Phil Spencer Spends 'Zero Energy' on Console Wars - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 March 2022 / 2,985 Views
Head of Xbox Phil Spencer in an interview in the latest issue of Edge magazine (and transcribed by VideoGamesChronicle) was asked if Xbox is still part of console wars and he says he doesn't spend any energy thinking about it.
"I spend zero energy on 'how do I make other gaming platforms smaller so that Xbox gets bigger,'" Spencer said. "I'm more interested in the growing pie of gaming than I am our slice of the pie-eating into someone else's.
"And it's why we focus on things like cross-play and cross-saves. I think about these scenarios of why you and I maybe can't play a game together, and it shouldn't be because of the console you bought versus the console I bought."
He added, "That doesn't help the industry grow, when we put artificial barriers up on those things. Whether that means we're doing something different than the other guys, you'd have to ask them. But I'd say for us, it's not about somebody else getting smaller so that we get bigger."
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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They don't want to eat into anyone else's pie, they just want to buy the pie and keep it to themselves.
'Guys, um, what exactly does winning a console gen feel like?'
'Like warm apple pie!'
'Yeah?'
'Yeah!'
'Apple pie, huh?'
'Uh huh!'
'..........McDonalds or homemade?'
'Gentleman. Destiny awaits.'
'Cortana, I'm home.'
'AHH...... Phil?......'
'It's not what it looks like!'
'Well.... we'll just say that uh, that uh, we bought it all.'
In simpler words, they don't care what the opposition does, they only care about their growth.
Sure, them sign exclusivity with TR to have something to compete with Uncharted on Holiday, say they are looking at achieving what Sony have with their first party. Sure they totally don't care about what competition does. No company ever can afford to not care about what competitors do.
They actually helped fund TR so their is a lot more to it than that. If you read the articles you would know. PS could go on to sell 150m Consoles this gen, Xbox will just praise them for doing so. They care, just not in the fanboy console war way you want to care by. And that's why you hate Phil, he doesn't follow your mislead logic of this fantasy console war analogy.
The game was near finished, the help MS gave for fund was at most on Marketing, there was absolutely zero need of MS money to finish the game, and even MS themselves confessed they wanted something to compete with Uncharted, but sure ignore that if you prefer.
Show me your source where MS confessed to this? The articles i found say they helped fund development hence the Time Exclusivity. Sony do the exact same things with SF5 and FF7 and even worse, make them permanent exclusives.
Ill digress, what do you think buying timed exclusives do? It helps bring in growth, which is the entire point. MS/Xbox will do things that will help boost the growth of their departments. Its not about outselling the competition, its about making as much money as they can.
MS don't care about this console war garbage. If they really cared, they would have either brought Sony out when their shares were trash or simply give out their consoles to everyone for free to say they sold more consoles to win this war, you know why they don't do that? Because the entire point of the industry is to make money, not waste it to claim a made up trophy for fanboys. If they really cared, why do they continue to support Xbox games on Playstation? They don't care, they make more money doing it.
In other words, Xbox don't care what Sony do. All MS care about is how to gain more revenue.
https://gamerant.com/tomb-raider-vs-uncharted-xbox-exclusive/ took 5s to find and you were on the forum at the time, possibly even defended the action but now forgot it?
MS reason to enter console space was fear of consoles dominating the living room, they tried to purchase Nintendo and were laughed at, so yes try again with "if they wanted they would have bought Sony as a whole".
Don the article states that the next TR might not have been funded by Enix if MS didnt step in. Also competing with another game has little to do with what the subject is about. If it works than why not.
MS entered the console industry to push thier Direct X/Windows platforms, something Sega was doing until they dropped out.
They make decisions on what will boost their revenue. You honestly don't believe they spend millions just to piss off Sony and thier fanboys.. do you?
Who said anything about pissing out fanboys?
Im asking you, is that what you think they do? Over running a giantantic business and trying to grow even further?
No one said that, so I have no idea where did you got the idea I think that. But sure you'll have a reason on why the only way for Phil or MS to invest more than 0 energy in console war is if they do things exclusively to piss off fanboys.
Just so you remember those ads from Sega with "Genesis do what Nintendon't" were very much fueling console wars even though their purpose wasn't solely pissing Nintendo fanbase.
The Sega add was created to sell more Genesis systems. That was the entire point of it. Also that was a very different console era.
Remember when Sony recorded Crash Bandicoot at the Nintendo HQ?
"I spend zero energy on 'how do I make other gaming platforms smaller so that Xbox gets bigger"
"I'm more interested in the growing pie of gaming than I am our slice of the pie-eating into someone else's.
Buy Bethesda, a major publisher of multi-platform games, and make their games exclusive!
Phil, please, your words are pure hypocrisy...stop trying to give this false image that xbox has some kind of "Fairplay"! Xbox would be 100% sure to completely destroy the competition's "slice of the pie" if it made economic sense and there was an opportunity!
The same goes for nintendo and Playstation! There is no "Fairplay" in this market, there is one who dominates in a "Y" way and those who want to dominate in an "X" way! They will do everything possible to increase their market dominance, and yes, that includes "make other gaming platforms smaller so that (insert name here) gets bigger", the market has always been like this, and will continue to be for a long time to come!
Phil is a great leader who is doing wonders for Xbox, but that kind of talk is absolute bullshit!
Seriously! He really needs to stop this kind of PR talk. Advertise the hell out of the Xbox brand about the first-party games that are on the platform and those are coming out. Talk about the options you have to play Xbox games and how you don't need an actual Xbox console. You could play on your phone, tablet, PC, web browser, and soon on smart tv's.
Enough of this spin of "artificial barriers" when he's doing just that lol. I have more Xbox first-party games I'm looking forward to personally, not including Bethesda games, than Sony's or Nintendo's because Phil has done a great job in getting great services and great games to gamers. Focus on bringing in more now. Not looking like a savior to bring everyone together lol business is business and his mantra doesn't fool anyone.
Console war and fanboys are about making the "OTHER" one look bad, shitty etc... And spending much of the time bitching the opponent.
There is a difference between wasting time/energy like console war fanboys are doing and making platform/console the best, bigger, etc (Microsoft and Sony are both doing that and it is the right thing to do for a business). Some decisions may be hurting the other side (and nobody will argue against that) but the main goal is to make your side better, not the opposite...
You people are just jumping at it and mixing up fanboys/console wars with business decisions and brand success; and you just demonstrated it... Phil is right, he is spending 0 energy on console wars, fanboys are, mainly on forums :)
Um Sony did that during ps1, ps2 era. How else did thst all those first party studios. Its what you do.
It could all be true, though. Phil Spencer might spend zero effort on the console wars, and all his time on growing the pie. Was he the one who pushed for the Bethesda acquisition? Or was that another leader/team's job?
In any case, Sony fans spent the Xbox One (and later portion of the 360) era criticizing the Xbox for not having the same wealth of exclusive games as Sony. So someone at Microsoft decided to do something about it. And then they complain that Microsoft did something about it.
And I don't know what exclusive means anymore when Bethesda games are on Xbox, PC, game streaming to almost every device you can imagine, and some of them even on PS.
And Microsoft allowed Bethesda to push out a free updates to PC, a recent one being a Doom Eternal upgrade that might have been a $10+ upgrade if it had been a Sony first-party release. Seems pretty neighbourly to me.
Buying Bethesda is so they can grow GP and thier ecosystem. Casualties will be made to achieve that goal.
The fact that he works for Microsoft, a company infamous for using a strategy known as "embrace, extend, and extinguish," makes it completely impossible to take words like this at face value.
Ori developer gave their thoughts on this very interview about artificial barriers and don't believe Phil's words hold any weight: "Microsoft is in this weird ‘between a Rock and a hard place’ position where they’re saying that this is the vision they want to see happening in the future, no artificial walls, no boundaries, but then they’re not necessarily acting accordingly"
Article - https://exputer.com/news/industry/ori-dev-criticizes-microsoft-for-creating-artificial-barriers/
Color me surprised.
Lol Ori devs are pointing out that all companies have artificial barriers and even says Sony and Nintendo are guilty for the exact same thing, and that they are afraid of change. Guess lets not bring that up.
Spoke about preservation earlier, halo unavailable on disk.
Good that he can give jabs and BS remarks and PR with zero energy and Xbox promoting some twiter and yt accounts that do engage on console wars. Imagine if he really used energy on it.
Phill is a big chunnyoubi that is full of himself and really seems to believe he is above everything so he don`t see the faults of what he do.
Give us some examples?
im sure the shareholders love that statement!
Zero energy?
That’s why he lost :)
"He" lost what?
Oh. The console wars you are fighting on the forums? :)
Exactly!
The war that resulted in Xbox losing to Playstation and Nintendo.
I'm not sure what war in the forums you are talking about.
Dude, you are the "definition" of console wars with your 2 posts...
There is only a war or 'console winning/losing' in your head cause you need to feel good about your plastic box selling more than another one... Nobody is losing to anyone, other than in your head and all the people upvoting you. The market is very healthy and profitable for all 3.
I've gotta say, this is an example of one of the good things that comes from Microsoft being in the gaming business. They have extremely deep pockets, and they are company that has historically laid very long-term plans. So, I believe him that they are genuinely interested in growing the gaming business.
They certainly believe in their plans for the future, and think they have compelling offerings for gamers going forward. Therefore, it would probably make Microsoft happy anytime someone new moves into the gaming hobby, even if their entry is with a competitor's product. Obviously, they'd rather sell them an Xbox. But, just by having one new gamer created, that's one new potential customer for them to sell to later on.
All business people I know do get some feeling of accomplishment by beating their competitors. But, as a lifelong business person myself, I can tell you that every good business person is much more focused on their own company. So the real focus is not on beating your competitors, it's on growing your own business. If Microsoft can increase their growth rate by 10%, for example, they're not going to be upset that Sony grows theirs by 20%. They'll certainly try to figure out what they can do to catch or surpass Sony. But, it's not going to be an attempt to bring down Sony sales. That doesn't help Microsoft.
Except those Billions MS invested were mostly buying what is already existing instead of creating, so they aren`t really bringing more to gaming, just picking for themselves.
This direction of Xbox is exactly what the industry needs. Move away from the childish console wars and focus on bringing more games to everyone. At the end of the day, its just a plastic box with a brand on it. If a Blu Ray player can play all DvDs and Blu Ray disks, i don't see why a gaming console cant either.
Allow all games to be played on any console the customer deems worthy value to them, this will mean that hardware giants can focus more on creating even better hardware than their opposition to earn there customers, like adding more added features and performance etc. Just like when you buy a 4k Blu Ray player, no exclusive, it all comes down to the quality and value of the product.
I disagree I don't think the industry needs what Xbox is providing. In fact it's not even a disagreement it's a fact. Gaming is bigger than ever and this is before gamepass even got started and it's only continuing to grow with Sony and Nintendo at the top of that growth.
While allowing games to be played on anything is great devs being able to develop one game for only one system is also a positive. It allows them to focus on one piece of hardware instead of several different pieces of hardware. You might even say it's the primary reason so many of Sonys first party IPs are of such high quality that even MS admits they can't produce anything on that level.
I think what MS is doing is great and I'm glad they are recommitted to PC gaming which is my primary platform. At the same time though what Sony is doing and did during the PS4 gen can't be dismissed. They released a ton of high quality titles on their system .
I`m pretty sure there are still some people over there that truly believes he is a good guy.
let's hope he doesn't end up on youtube being caught out
