Roughly 4 months after the launch of Xbox One, Phil Spencer became the “Head of Xbox”. This comes nearly a year after the disastrous reveal event which left many baffled by Microsoft’s new direction for the Xbox brand. They attempted to walk back on some of the worst concepts they were boasting by the time the console released but there was still a lot wrong and many lost trust in the company that led the previous generation.
In my very personal opinion, being asked to lead Xbox at the start of 2014 seems like a fool’s errand. It’s a task that seemed nigh impossible and incredibly daunting. Needless to say, Spencer had one of the greatest uphill battles to face.
Many believed Xbox One was dead on arrival but Spencer has rebuilt the console and Xbox brand into something unique and incredible. In the last 6 years, he has become a man of the people and separated himself from the typical “suits”.
Spencer helped introduce a number of highly requested features such as backward compatibility for both original Xbox titles and Xbox 360 games. This was something fans were disheartened to learn was both not included on Xbox One at launch but also incredibly difficult to pull off. Phil Spencer helped lead the charge in preserving classic Xbox titles without charging people an extra fee if they already owned the game.
Not only has he done a lot for Xbox but he has helped make major industry-wide changes. Spencer made an extreme push for unified online gaming experiences with things like cross-play. Despite being a very friendly and likable guy, he’s also honest and blunt. For years as cross-play really began to grow as a concept, more and more people demanded the ability to play the top MP games with their friends on other platforms.
Xbox was incredibly open to it and once Nintendo Switch hit, Nintendo was open to the idea as well. Sony’s stubbornness became more and more apparent with Phil Spencer publicly acknowledging this in interviews at events like E3. As time went on, people looked to Spencer’s comments and then back at Sony with confusion and frustration.
After plenty of hoopla, Sony broke. Games like Fortnite, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Rocket League, and more now benefit from cross-play on all available platforms including Xbox and PlayStation. Had Spencer not been blunt with his comments where he expressed his beliefs in limiting opportunities like this for consumers being unhealthy for the industry, we may not have the multiplayer experiences we do now.
That’s not to say he invented cross-play, though. Sony had games like Portal 2 all the way back in 2011 that allowed PS3 players to play with PC players. Spencer simply helped push to create a more unified experience across all platforms.
His opinionated nature has also lessened the prominence of some more “toxic” gaming tropes. Spencer, while aggressive in acquisitions for studios and exclusives, doesn’t want to water down games on other platforms. Microsoft used to hold timed-exclusivity to DLCs like Call of Duty and even Grand Theft Auto IV during the Xbox 360 era. It came as a shock when the Call of Duty deal didn’t renew with Microsoft in 2015 and moved to PlayStation.
Part of this is due to Spencer’s philosophy of not restricting access to content. He has publicly stated he doesn’t like holding back content like skins, maps, characters, or levels so other consoles can’t access them. This is something gamers have always been vocally upset about for years but saw a change with over on Xbox. This made Xbox look like the good guy, becoming more consumer-friendly, so Sony and their partners have made changes to adapt and get with the times.
One of the biggest changes came with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Activision and Sony dropped the idea of timed-exclusive DLC for the first time in over a decade, meaning all maps are available day and date on each console on top of being free of charge. Unfortunately, there is a PlayStation exclusive co-op horde mode that will remain locked to the PS4 for an entire year but this may have been something that had to stay due to contractual obligations.
What’s probably most important about Phil Spencer is that he hasn’t necessarily pioneered a bunch of new and unique ideas but he understands what gamers want. He wants to give them what they want and create a healthy ecosystem. If we as consumers are meant to take what we’re given like children in a school cafeteria and not have a say, we’re going to get a lesser experience.
Spencer understands that and actively looks to engage with the people who invest the most in Xbox with their time and money. This includes developers both big and small, the creative minds delivering the core content that makes up the industry. Because he’s so tapped into what gamers and developers want, he’s able to use his power to make those wants a priority. It’s no longer about suits making decisions in an echo chamber, it’s about a collective, communicative process to shape the industry.
The list of Phil Spencer’s accomplishments goes on and on but in his relatively short time as the Head of Xbox, he has made massive strides for both the Microsoft brand and the industry as a whole. With a new generation on the horizon, Xbox may not always be considered a leader in first-party exclusives that set the world on fire, but they set new standards for the industry as a whole.
