Phil Spencer: First Year of Xbox One was a Cold Dose of Reality - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 September 2021 / 2,615 Views
Head of Xbox Phil in an interview with IGN said the early years of the Xbox One were the most challenging for the team at Xbox and it helped them learn a lot.
"It was such a seminal moment for the team in checking, "what did we stand for? What did we want to be as we went forward?'" Spencer said. "For the brand, it was a challenging year, there was a lot for us to learn."
Following the success of the Xbox 360 Microsoft stumbled out of the gate with the Xbox One with a focus that seemed to be put on the console as an entertainment hub rather than on the upcoming games. The focus on the Xbox Series X|S has been about the games, Game Pass, and backward compatibility.
"So much of what we are today is from that first year of the Xbox One where we got a real cold dose of reality in focusing on not what the customers wanted but what we thought we needed," said Spencer.
Spencer added that the Xbox team today is very different than it was when the Xbox one launched and is in a better position to meet the demands of the Xbox community.
The team at Xbox has been looking to turn things around with a much stronger first-party lineup as the number of first-party studios has grown from 5 a few years ago to 23 today.
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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What an insane turnaround for the Xbox brand since 2013!
Well no, a 180⁰ actually, 360 spin would imply going back where you were in the first place
Preaching the truth there @SKMBlake [ but my reverence was to the xbox 360 it self ]
While they've got a lot of stuff setup for a proper turn around. I'm still waiting for them to actually turn things around. Gamepass is great but what I always loved about my 360 was the games. I didn't get into gaming to save money. I got into gaming to play amazing games and 360 was an amazing console releasing amazing games that I needed to have. I'll never forget seeing Gears for the first time on someones TV and thinking I needed this. I want that company to come back.
So what’s his excuse for the other 6 years of XB1’s fairly subpar generation?
I mean, it seems like they're making more of an effort now, but I feel like the entire Xbox One generation elapsed without anything of note happening. I don't imagine anyone having nostalgia for any Xbox One-specific experiences in ten years.
From what I can tell, there was a combination of things that ruined the X1's first/second party support.
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Underwhelming Flagship Games (Halo 5, Gears of War 4/5, Crackdown 3, etc)
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Low output from certain devs (Rare for example developed 8 X360 games vs 5 X1 games)
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Kinect's rapid growth and failure dooming various studios working on Kinect projects (BigPark, GoodScience, etc)
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Various other Closures and Cancellations (Fable Legends, Knoxville, Scalebound, etc)
Also, I think it's worth noting that although the entire X1 era was a step down from the X360 era for Xbox's 1st/2nd party output, it didn't become REALLY weak until the years from 2017 to 2020 (based on number of games and their general reception). If we're being generous, we could interpret that as them diverting resources to the next generation, much like what Nintendo did with the Switch (though that wouldn't explain their unremarkable launch and 2021 lineup).
It's an uphill battle when things started as poorly as it did. It also has to do with a string of shit luck ie Scalebound cancelled, crackdown 3 development issues, Fable Legends cancelled, less than stellar Halo 5, lack of new killer IP(s). I don't think people realize how close Xbox was to being dropped by MS. It was bad, and with Xbox not getting the full backing of MS until late 2017, they couldn't just go all out prior to it. Obvious with MS full backing going into 2018, it has made a huge difference.
Xbox series x/s 1st year isn't great either,
Seriously no day 1 exclusives?!
Yeah they getting sales from power and the other smaller console (for the budget friendly) but they ain't going nowhere,
They can afford to throw money but that wouldn't lead to success.
Honestly, this entire new gen (even counting the Switch) has had pretty terrible launches in terms of actual exclusives.
It hasn't been a great year for series s/x either. Halo delayed ruined a great launch, no games to show yet. They put emphasis on gamepass which is great for some people, but having a focus of putting out AAA just didn't seem in their/his agenda.
I would say being sold out and selling better than any Xbox before it is pretty good. Halo delayed also saved it from a potential Cyberpunk situation which is was worse. Game Pass is great for most people and the rest of the year is looking pretty solid with games like Halo infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Flight Sim, and plenty of 3rd party exclusives and Game Pass day 1 launches in-between.
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