward-compatible games for Xbox One and Series X/S - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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Nebulys said:
PlayStation, to me, has always been a pretty special platform.

I generally hate exclusives, but you can't deny that PlayStation exclusives gave the system an identity. And the weird face buttons when everyone else was using letters. And the iconic PS1 boot screen, then the iconic PS2 boot screen.

There truly was something magical about setting up the hardware, switching it on and playing a game you just couldn't get anywhere else. And even if that game wasn't profitable, you knew Sony would continue with the goods because it differentiated their system from anyone else's.

Maybe it's nostalgia talking, but I definitely miss that. They've basically sucked the soul out of PlayStation, starting with PS3's mid-life, and that soul sucking ended when PS5 launched and PlayStation - to me at least - died.

Maybe that's a bit dramatic, but it's really sad to see what the platform has become.
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I bought a PS2 very late in 2009, I think, for 99€.
I played PC games since 1995. I absolutely loved FF8 on PC, so I waited for other FF games to come to PC, but it never materialized, So when I had my first disposable income (that didn't go to being up to date with PC gaming) I bought the PS2 to play all the FF after FFX. I also fell in love with Persona 3 and 4 through that purchase.
When FF13 came out, I bought a PS3 for 299€, MGS4 wasn't to my liking (was bundled) but I was fond of the "Tales of [..}" and Atelier games on the PS3.

That was my last Playstation.
Because 95 and then 99% of games released on PC/Steam after that. Especially the games that I could only get on Playstation.
I couldn't care less about the new Final Fantasy games after 14, they weren't MY FF games anymore.

Playstation will be irrelevant going forward if they don't make a compelling reason to own dedicated hardware. The biggest hold they have on their current fanbase is the library that people have build up. But how long can they count on that when the fans of the (very narrow) types of games that have defined them in the PS3 and PS4 generation have to wait for 7-15 years for a new game from their beloved franchise?
 
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MegaApple said:
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Oh I absolutely believe they were both forced out in a "we will give you the opportunity to jump before you're pushed" kind of manner.

Phil leaving has been speculated for a while but nothing concrete really behind it seemingly, but both of them having immediate effect absences at the same time? And nary a mention of Sarah in the statements is just deafening.
The difference for Phil is he has had such a long tenure with MS he can retire rather than resign.

Bluntly I wouldn't be surprised if the next xbox is canned, which was always a consideration anyway but between this and RAM crisis, yeah...
 
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I thought about that Im very happy I never truly invested in the Xbox ecosystem. I have a bunch of games bought digitally and physically, but the majority of them I rebought elsewhere (Steam), however the few Xbox only games that I have will suddenly now be unplayable the day my One X dies as there's no shop that sells Xbox consoles where I live.

Imagine having bought hundreds of digital and physical Xbox games and suddenly not being able to play them because your console dies and noone sells Xbox consoles anymore.
 
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fantomena said:
I thought about that Im very happy I never truly invested in the Xbox ecosystem. I have a bunch of games bought digitally and physically, but the majority of them I rebought elsewhere (Steam), however the few Xbox only games that I have will suddenly now be unplayable the day my One X dies as there's no shop that sells Xbox consoles where I live.

Imagine having bought hundreds of digital and physical Xbox games and suddenly not being able to play them because your console dies and noone sells Xbox consoles anymore.
Click to expand...

"Hey, don't you know, you can buy that $1500+ Xbox branded PC that can play your old xbox console games (or not all, depends on who the fuck knows)"
...
 
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Jav said:
With all this news, I have a dilemma.

It turns out that from my console days (PS2 and Xbox 360), I have a lot of physical games from that era. I'm not worried about the PS2 because it still works perfectly today and I have another one at home, but my Xbox 360 has been giving me a lot of problems for a while now, and if it breaks, I'll have a lot of games that will become nothing more than paperweights.

Is now a good time to buy a secondhand Series X? I see that they are still somewhat expensive. Or would it be more cost-effective to try to find another 360 in good condition or even an Xbox One? I'm not interested in Game Pass or anything like that, I just want to be able to keep playing my 360 games.
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Physical games are a bit of a trap, unless you like having them for decoration.

True control/sovereignty over your game collection comes when you can emulate them in an open platform.

Xbox 360 emulation is quite good nowadays. I’d recommend travelling in that direction.
 
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I currently only have 2 games installed on my PS5: Astro Bot and Demons Souls, I uninstalled Death Stranding 2 when the PC version was announced, only played like 10 min of it.

I started up my PS5 today to try Demons Souls knowing the remake is at the lowest point of having a change of coming to Steam.

Then I got an update for it and it seems like Sony has made every single online element require PS Plus to be used, at first it thought it was logical (despite it being sad), but I never got that message before and I haven't had PS Plus for at least 6+ years.

Or the update fucked the game in some other way I haven't found yet.

So I started playing it offline and then it reminded me how good the game would look and play on PC.

And that made me even more sad so I quit.

dramatic-cry.gif


go fuck yourself Sony. At least you could have made Bluepoint port the game to Steam before you killed the talented studio you stupid cunts.
 
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