General Gaming Microsoft Genius (/s) Phil Spencer blames Capitalism

[SuperSpreader]

Phil Spencer blames capitalism for games industry woes: 'I don't get [the] luxury of not having to run a profitable growing business' | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

---

Spencer said publicly traded companies have to show constant growth or else nobody will give them money.

 

 

 

 

[SuperSpreader]

Has he considered laying off executives to help the bottom line? Oh no? Interesting. 

[crispy4000]

I think Phil has yet to answer the question of ‘to what end.’

 

For Games Pass.  For Xbox hardware.  For xCloud.  For their PC storefront / PC Games Pass. For buying Activision-Blizzard.  For furthering the expectation of ports to rival consoles.  For inviting Epic to bring over their storefront.

Perhaps there’s some master plan to it all to dig themselves out of a ditch.  The way things are going, with subscriptions stagnating and cloud gaming meeting indifference, it’s hard to see the endgame.

[SuperSpreader]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

For Games Pass.  For Xbox hardware.  For xCloud.  For their PC storefront. For buying Activision-Blizzard.  For putting more would-be exclusives on rival consoles.  For inviting Epic to bring over their storefront.

Perhaps there’s some hidden master plan to it all to dig themselves out of a ditch.  The way things are going, with subscriptions stagnating, cloud gaming meeting indifference and more games being ported, it’s very hard to see the endgame.

 

Jack: Richard, I don't think you understand what the product is. The product isn't the platform, and the product isn't your algorithm, either. And it's not even the software. Do you know what Pied Piper's product is, Richard?

Richard: Is... Is it me?

Jack: Oh God! No! No. How could it possibly be you? You got fired. Pied Piper's product is its stock.

 

 

 

[Paperclyp]

I don’t see a lot of wrong in what Phil said. He’s giving an honest pragmatic answer. Would people prefer he lie?

[AbsolutSurgen]

His problem is that everything MS has done since the X360 gen has largely failed. He needs to look in the mirror to see what their problem is. 

[crispy4000]

3 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

I don’t see a lot of wrong in what Phil said. He’s giving an honest pragmatic answer. Would people prefer he lie?

Be honest that they've had very limited success in growing the gaming populace since Xbox became a thing.  His desires for the industry would ring less hollow.

[Xbob42]

7 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

His problem is that everything MS has done since the X360 gen has largely failed. He needs to look in the mirror to see what their problem is. 

I dunno, Game Pass seems to have done alright, as has moving their games to more platforms. Dude's only been in charge for a single console launch.

 

Hard for me to look at their "main" competition in Sony and think any better. They've gutted their most creative teams and most of their AAA releases are third-person Sony sludge that all feel very samey.

 

Only big boy out there still trying new and interesting shit is Nintendo, and we all know neither company would dare copy Nintendo on any more than a superficial, corporate "I don't really understand why this is successful but it looks similar" level.

This is all from my personal perspective of what I want to play and actually care about. Don't give two shits about what is successful in terms of business, that ain't my problem. But yes, in general, our bizarre stock-market-centric world is very antithetical to creative endeavors, or doing anything but seeking growth for all eternity, at the cost of literally anything else.

[crispy4000]

2 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I dunno, Game Pass seems to have done alright, as has moving their games to more platforms.

Games Pass has reportedly plateaued on both console and PC.  (As has PS+.)

 

Quote

Recently, however, subscription spending has plateaued. US consumer spending on video game subscription services has settled in at around $400 million per month after having first reached that level in November of 2021. Subscription fatigue, fewer available dollars for discretionary spending due to higher food and gas prices, slow mass market adoption of cloud gaming and a strong slate of new premium releases may be contributing factors to the slowdown.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/the-us-video-game-industry-gets-back-to-growth

 

They probably need sell more consoles to grow it.  Hard to do that from 3rd place when you make exclusives less of a thing.

 

The other option is to continue to raise prices on us.  Or offer less… which they already are to indie developers.

[Paperclyp]

8 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

Be honest that they've had very limited success in growing the gaming populace since Xbox became a thing.  His desires for the industry would ring less hollow.

It’s not a commentary on his success or failure. They didn’t do those things trying to ruin the industry. They did them to attempt to grow the brand. 

[crispy4000]

1 hour ago, Paperclyp said:

It’s not a commentary on his success or failure. They didn’t do those things trying to ruin the industry. They did them to attempt to grow the brand. 

As far as I’m concerned, you don’t get to tell the industry to do better at reaching new audiences if you are struggling to make a difference pushing the same style of thing at lower prices.

Back it up with a blue ocean move like the Wii.  Start catering to new and broader audiences by making games focused on them.  Don’t just buy King and consider it done.

 

Maybe they are planning on it.  Maybe it’s just lip service.

[AbsolutSurgen]

3 hours ago, Xbob42 said:

I dunno, Game Pass seems to have done alright, as has moving their games to more platforms. Dude's only been in charge for a single console launch.

 

Hard for me to look at their "main" competition in Sony and think any better. They've gutted their most creative teams and most of their AAA releases are third-person Sony sludge that all feel very samey.

 

Only big boy out there still trying new and interesting shit is Nintendo, and we all know neither company would dare copy Nintendo on any more than a superficial, corporate "I don't really understand why this is successful but it looks similar" level.

This is all from my personal perspective of what I want to play and actually care about. Don't give two shits about what is successful in terms of business, that ain't my problem. But yes, in general, our bizarre stock-market-centric world is very antithetical to creative endeavors, or doing anything but seeking growth for all eternity, at the cost of literally anything else.

He's been the head of their Xbox division for 10 years.  That's long enough to determine if he has the vision to turn the studio into a winner.  Being successful in business is what he is talking about. 

 

I, in general, I have zero interest in most of what Nintendo puts out.

 

If you're interested in more "innovative stuff", I find that happens outside of the console space -- frequently by Indies or on platforms like Roblox.

 

[AbsolutSurgen]

2 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

As far as I’m concerned, you don’t get to tell the industry to do better at reaching new audiences if you are struggling to make a difference pushing the same sort of thing.

Back it up with a blue ocean move like the Wii.  Start catering to new and broader audiences by making games focused on them.  Don’t just buy King and consider it done.

 

Maybe they are planning on it.  Maybe it’s just lip service.

Wii was launched in a world before mobile gaming was a thing.  Mobile gaming is probably double the size of console gaming ATM.

[crispy4000]

48 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Wii was launched in a world before mobile gaming was a thing.  Mobile gaming is probably double the size of console gaming ATM.

Yep.  The gaming audience today is expanding most rapidly on mobile, on Steam internationally, and in games like Fortnite and Roblox.

 

Nintendo’s cited that the Mario movie has helped them push consoles in underserved markets, though global Switch sales have still been down.

[Paperclyp]

5 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

As far as I’m concerned, you don’t get to tell the industry to do better at reaching new audiences if you are struggling to make a difference pushing the same style of thing at lower price points.

Back it up with a blue ocean move like the Wii.  Start catering to new and broader audiences by making games focused on them.  Don’t just buy King and consider it done.

 

Maybe they are planning on it.  Maybe it’s just lip service.

Where does he blame the industry for not reaching new audiences? I’m not sure who what would even be blamed at. He’s laying out the facts that his job is to make the shareholders happy and the industry isn’t currently growing. So costs gotta be cut somewhere. His plans haven’t worked as well as he hoped, I think, but Jesus I don’t think the move is do something like the Wii. 
 

Also the article author itself is either kinda being purposely obtuse or doesn’t know what they’re talking about maybe with like the “MS has 200 million in profit of course they can pay them.” That’s not the gaming division and that’s not how this works. If you want to write a serious critique about Phil or MS then let’s not cherry pick quotes and write silly headlines and then not do due diligence in the article. 

[crispy4000]

6 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

Where does he blame the industry for not reaching new audiences? I’m not sure who what would even be blamed at. He’s laying out the facts that his job is to make the shareholders happy and the industry isn’t currently growing. So costs gotta be cut somewhere. His plans haven’t worked as well as he hoped, I think, but Jesus I don’t think the move is do something like the Wii. 

At the end of the Verge interview the article sources from.  He doesn’t blame the industry.  He said it’s what everyone needs to be focused on, and they want part of that expanded pie.

 

If it’s not a play for expanded audiences, the only move is to make inroads into your competition.  On console.  On PC.

[Paperclyp]

9 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

At the end of the Verge interview the article sources from.  He doesn’t blame the industry.  He said it’s what everyone needs to be focused on, and they want part of that expanded pie.

 

If it’s not a play for expanded audiences, the only move is to make inroads into your competition.  On console.  On PC.

It’s a weird thing to me, capitalism, because video games are so popular and the thirst for more content and eventually more powerful hardware is gonna be there, and yet because of the need to constantly “grow,” the industry is like at once in crisis and at the same time more of a juggernaut than it’s ever been. It’s so stupid. 
 

In sports, when a president or a GM of a team feels pressure to make the playoffs or be fired they’ll start making rash, sacrifice the long term for an outside shot at success for the short term, and it kind of reminds me of the position of MS and Sony right now. Don’t do something real dumb just cuz you are trying to protect yourself in the short term. 

[crispy4000]

24 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

It’s a weird thing to me, capitalism, because video games are so popular and the thirst for more content and eventually more powerful hardware is gonna be there, and yet because of the need to constantly “grow,” the industry is like at once in crisis and at the same time more of a juggernaut than it’s ever been. It’s so stupid.

Their need to grow the Xbox brand and business goes beyond basic capitalist thirst for better margins or even a better competitive footing.  It could take many, many years to make their money on Activison-Blizzard back.

 

Sony and Nintendo are probably thinking of these things too.  But the pressure on them is different, to stay relevant as trends change.  It’s why everyone is doing cross media now.

[XxEvil AshxX]

Phil could always just stop doing interviews. Easy to be the whipping boy when you're the only one willing to talk.

[Paperclyp]

27 minutes ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

Phil could always just stop doing interviews. Easy to be the whipping boy when you're the only one willing to talk.

Is he the whipping boy or are internet aggregation sites writing lazy stories about single quotes that get like a day of attention and then it’s fine? 

[Keyser_Soze]

11 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

Is he the whipping boy or are internet aggregation sites writing lazy stories about single quotes that get like a day of attention and then it’s fine? 

 

D1P reacts to an article written about a quote from Big Philly Style

[Reputator]

When you buy up a bunch of studios, you end up with redundant staff.

[stepee]

If anyone is upset about the Phil negativity and wants to read some real slurpy slurp:

 

Phil Spencer Has Now Been Head of Xbox for 10 Years; We Look Back at His First Decade - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

---

Ten years ago on March 31, 2014, then-Xbox Game Studios boss Phil Spencer was named Head of Xbox. And he inherited quite a mess. You all know the story; there’s no need to beat the horse corpse...

 

One of the most generous pieces I have ever seen, it’s kind of incredible. 

 

One thing to remember when thinking of his legacy though is that he was like #2 during the Don years that everyone credits him from moving on from. He is partially to blame for that time as well.

 

His main credit is that it is possible Xbox would have closed down and there wouldn’t be a Series SX if he didn’t sell the gamepass idea to Satya as a reason to let them continue the brand. Maybe if it was someone else they could have convinced him too, but we will never know.

 

Maybe he turns it around by them being the largest publisher in the world, but that was at huge cost - I think the jury is still out if any of his plans are successful - but we also say that every year.

 

I think he’s okay but overrated and the “he’s like your gamer best friend!” shtick is bought too easily.

[Bacon]

this is my favorite phil image

[SuperSpreader]

Don't hate the player hate the game (that I'm actively destroying)

[SuperSpreader]

Executives think Ai is gonna reduce costs to make games (without affecting their income of course) and also think Game Streaming is the future (which requires ai assistance because of inherit latency issues). So the executive vision of games is Games made by Ai played by Ai that you pay for. 

 

This industry will be dead within 2 gens if these dudes don't go. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

11 hours ago, SuperSpreader said:

Executives think Ai is gonna reduce costs to make games (without affecting their income of course) and also think Game Streaming is the future (which requires ai assistance because of inherit latency issues). So the executive vision of games is Games made by Ai played by Ai that you pay for. 

 

This industry will be dead within 2 gens if these dudes don't go. 

There is a pretty strong argument that AI can simplify the process of asset generation.

From what I've read, a significant challenge in modern game design is the amount of assets needed -- if you get AI to do much of the "grunt work", and have it finished/tweaked by humans, I would guess there are significant savings that might be realized.

[SuperSpreader]

36 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

There is a pretty strong argument that AI can simplify the process of asset generation.

From what I've read, a significant challenge in modern game design is the amount of assets needed -- if you get AI to do much of the "grunt work", and have it finished/tweaked by humans, I would guess there are significant savings that might be realized.

 

Over time game dev has gotten more and more specialized and complex. The only ones who haven't evolved are project management/executives/directors. Games don't take forever because of slow grunts, they take forever because of visionless management & leadership. My prediction is ai just creates more opportunities for these people to waste resources and time. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

8 minutes ago, SuperSpreader said:

 

Over time game dev has gotten more and more specialized and complex. The only ones who haven't evolved are project management/executives/directors. Games don't take forever because of slow grunts, they take forever because of visionless management & leadership. My prediction is ai just creates more opportunities for these people to waste resources and time. 

There are good executives and bad executives.  Some have done a phenomenal job at running their studios, while others...  haven't.

[SuperSpreader]

If you say so. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

Clearly a controversial take: "not all studio management is comprised of idiots". 

[SuperSpreader]

I'll just leave it at a certain type of personality tends to promote a certain type of personality and it's endemic.

[ShreddieMercury]

On 3/31/2024 at 4:05 AM, Xbob42 said:

I dunno, Game Pass seems to have done alright, as has moving their games to more platforms. Dude's only been in charge for a single console launch.

 

Hard for me to look at their "main" competition in Sony and think any better. They've gutted their most creative teams and most of their AAA releases are third-person Sony sludge that all feel very samey.

 

Only big boy out there still trying new and interesting shit is Nintendo, and we all know neither company would dare copy Nintendo on any more than a superficial, corporate "I don't really understand why this is successful but it looks similar" level.

This is all from my personal perspective of what I want to play and actually care about. Don't give two shits about what is successful in terms of business, that ain't my problem. But yes, in general, our bizarre stock-market-centric world is very antithetical to creative endeavors, or doing anything but seeking growth for all eternity, at the cost of literally anything else.

 

This is accurate.

 

If people want interesting games, play what Nintendo puts out.  Tears of the Kingdom is more radical from a design perspective than anything from the last two generations of AAA gaming, and it's on a console that gamers yell constantly about being underpowered.

 

[CitizenVectron]

2 minutes ago, ShreddieMercury said:

 

This is accurate.

 

If people want interesting games, play what Nintendo puts out.  Tears of the Kingdom is more radical from a design perspective than anything from the last two generations of AAA gaming, and it's on a console that gamers yell constantly about being underpowered.

 

 

Yep. As far as I am concerned, Nintendo is the only one that is actually pushing boundaries. Graphics don't count as pushing boundaries, by the way—maybe they did back when you could literally make something that looks completely different between gens (I'm thinking SNES->N64 type change), but these days it's incremental. Make games more interesting and more engaging. I'd take 2 AA games and 5 A games that all try new things over 1 AAA game that costs the same to develop and is just the fourth iteration of a franchise with better graphics (and now has paid microtransactions). 

[SuperSpreader]

1 minute ago, CitizenVectron said:

Make games more interesting and more engaging. I'd take 2 AA games and 5 A games that all try new things over 1 AAA game that costs the same to develop and is just the fourth iteration of a franchise with better graphics (and now has paid microtransactions

 

Sounds risky, our shareholders won't like that. We have a duty and are regulated to be consistent. That means we can't invest in new IP or ideas without shareholder approval.