Phil Spencer Admits Xbox One Reveal Led to Lots of Confusion - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 14 August 2019 / 3,270 Views
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer admitted the reveal of the Xbox One in 2013 led to a lot of confusion among the general audience.
Phil Spencer when the Xbox One was unveiled was the VP of Microsoft Studios, where he oversaw upcoming Xbox exclusives. During the Xbox One reveal event Spencer on stage showcased Call of Duty: Ghosts, Forza Motorsport 5, Halo 5: Guardians, and Quantum Break.
"The feedback we got from the employees, maybe said and unsaid, was, 'We've been working really hard for two years to ship this product," Spencer told GameSpot. "You stand on stage at this event and blow up all the good work that we've done by talking about the product in a way that's not really matching what the soul of an Xbox console is about and what our customers are looking for from us.
"I think the team just gets disappointed because they feel let down by the leadership team and I'd say that's the feeling I heard the most from the team. I had people come up emotional, like they're reading the forums and people are accusing us of being dishonest with them or having bad intent with why we were building the product that we were, and if you're a member of the team, you don't necessarily see across everything that's going on."
Spencer also talked about how there was more of a focus on TV and movies when it came to the Xbox One reveal and how there was less of a focus on the games.
"If you go back and watch [the reveal], what you'll see is an event that was very much focused on Xbox as a TV platform," Spencer added. "We showed things like The Price is Right, for instance. In fact, I think the first piece of content that we ever showed on an Xbox One was a TV show."
"If you were an employee in team Xbox, then you were [a part of a team of] thousands of people that work on the Xbox," said Spencer. "But there's like a handful of people that stand in front of cameras, on the stage and talk about things. There can be a divide between, 'Why is that person saying that? That's not the product I'm building,' or, 'Why are we doing that? That's not what I think we should be doing.'"
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Remember the Xbox One X reveal? back than it was promised it would do VR, with Occulus Rifts.... and MineCraft would get a Graphics pack upgrade..... They went back on the VR thing, and cancelled the graphics update to minecraft. They just need to stop over promising, and under delivering things.
One in the hand or two in the bush. Microsoft wanted to expand their market so badly that they ignored the audience they already had, the gamer. The problem there is, that audience is really the only one that's going to be watching the reveal of a new gaming console. They should have cemented gamers first, then tried to expand outward from a secure foundation. Of course, Microsoft is used to dictating terms to consumers in other areas but they found out quickly that people won't just follow along when there is strong competition already in place.
It's a good thing this guy does a new interview every 2-3 days so we can all learn new things, like how it's better to have good games for a console than not. You don't come up with stuff like that without meditation, and concentrated thought. Pretty soon he's going to transmute into a being of pure energy and leave the Earth.
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