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Congratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming"

Congratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" - a Microsoft Senior Leadership position. Oh, and he now leads the third biggest gaming company on the planet: > When the transaction closes, Microsoft will become the world’s third-largest gaming company by revenue, behind Tencent and Sony. It will be interesting to see in the medium-term if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an independent company at some point. But for now it's wild to think about the fact that Microsoft owns the Call of Duty franchise.

madeofpalk 5y ago
I think there should be more (gaming) companies, and (gaming) companies should not be owned by the platforms, so I see this as a pretty big negative for the industry and customers. Congrats to Phil on his resume bump I guess.
- enkid 5y ago
  There actually are a ton of gaming companies right now. The indie game space seems to be much healthier and accessible than say, the indie movie business. I hardly buy AAA titles anymore because you can get so many good games for under $20 dollars made by independent studios. Of course, this is based on mostly staying on PC and Steam. I would suspect consoles are not as indie friendly, but it does seem like they have some market access
  - tempest_ 5y ago
    The Nintendo Switch has a pretty healthy indie offering. Though there is the switch tax where games that are 10$ on steam are 30 on switch.
    - mcphage 5y ago
      Or how many $5/month (for all of them) Apple arcade games are $15+ on the Switch.
      - jbverschoor 5y ago
        I hear nobody complaining about nintendotax
        johnchristopher 5y ago
        Well, I complain about it by not buying a switch. Game prices on the switch is why I haven't gave in to the temptation yet.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        You say that like games aren't already kind of absurdly cheap for how much work goes into them. People used to pay $60 of 1980s money for, frankly, pretty shit[0] NES games. That's ~$150 worth of money today. $30 games are downright cheap and I'm continually impressed by how entitled gamers can be when they complain about modern game prices. People pay $30 for a decent meal at a restaurant FFS. Which isn't to say that you should by a switch. If you don't think it's a good value then obviously you shouldn't. I'm just saying that not buying it because 'the games are too expensive' seems like a pretty unjustified complaint to me. [0] Not all of them were shit of course, but the catalogue is 90% shit and people did buy a lot of shit games.
        lnxg33k1 5y ago
        Well, consider that you could buy any kind of game first hand for $60, then after finishing it, you could be able to sell if and get some money back. Today you pay $30 (for some games, but a lot are still $60, $80, etc.) Plus the DLC, credits, extensions, registration to an account no ability to sell it or buy second hand. Game industry got pretty bad, I've enjoyed it in the past, and I have the ability to just move on and ignore anything game related, what I am upset about is that today's kids are squeezed and coerced in order to play anything, and that is why I wish we had governments trying to put a stop to the current gaming companies greed
        eropple 5y ago
    - salicideblock 5y ago
      I've noticed :/ I'm hoping the Steam Deck will provide a more open portable console.
      - Zhyl 5y ago
        If the Deck takes off, we will see lots of other handhelds following the same blueprint too.
        officeplant 5y ago
        We already have piles of handheld PC's taking off with or without the Deck at this point. I'd love an AYA NEO if the prices weren't so high.
        schmorptron 5y ago
        I wouldn't be too sure to be honest, only companies with a big game platorm can compete with Valve being able to subsidize these and sell them at cost or less, because most game purchases one them will be through steam.
    - bluescrn 5y ago
      A wide range of indie games being available doesn't mean it's a viable business for the indies. Many are loss-making passion projects.
      - JAlexoid 5y ago
        Passion projects cannot be described as "loss making". When passion projects become "loss making", then people loose their passion for it.
    - The-Bus 5y ago
      Stadia also has a lot of indie games but thanks to their sales, you end up with a comparable price to Steam sales. Disco Elysium, for example, went on sale for US$18 vs. ~$23 on Switch. Steam's sale price was ~$20.
    - docmars 5y ago
      This is the sole reason why I don't play Switch games unless I can get them on sale, or they're exclusive like BotW. I have a 14" gaming notebook (ASUS G14 2021) that's portable enough and offers decent battery life especially for lighter games with access to my Steam library offline, and plenty of key shops to find games for uber cheap when there's no demo available for me to vet the value of a title first. Win-wins all around!
      - fnord123 5y ago
        > Win-wins all around! Do devs get more money from Steam than Switch on a per unit basis? If not, using Steam means the dev is not winning as much as they could.
        cinntaile 5y ago
        You assume that the Steam users are willing to pay the same price as Switch users, but that's not necessarily the case. Volume matters as well, maybe the number of Steam users is way more than the number of Switch users so they can make up for the lower price by selling more.
        docmars 5y ago
        Exactly this — and devs selling on Steam have the choice to participate in sales or not.
      - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
        Unfortunately, physical copies of games are not depreciating; BotW, despite being five years old, is still selling at full price. Good for them though, I mean it's a great game, and it means the games don't depreciate much on the secondhand market either. Although I'm confident people don't want to sell physical Switch games, a lot of them have a lot of life in them and become prized possessions.
  - galangalalgol 5y ago
    What is a good way to discover these?
    - tootie 5y ago
      Go browse itch.io for some inspiration. There's thousands of indie games there. A lot are no more than student projects and demos, but some are really polished and inventive.
    - behnamoh 5y ago
      I found some of them on Apple Arcade.
    - bocytron 5y ago
      You can use the indie tag on steam, or search games under $20, or you can directly ask Google, or Reddit https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Indie/#p=0&tab=TopRated https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Indie/#p=0&tab=TopRat...
    - lelandfe 5y ago
      I like to follow RPS' reviews page, it introduces me to a lot of PC indie games I'd generally miss in my filter bubble: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/wot-i-think https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/wot-i-think
  - password54321 5y ago
    The indie scene is great for people who like roguelikes and platformers. If you are looking for much outside of that space, you won't find much.
    - muzani 5y ago
      There's tycoon games and strategy too. Stardew Valley and Rimworld are at the top of their genres. And games like Dominions, Telltale games. Horror might be up there. Do we count mods? DotA and CS would be indie if so, but are now quite commercial.
    - bluefirebrand 5y ago
      You're right that a lot of indie games are metroidvanias or roguelites. However, AAA games exist on an incredibly narrow scope these days too. You have shooters, sports, open-world action games, and that's basically it. Rarely do you see big studios deviate into unknown or experimental mechanics. Indie studios have produced a lot of games with varied mechanics that are just a huge breath of fresh air for me, personally. You'd never see a AAA studio making Factorio or Satisfactory, for instance. Probably unlikely to see them make a game like Darkest Dungeon, or Don't Starve, or Stardew Valley or Terraria or Starbound or.. the list goes on. You just might have to look a bit deeper to dig through the roguelikes and platformers.
    - spmurrayzzz 5y ago
      This isn't true, there are plenty of trivial examples to counter this notion. e.g. Annapurna Interactive has been publishing AAA-quality titles from indie devs for a long time. And most of those games don't fall into the roguelike or platformer vertical.
    - Aunche 5y ago
      There is no storage of indie RPGs and survival-style games either (e.g. Disco Elysium, No Man's Sky, Valheim)
    - pdimitar 5y ago
      And shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups. It's what I mainly buy on my Switch when there are sales. But yeah, not many games between AAA and indie. :(
  - jtmetcalfe 5y ago
    I love indie games but I also wish there was a middle ground between the current generation of AAA titles (not typically my cup of tea) and the indie community
    - sixothree 5y ago
      There does seem to be a void in between the two. It's so rare I come across one that it's a surprise. Hell Let Loose was one of those surprises for me. It's definitely in the space of "AA but not AAA" games.
    - Semaphor 5y ago
      For RPGs, that middle-ground seems pretty healthy. No idea about shooters and other action games, as I don’t play those.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - soderfoo 5y ago
    The group of truly indie studios is dwindling unfortunately. Tencent and Microsoft have both spread a lot of money around. Perhaps for varying reasons, namely MS needs to make up for the lack of titles developed for the Xbox Series, and add titles to Game Pass to make it more a more attractive offering.
    - DrBazza 5y ago
      I can think of several recent releases without even searching: Melkhior's Mansion was released this week, Slipways earlier in the year, and Midnight Fight Express coming soon. I don't know if that's representative of indie games or not. There's so many platforms to build for, and on some (xbox/ps5) a high(er) barrier to entry, vs. low on the PC, or mobile. I'm not surprised that there's much indie action on the xbox/ps5.
      - krajzeg 5y ago
        As the author of Slipways, it warms my heart to see it mentioned randomly in a HN comment! As an indie game developer (hard to get more indie than me, I think, since I'm doing this mostly solo), I can attest that it's never been easier to get your game on Steam or a console platform. On Steam it's mostly a matter of a $100 fee and filling a form. Consoles are a bit harder, but still dramatically more open to indie titles than say a decade ago, and all of them are possible to get on even for small developers. I also wouldn't say that "the group of indie dev studios is dwindling". It's just a matter of the old indie studios "growing up" to become bigger enterprises, but there is tons of other people replacing them on the lowest rung, with teams of several people and true labor of love projects.
        karpierz 5y ago
        Slipways is an amazing game! It's so nice building little galactic empires without fussing with spreadsheets or war.
        DrBazza 5y ago
        Unfortunately, I'm not a gamer, and run a weird version of linux which I don't think you support anyway, but I have played Slipways (a friend purchased it) on the PC, and it's a great game!
  - wodenokoto 5y ago
    I play almost exclusively Nintendo and indie games on my switch. There is quite a Nintendo tax on indie games though.
  - campbel 5y ago
    The last three games I fell in love with; Hollow Knight, Ori, Souls Series, have me believing this. You can build amazing games with a smaller team these days which is incredibly inspiring.
    - baby 5y ago
      A short hike, celeste, katana zero, …
    - docmars 5y ago
      Think of Valheim too — a team of 5 made one of the best selling titles of 2021 with a 95% rating on Steam to this day. That's freaking impressive!
      - 1_player 5y ago
        Also Outer Wilds, Subnautica. Small teams that have made Game of the Year winners.
    - Hamuko 5y ago
      Souls is part of Kadokawa Corporation (which has investment from Tencent). Ori's studio is independent but they've had pretty close ties to Microsoft.
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      I've been playing Control on consoles, great game, independent studio. Not a small studio either. Hollow Knight was great; if I hadn't nearly fully completed it at the time I probably would have started another playthrough already.
  - phkahler 5y ago
    >> There actually are a ton of gaming companies right now. Yeah, but from TFA: >> Upon close, Microsoft will have 30 internal game development studios, along with additional publishing and esports production capabilities. I don't see a need for this and agree with the notion that companies should not buy companies. There are cases where it makes sense, but I think another mechanism needs to be created because buying and selling companies is often too much like buying and selling people in addition to being anti-competitive.
- mro_name 5y ago
  > resume bump yes, because what would he do without.
- brightball 5y ago
  Oddly, the way things had been going with Blizzard over the last few years makes me feel a lot better about MS taking them over.
- JohnHaugeland 5y ago
  Yeah, because Activision Blizzard was doing so well on its own
- docmars 5y ago
  While I mostly agree with you, I think Microsoft is doing this to compete directly with Sony's plethora of studios to offer more AAA titles on Xbox and Windows exclusively — so from that light, it's not entirely a bad thing. We already know that Bethesda is keeping their autonomy to make the same great games we love from them, and Starfield is a chance to prove it. The only downside being: Playstation owners losing out on playing what may end up being among the most popular titles in the next 5-10 years if Starfield and TES6 are a success.
  - bun_at_work 5y ago
    If the competition exists for Sony already, why is it necessary for Microsoft to own that competition? Activision Blizzard already competed with Sony, which is why people think the market is more healthy prior to this acquisition. In your comment you point out that Bethesda still has their autonomy. So why is it good again for MS to be acquiring these studios? They continue to make the same product in more or less the same way, but now have to appease their MS gods, all while generating more profit for MS to the benefit of not really anyone, except MS.
    - docmars 5y ago
      Points taken! Which is why I mostly agree with the GP. I can't name a single acquisition that did more for the consumer than what was already on offer, so I am generally against them. My last comments were more in the shoes of Microsoft.
  - madeofpalk 5y ago
    > with Sony's plethora of studios to offer more AAA titles on Xbox and Windows exclusively Which is also a bad thing!!!
    - docmars 5y ago
      Valid. I am torn between both because I like to see console makers competing and having a reason to innovate somewhere, but as a consumer, I want the ability to play games on any system the developer is willing to support, too.
- baby 5y ago
  Have you seen all the indie companies?
- zenron 5y ago
  You are not entitled to play games or buy platforms. It is a net negative for the gaming industry to be limited in their revenue streams. You cannot split the baby because some customers CHOSE to buy PS5 but the game THEY want to play is on Xbox. If they want to play it, buy an XBOX too. If that is too expensive, the gamer should increase their disposable income. Gaming is not a human right.
  - hannasanarion 5y ago
    Forcing people to buy some of your products in order to use others of your products is called "tying" and it's illegal monopolization.
    - JAlexoid 5y ago
      No. It's not. Apple is not obligated to invest into building Apple Music app on Android or Windows. Just because Apple tied Apple Music into their own ecosystem, doesn't mean you are owed anything.
      - madeofpalk 5y ago
        (poor example because Apple Music is on Android and Windows heh)
        JAlexoid 5y ago
        Replace it with iMessage then.
- vintermann 5y ago
  It's hard to imagine they will be much worse than the holding company they bought it from. Microsoft have been a lot better custodians of Minecraft than most people thought they would be. Same with github or a number of other acquisitions. But I agree the concentration is still a problem in itself, even if the owners are OK.
bitwize 5y ago
Microsoft owns CoD, Doom, Quake, Minecraft, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and soon Warcraft, Starcraft, and Overwatch. They're becoming the Disney of gaming, which is scary, but hey, Microsoft gonna Microsoft.
- geerlingguy 5y ago
  And Halo, if we're counting seminal console franchises.
  - zuppy 5y ago
    And Diablo. I'm worried for this.
    - Frost1x 5y ago
      I'm hoping it just means Diablo 3 released sooner since Microsoft has a mountain of resources. I'm curious how game development is under the large tech companies like Microsoft. Game development is notoriously recognized as a slave driving industry for the labor force. Massive tech companies, like Microsoft, aren't exactly known as places to slack in the software world, but they also don't seem to have as toxic of a labor culture as the gaming companies who pass mountains of costs to their labor to remain competitive (Amazon perhaps being the exception here).
      - rvba 5y ago
        Good news for you, Diablo 3 is already out! (Itemization and damage looks very bad in Diablo 4 previews though - damage in hundreds of thousands and "strictly better" items instead of trade offs)
        Frost1x 5y ago
        Correction, Diablo 4 (you can tell how much I play!). But thats disappointing to hear :(
- 5y ago
raxxorrax 5y ago
I think for gaming this is pretty negative that everything is consolidated under large developers. I also don't think that the atmosphere under Microsoft will be better than under Activision. I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible to be honest.
- wongarsu 5y ago
  > I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible to be honest In what way is PC gaming attached to Microsoft? Microsoft Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share in PC games besides Minecraft, and the industry is very diverse. Most games happen to run on Windows, but apart from DirectX they have resisted every attempt from Microsoft to use that in any way. If PC gaming is attached to anyone it's Valve, but even that is slowly changing.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    > If PC gaming is attached to anyone it's Valve PC Gaming runs on Windows, not on Valve's OS (while valve is intending to change that progressively).
    - smileybarry 5y ago
      Which doesn't mean much as long as Windows runs on anything x86 and costs OEMs (relative) peanuts. It's not like you have to pay royalties to Microsoft if you sell a PC game (but you do have to pay MS/Sony if it's a Xbox/PS game).
  - nathanaldensr 5y ago
    It's not either-or, it's both. Both Microsoft and Valve play pivotal roles in PC gaming.
  - houseofzeus 5y ago
    > Microsoft Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share in PC games besides Minecraft Wow, that sucks. They should acquire someone with a bigger catalogue!
intended 5y ago
I would hope so, I dont see activision blizzard being a great acquistion.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Hopefully they fire most of the management, retain what technical talent they decide, and effectively reboot the entire company.
  - islon 5y ago
    They already decide to keep Kotick... not a very good start.
    - stephbu 5y ago
      Think of what you acquire when you acquire a company. You acquire intellectual property - products & ideas, you acquire people - future ideas, you acquire customer base - players. If you behead the company you certainly will lose critical people with it risking the products and customer base too. This isn’t Microsoft’s first acquisition, they’ll manage realignment of the new organization differently than just wholesale ejections. I’m sure Bobby’s new schedule has time for rest while he vests.
  - trey-jones 5y ago
    The IP is the real value here, so this seems likely.
  - hatch_q 5y ago
    All technical talent already left Blizzard - also the reason why they didn't produce anything (of value) in last 5 years.
    - NineStarPoint 5y ago
      They have plenty of technical talent, it’s the artistic vision that left.
blibble 5y ago
I wonder if he realises what "fun" he's going to have over the next years cleaning out the cesspit that is Blizzard
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Did they clean out LinkedIn?
  - fintler 5y ago
    LinkedIn didn’t need to be cleaned out.
    - fartcannon 5y ago
      If their goal was to acquire and learn from the scummiest dark pattern designers, then I agree.
- chaorace 5y ago
  I've never overseen a merger before, let alone one of this scale, so pardon my blatant speculation... but will that really be such an issue? It seems to me that the mismanagement of Acti/Blizz is a product of a corrupt corporate apparatus. From the inside of Acti/Blizz, the problem is basically intractible, but I don't think that really applies the same way once you install higher rungs of authority. MS is no stranger to acquisitions, either, so it's not as though they will be asleep at the wheel during this transition.
  - blibble 5y ago
    this buyout is a direct result of the sexual harassment suit (causing a 40% drop in share price since it started) the company is rotten from the very top, through the middle to the bottom they're going to have one hell of a time cleaning that up
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Given that they plan to keep Bobby Kotick on, I don't think Microsoft understands the problem with ABK all that well.
echelon 5y ago
> [...] if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an independent company at some point. I certainly think this should happen. The trillion dollar giants should not span multiple industries. They have absurd monopoly power and can make growing your own niche impossible. Why does a cloud computing / operating system vendor / hardware manufacturer / business software / developer tooling company also own the third biggest gaming outfit? Why, for that matter, are Amazon and Apple also movie studios (and soon to be game studios)? This is ridiculous. These companies never have to compete with you. It's easy for them to funnel money into any effort and clone your product. You can struggle to grow revenue and they can simply allocate an engineering team and marketing budget. You'll probably also have to buy your competitor's products or pay their taxes at some point.
- ThunderSizzle 5y ago
  What's funny is that when EPB of Chattanooga decided they wanted a Fiber Network to build their smart power grid around, Comcast said no. So they built their own, and Comcast started suing them. A lot of stupid lobby fights later, and EPB Fiber Optics became a separate company with a loan from EPB (power company). Both wholly owned by the City of Chattanooga. EPB had to keep all power monies and all internet monies completely seperate in order to operate; otherwise, they would have too much of a competitive advantage over Comcast. For the customer, it's just EPB, but for legalize and accountants, it's two completely separate companies, and money isn't allowed to go from the power division to the internet division and vice versa. Imagine if these conglomerates had to do similar type of accounting. I don't know if that would be a positive for the customer/consumer, but it's an interesting thought exercise. Amazon might even consider shutting down quite a bit of e-commerce if they couldn't subsidize it with AWS...
  - JAlexoid 5y ago
    I sell some nick-nacks on Amazon and eBay. Considering how much eBay charges for less - Amazon's eCom is not going to fold, if AWS was separated.
  - likpok 5y ago
    Are you saying it's a good thing that Comcast was able to break up an upstart competitor? I'm not sure a world where that's easier would have fewer monopolies to today. Even in your example the large and established company was suing the upstart.
bogwog 5y ago
Very impressive indeed. He was backed by a multibillion dollar behemoth and, against all odds, and despite the commercial failure of the Xbox One (something that would’ve bankrupted any other company), he managed to keep the company afloat long enough to launch another product. Spending ~$70bn to acquire another company is also impressive. Sure, Microsoft has limitless resources, and using acquisitions to hurt the competition is something they love to do, but still.. He did it. This is his win.
4e530344963049 5y ago
Does CoD become an Xbox/Windows exclusive?
- ptntl 5y ago
  No chance. COD has consistently been a huge money maker on PS and Vanguard was #1 last year. They would lose out on way too much revenue, not to mention that massive negative sentiment that would bring towards Xbox and big game / console manufacturers. I think certain games like Halo and maybe some Bethesda will stay (ones that have previously been exclusive). But acquiring a AAA company and then cutting off half of your customer base seems like a big mistep.
  - ptntl 5y ago
    In addition, I believe they have already announced they plan to continue support for other consoles/systems, and they definitely announced they support a PS "gamepass". Wouldn't be surprised if ABK would be included in a PS gamepass (Microsoft ultimately makes money from that).
    - etempleton 5y ago
      I think there is some chance that future CoD will not be on PlayStation. They might even be used as a bargaining chip to get game pass on PlayStation. I could see it as, “if you let us put game pass on PlayStation we will sell Microsoft games on your storefront, including Cod. If not, no CoD.” This paints Sony as the unwilling party. Microsoft can say, “we would love to have CoD on PlayStation.” Why else buy them? Most Blizzard games are PC first anyway.
    - The-Bus 5y ago
      Sony (the studio) is an "arms dealer" and works with many different streamers. No reason they can't do the same on the gaming side and release, say, Spider-man, on Gamepass or Stadia after sales on their own consoles slow down.
    - viktorcode 5y ago
jahlove 5y ago
The series Microsoft recently put out on Youtube about the history of Xbox is surprisingly good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60
ekianjo 5y ago
> Congratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" - a Microsoft Senior Leadership position You forgot to mention he started with billions of dollars backing him up. It was not like a small startup or something.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  > billions of dollars How big were Sony and Nintendo at the time? Even with Microsoft's war chest, it was an uphill battle.
  - hydrok9 5y ago
    Not really. It was clear that there was space for another large player in the console market. Sega was done or dying, Sony and Nintendo couldn't keep the entire playerbases to themselves (and PC and Mac are barely worth mentioning im sorry to say).
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      I'd say Sega's floundering indicated the opposite, despite a huge portion of that being own goals. I don't see any fundamental reason the market couldn't have been a duopoly. And, to the GP point of crediting Spencer, there weren't even many synergies to exploit with a Microsoft console in the first XBox generation. It certainly didn't "integrate" with Windows in any way that made you more likely to buy it over alternative consoles. AFAICT (as someone who doesn't spend much time console gaming now), its success was essentially built on the back of (1) access to capital, (2) savvy exclusives, (3) intelligent acquisitions, (4) avoiding missteps in hardware refreshes, and in later generations (5) strength of social platform. So, props where props are due, because 4/5 of those are skill. Especially while no doubt having to fight an internal battle against all the other Microsoft political power centers.
      - hydrok9 5y ago
        IMO, and dismiss this as just gut feeling if you want, but it was just a matter of time before there was a 3rd big player. Console gaming was getting too big, too fast for there to be just 2 options for the market. Someone was going to come along and do it better than Sega. Now, all credit to the bigwigs for having the business savvy to pull it off. But with the size and scale of console gaming, 2 consoles was just not going to cut it. (PC gaming was finished as a true competitor due to cost differences).
apatters 5y ago
Sounds lovely for the suits. As a longtime Blizzard fan and a former Microsoft employee, maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit, but there's really only one thing I care about: Will they finally start getting the fucking games right again?
- lgessler 5y ago
  Old Blizzard is dead and has been for almost a decade--the name's the same but their job now is not to make great games that push the envelope in game design but rather to manage cash-printing franchises. It's hard not to think this when so many of the people behind the original groundbreaking games (StarCraft, WC3, D2) have left the company and in some cases disavowed it. Be happy that old Blizzard happened, I say, and look on with eagerness to new indie studios, many of which are being run by the same Blizzard vets.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    If they can keep the Warcraft and Diablo balls rolling, with competent releases every so often, I’m fine with it. That way we have the best of both worlds: developing franchises, and the indies.
- katbyte 5y ago
  Hopefully first they will fire everyone responsible for cultivating a toxic culture culminating in sexually harassing a women to suicide and having a "Cosby" room at events. Don't care how good of games they are when thats the company behind them.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- hydrok9 5y ago
  As a fellow longtime Blizzard fan and someone who retired from gaming (in part due to being too old for this shit), Don't get your hopes up :)
d3ckard 5y ago
Phil Spencer is my favorite executive. His work since he had taken over has been splendid and I like his calm manner of discussing competition. He doesn’t make it into war. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and I am happy to see him succeed.
femiagbabiaka 5y ago
Talk about failing upwards.
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  Phil Spencer only took over after the failure of the Xbox One. They've been killing it since then.
  - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
    I’m not sure I would describe the state of Microsoft gaming as killing it, but I did miss that he came in after the OG Xbox One release.
    - jonny_eh 5y ago
      The fact that the brand didn't completely die at that point was surprising.
      - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
        Yep agreed, that was definitely a do or die moment.
macilacilove 5y ago
> spin off gaming into an independent company at some point Unlikely without regulatory intervention. The added value for MS shareholders here is that MS has now more leverage to gently heard gamers towards their platforms.
jonny_eh 5y ago
> Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" According to Wikipedia[0]: > Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios such as Lionhead Studios and Rare until 2008 He came to be in charge of Xbox via his experience managing their internal studios. How's Lionhead doing these days btw? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executive) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executi...

madeofpalk 5y ago

I think there should be more (gaming) companies, and (gaming) companies should not be owned by the platforms, so I see this as a pretty big negative for the industry and customers. Congrats to Phil on his resume bump I guess.

enkid 5y ago
There actually are a ton of gaming companies right now. The indie game space seems to be much healthier and accessible than say, the indie movie business. I hardly buy AAA titles anymore because you can get so many good games for under $20 dollars made by independent studios. Of course, this is based on mostly staying on PC and Steam. I would suspect consoles are not as indie friendly, but it does seem like they have some market access
- tempest_ 5y ago
  The Nintendo Switch has a pretty healthy indie offering. Though there is the switch tax where games that are 10$ on steam are 30 on switch.
  - mcphage 5y ago
    Or how many $5/month (for all of them) Apple arcade games are $15+ on the Switch.
    - jbverschoor 5y ago
      I hear nobody complaining about nintendotax
      - johnchristopher 5y ago
        Well, I complain about it by not buying a switch. Game prices on the switch is why I haven't gave in to the temptation yet.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        You say that like games aren't already kind of absurdly cheap for how much work goes into them. People used to pay $60 of 1980s money for, frankly, pretty shit[0] NES games. That's ~$150 worth of money today. $30 games are downright cheap and I'm continually impressed by how entitled gamers can be when they complain about modern game prices. People pay $30 for a decent meal at a restaurant FFS. Which isn't to say that you should by a switch. If you don't think it's a good value then obviously you shouldn't. I'm just saying that not buying it because 'the games are too expensive' seems like a pretty unjustified complaint to me. [0] Not all of them were shit of course, but the catalogue is 90% shit and people did buy a lot of shit games.
        lnxg33k1 5y ago
        Well, consider that you could buy any kind of game first hand for $60, then after finishing it, you could be able to sell if and get some money back. Today you pay $30 (for some games, but a lot are still $60, $80, etc.) Plus the DLC, credits, extensions, registration to an account no ability to sell it or buy second hand. Game industry got pretty bad, I've enjoyed it in the past, and I have the ability to just move on and ignore anything game related, what I am upset about is that today's kids are squeezed and coerced in order to play anything, and that is why I wish we had governments trying to put a stop to the current gaming companies greed
        eropple 5y ago
  - salicideblock 5y ago
    I've noticed :/ I'm hoping the Steam Deck will provide a more open portable console.
    - Zhyl 5y ago
      If the Deck takes off, we will see lots of other handhelds following the same blueprint too.
      - officeplant 5y ago
        We already have piles of handheld PC's taking off with or without the Deck at this point. I'd love an AYA NEO if the prices weren't so high.
      - schmorptron 5y ago
        I wouldn't be too sure to be honest, only companies with a big game platorm can compete with Valve being able to subsidize these and sell them at cost or less, because most game purchases one them will be through steam.
  - bluescrn 5y ago
    A wide range of indie games being available doesn't mean it's a viable business for the indies. Many are loss-making passion projects.
    - JAlexoid 5y ago
      Passion projects cannot be described as "loss making". When passion projects become "loss making", then people loose their passion for it.
  - The-Bus 5y ago
    Stadia also has a lot of indie games but thanks to their sales, you end up with a comparable price to Steam sales. Disco Elysium, for example, went on sale for US$18 vs. ~$23 on Switch. Steam's sale price was ~$20.
  - docmars 5y ago
    This is the sole reason why I don't play Switch games unless I can get them on sale, or they're exclusive like BotW. I have a 14" gaming notebook (ASUS G14 2021) that's portable enough and offers decent battery life especially for lighter games with access to my Steam library offline, and plenty of key shops to find games for uber cheap when there's no demo available for me to vet the value of a title first. Win-wins all around!
    - fnord123 5y ago
      > Win-wins all around! Do devs get more money from Steam than Switch on a per unit basis? If not, using Steam means the dev is not winning as much as they could.
      - cinntaile 5y ago
        You assume that the Steam users are willing to pay the same price as Switch users, but that's not necessarily the case. Volume matters as well, maybe the number of Steam users is way more than the number of Switch users so they can make up for the lower price by selling more.
        docmars 5y ago
        Exactly this — and devs selling on Steam have the choice to participate in sales or not.
    - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
      Unfortunately, physical copies of games are not depreciating; BotW, despite being five years old, is still selling at full price. Good for them though, I mean it's a great game, and it means the games don't depreciate much on the secondhand market either. Although I'm confident people don't want to sell physical Switch games, a lot of them have a lot of life in them and become prized possessions.
- galangalalgol 5y ago
  What is a good way to discover these?
  - tootie 5y ago
    Go browse itch.io for some inspiration. There's thousands of indie games there. A lot are no more than student projects and demos, but some are really polished and inventive.
  - behnamoh 5y ago
    I found some of them on Apple Arcade.
  - bocytron 5y ago
    You can use the indie tag on steam, or search games under $20, or you can directly ask Google, or Reddit https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Indie/#p=0&tab=TopRated https://store.steampowered.com/tags/en/Indie/#p=0&tab=TopRat...
  - lelandfe 5y ago
    I like to follow RPS' reviews page, it introduces me to a lot of PC indie games I'd generally miss in my filter bubble: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/wot-i-think https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/topics/wot-i-think
- password54321 5y ago
  The indie scene is great for people who like roguelikes and platformers. If you are looking for much outside of that space, you won't find much.
  - muzani 5y ago
    There's tycoon games and strategy too. Stardew Valley and Rimworld are at the top of their genres. And games like Dominions, Telltale games. Horror might be up there. Do we count mods? DotA and CS would be indie if so, but are now quite commercial.
  - bluefirebrand 5y ago
    You're right that a lot of indie games are metroidvanias or roguelites. However, AAA games exist on an incredibly narrow scope these days too. You have shooters, sports, open-world action games, and that's basically it. Rarely do you see big studios deviate into unknown or experimental mechanics. Indie studios have produced a lot of games with varied mechanics that are just a huge breath of fresh air for me, personally. You'd never see a AAA studio making Factorio or Satisfactory, for instance. Probably unlikely to see them make a game like Darkest Dungeon, or Don't Starve, or Stardew Valley or Terraria or Starbound or.. the list goes on. You just might have to look a bit deeper to dig through the roguelikes and platformers.
  - spmurrayzzz 5y ago
    This isn't true, there are plenty of trivial examples to counter this notion. e.g. Annapurna Interactive has been publishing AAA-quality titles from indie devs for a long time. And most of those games don't fall into the roguelike or platformer vertical.
  - Aunche 5y ago
    There is no storage of indie RPGs and survival-style games either (e.g. Disco Elysium, No Man's Sky, Valheim)
  - pdimitar 5y ago
    And shoot-em-ups and beat-em-ups. It's what I mainly buy on my Switch when there are sales. But yeah, not many games between AAA and indie. :(
- jtmetcalfe 5y ago
  I love indie games but I also wish there was a middle ground between the current generation of AAA titles (not typically my cup of tea) and the indie community
  - sixothree 5y ago
    There does seem to be a void in between the two. It's so rare I come across one that it's a surprise. Hell Let Loose was one of those surprises for me. It's definitely in the space of "AA but not AAA" games.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    For RPGs, that middle-ground seems pretty healthy. No idea about shooters and other action games, as I don’t play those.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- soderfoo 5y ago
  The group of truly indie studios is dwindling unfortunately. Tencent and Microsoft have both spread a lot of money around. Perhaps for varying reasons, namely MS needs to make up for the lack of titles developed for the Xbox Series, and add titles to Game Pass to make it more a more attractive offering.
  - DrBazza 5y ago
    I can think of several recent releases without even searching: Melkhior's Mansion was released this week, Slipways earlier in the year, and Midnight Fight Express coming soon. I don't know if that's representative of indie games or not. There's so many platforms to build for, and on some (xbox/ps5) a high(er) barrier to entry, vs. low on the PC, or mobile. I'm not surprised that there's much indie action on the xbox/ps5.
    - krajzeg 5y ago
      As the author of Slipways, it warms my heart to see it mentioned randomly in a HN comment! As an indie game developer (hard to get more indie than me, I think, since I'm doing this mostly solo), I can attest that it's never been easier to get your game on Steam or a console platform. On Steam it's mostly a matter of a $100 fee and filling a form. Consoles are a bit harder, but still dramatically more open to indie titles than say a decade ago, and all of them are possible to get on even for small developers. I also wouldn't say that "the group of indie dev studios is dwindling". It's just a matter of the old indie studios "growing up" to become bigger enterprises, but there is tons of other people replacing them on the lowest rung, with teams of several people and true labor of love projects.
      - karpierz 5y ago
        Slipways is an amazing game! It's so nice building little galactic empires without fussing with spreadsheets or war.
      - DrBazza 5y ago
        Unfortunately, I'm not a gamer, and run a weird version of linux which I don't think you support anyway, but I have played Slipways (a friend purchased it) on the PC, and it's a great game!
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  I play almost exclusively Nintendo and indie games on my switch. There is quite a Nintendo tax on indie games though.
- campbel 5y ago
  The last three games I fell in love with; Hollow Knight, Ori, Souls Series, have me believing this. You can build amazing games with a smaller team these days which is incredibly inspiring.
  - baby 5y ago
    A short hike, celeste, katana zero, …
  - docmars 5y ago
    Think of Valheim too — a team of 5 made one of the best selling titles of 2021 with a 95% rating on Steam to this day. That's freaking impressive!
    - 1_player 5y ago
      Also Outer Wilds, Subnautica. Small teams that have made Game of the Year winners.
  - Hamuko 5y ago
    Souls is part of Kadokawa Corporation (which has investment from Tencent). Ori's studio is independent but they've had pretty close ties to Microsoft.
  - Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I've been playing Control on consoles, great game, independent studio. Not a small studio either. Hollow Knight was great; if I hadn't nearly fully completed it at the time I probably would have started another playthrough already.
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> There actually are a ton of gaming companies right now. Yeah, but from TFA: >> Upon close, Microsoft will have 30 internal game development studios, along with additional publishing and esports production capabilities. I don't see a need for this and agree with the notion that companies should not buy companies. There are cases where it makes sense, but I think another mechanism needs to be created because buying and selling companies is often too much like buying and selling people in addition to being anti-competitive.
mro_name 5y ago
> resume bump yes, because what would he do without.
brightball 5y ago
Oddly, the way things had been going with Blizzard over the last few years makes me feel a lot better about MS taking them over.
JohnHaugeland 5y ago
Yeah, because Activision Blizzard was doing so well on its own
docmars 5y ago
While I mostly agree with you, I think Microsoft is doing this to compete directly with Sony's plethora of studios to offer more AAA titles on Xbox and Windows exclusively — so from that light, it's not entirely a bad thing. We already know that Bethesda is keeping their autonomy to make the same great games we love from them, and Starfield is a chance to prove it. The only downside being: Playstation owners losing out on playing what may end up being among the most popular titles in the next 5-10 years if Starfield and TES6 are a success.
- bun_at_work 5y ago
  If the competition exists for Sony already, why is it necessary for Microsoft to own that competition? Activision Blizzard already competed with Sony, which is why people think the market is more healthy prior to this acquisition. In your comment you point out that Bethesda still has their autonomy. So why is it good again for MS to be acquiring these studios? They continue to make the same product in more or less the same way, but now have to appease their MS gods, all while generating more profit for MS to the benefit of not really anyone, except MS.
  - docmars 5y ago
    Points taken! Which is why I mostly agree with the GP. I can't name a single acquisition that did more for the consumer than what was already on offer, so I am generally against them. My last comments were more in the shoes of Microsoft.
- madeofpalk 5y ago
  > with Sony's plethora of studios to offer more AAA titles on Xbox and Windows exclusively Which is also a bad thing!!!
  - docmars 5y ago
    Valid. I am torn between both because I like to see console makers competing and having a reason to innovate somewhere, but as a consumer, I want the ability to play games on any system the developer is willing to support, too.
baby 5y ago
Have you seen all the indie companies?
zenron 5y ago
You are not entitled to play games or buy platforms. It is a net negative for the gaming industry to be limited in their revenue streams. You cannot split the baby because some customers CHOSE to buy PS5 but the game THEY want to play is on Xbox. If they want to play it, buy an XBOX too. If that is too expensive, the gamer should increase their disposable income. Gaming is not a human right.
- hannasanarion 5y ago
  Forcing people to buy some of your products in order to use others of your products is called "tying" and it's illegal monopolization.
  - JAlexoid 5y ago
    No. It's not. Apple is not obligated to invest into building Apple Music app on Android or Windows. Just because Apple tied Apple Music into their own ecosystem, doesn't mean you are owed anything.
    - madeofpalk 5y ago
      (poor example because Apple Music is on Android and Windows heh)
      - JAlexoid 5y ago
        Replace it with iMessage then.
vintermann 5y ago
It's hard to imagine they will be much worse than the holding company they bought it from. Microsoft have been a lot better custodians of Minecraft than most people thought they would be. Same with github or a number of other acquisitions. But I agree the concentration is still a problem in itself, even if the owners are OK.

bitwize 5y ago

Microsoft owns CoD, Doom, Quake, Minecraft, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and soon Warcraft, Starcraft, and Overwatch. They're becoming the Disney of gaming, which is scary, but hey, Microsoft gonna Microsoft.

geerlingguy 5y ago
And Halo, if we're counting seminal console franchises.
- zuppy 5y ago
  And Diablo. I'm worried for this.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    I'm hoping it just means Diablo 3 released sooner since Microsoft has a mountain of resources. I'm curious how game development is under the large tech companies like Microsoft. Game development is notoriously recognized as a slave driving industry for the labor force. Massive tech companies, like Microsoft, aren't exactly known as places to slack in the software world, but they also don't seem to have as toxic of a labor culture as the gaming companies who pass mountains of costs to their labor to remain competitive (Amazon perhaps being the exception here).
    - rvba 5y ago
      Good news for you, Diablo 3 is already out! (Itemization and damage looks very bad in Diablo 4 previews though - damage in hundreds of thousands and "strictly better" items instead of trade offs)
      - Frost1x 5y ago
        Correction, Diablo 4 (you can tell how much I play!). But thats disappointing to hear :(
5y ago

raxxorrax 5y ago

I think for gaming this is pretty negative that everything is consolidated under large developers. I also don't think that the atmosphere under Microsoft will be better than under Activision. I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible to be honest.

wongarsu 5y ago
> I hope PC gaming can detach from Microsoft as soon as possible to be honest In what way is PC gaming attached to Microsoft? Microsoft Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share in PC games besides Minecraft, and the industry is very diverse. Most games happen to run on Windows, but apart from DirectX they have resisted every attempt from Microsoft to use that in any way. If PC gaming is attached to anyone it's Valve, but even that is slowly changing.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  > If PC gaming is attached to anyone it's Valve PC Gaming runs on Windows, not on Valve's OS (while valve is intending to change that progressively).
  - smileybarry 5y ago
    Which doesn't mean much as long as Windows runs on anything x86 and costs OEMs (relative) peanuts. It's not like you have to pay royalties to Microsoft if you sell a PC game (but you do have to pay MS/Sony if it's a Xbox/PS game).
- nathanaldensr 5y ago
  It's not either-or, it's both. Both Microsoft and Valve play pivotal roles in PC gaming.
- houseofzeus 5y ago
  > Microsoft Game Studios doesn't have a lot of market share in PC games besides Minecraft Wow, that sucks. They should acquire someone with a bigger catalogue!

intended 5y ago

I would hope so, I dont see activision blizzard being a great acquistion.

ethbr0 5y ago
Hopefully they fire most of the management, retain what technical talent they decide, and effectively reboot the entire company.
- islon 5y ago
  They already decide to keep Kotick... not a very good start.
  - stephbu 5y ago
    Think of what you acquire when you acquire a company. You acquire intellectual property - products & ideas, you acquire people - future ideas, you acquire customer base - players. If you behead the company you certainly will lose critical people with it risking the products and customer base too. This isn’t Microsoft’s first acquisition, they’ll manage realignment of the new organization differently than just wholesale ejections. I’m sure Bobby’s new schedule has time for rest while he vests.
- trey-jones 5y ago
  The IP is the real value here, so this seems likely.
- hatch_q 5y ago
  All technical talent already left Blizzard - also the reason why they didn't produce anything (of value) in last 5 years.
  - NineStarPoint 5y ago
    They have plenty of technical talent, it’s the artistic vision that left.

blibble 5y ago

I wonder if he realises what "fun" he's going to have over the next years cleaning out the cesspit that is Blizzard

fartcannon 5y ago
Did they clean out LinkedIn?
- fintler 5y ago
  LinkedIn didn’t need to be cleaned out.
  - fartcannon 5y ago
    If their goal was to acquire and learn from the scummiest dark pattern designers, then I agree.
chaorace 5y ago
I've never overseen a merger before, let alone one of this scale, so pardon my blatant speculation... but will that really be such an issue? It seems to me that the mismanagement of Acti/Blizz is a product of a corrupt corporate apparatus. From the inside of Acti/Blizz, the problem is basically intractible, but I don't think that really applies the same way once you install higher rungs of authority. MS is no stranger to acquisitions, either, so it's not as though they will be asleep at the wheel during this transition.
- blibble 5y ago
  this buyout is a direct result of the sexual harassment suit (causing a 40% drop in share price since it started) the company is rotten from the very top, through the middle to the bottom they're going to have one hell of a time cleaning that up
kmeisthax 5y ago
Given that they plan to keep Bobby Kotick on, I don't think Microsoft understands the problem with ABK all that well.

echelon 5y ago

> [...] if Satya and the Board spin off gaming into an independent company at some point. I certainly think this should happen. The trillion dollar giants should not span multiple industries. They have absurd monopoly power and can make growing your own niche impossible. Why does a cloud computing / operating system vendor / hardware manufacturer / business software / developer tooling company also own the third biggest gaming outfit? Why, for that matter, are Amazon and Apple also movie studios (and soon to be game studios)? This is ridiculous. These companies never have to compete with you. It's easy for them to funnel money into any effort and clone your product. You can struggle to grow revenue and they can simply allocate an engineering team and marketing budget. You'll probably also have to buy your competitor's products or pay their taxes at some point.

ThunderSizzle 5y ago
What's funny is that when EPB of Chattanooga decided they wanted a Fiber Network to build their smart power grid around, Comcast said no. So they built their own, and Comcast started suing them. A lot of stupid lobby fights later, and EPB Fiber Optics became a separate company with a loan from EPB (power company). Both wholly owned by the City of Chattanooga. EPB had to keep all power monies and all internet monies completely seperate in order to operate; otherwise, they would have too much of a competitive advantage over Comcast. For the customer, it's just EPB, but for legalize and accountants, it's two completely separate companies, and money isn't allowed to go from the power division to the internet division and vice versa. Imagine if these conglomerates had to do similar type of accounting. I don't know if that would be a positive for the customer/consumer, but it's an interesting thought exercise. Amazon might even consider shutting down quite a bit of e-commerce if they couldn't subsidize it with AWS...
- JAlexoid 5y ago
  I sell some nick-nacks on Amazon and eBay. Considering how much eBay charges for less - Amazon's eCom is not going to fold, if AWS was separated.
- likpok 5y ago
  Are you saying it's a good thing that Comcast was able to break up an upstart competitor? I'm not sure a world where that's easier would have fewer monopolies to today. Even in your example the large and established company was suing the upstart.

bogwog 5y ago

Very impressive indeed. He was backed by a multibillion dollar behemoth and, against all odds, and despite the commercial failure of the Xbox One (something that would’ve bankrupted any other company), he managed to keep the company afloat long enough to launch another product. Spending ~$70bn to acquire another company is also impressive. Sure, Microsoft has limitless resources, and using acquisitions to hurt the competition is something they love to do, but still.. He did it. This is his win.

4e530344963049 5y ago

Does CoD become an Xbox/Windows exclusive?

ptntl 5y ago
No chance. COD has consistently been a huge money maker on PS and Vanguard was #1 last year. They would lose out on way too much revenue, not to mention that massive negative sentiment that would bring towards Xbox and big game / console manufacturers. I think certain games like Halo and maybe some Bethesda will stay (ones that have previously been exclusive). But acquiring a AAA company and then cutting off half of your customer base seems like a big mistep.
- ptntl 5y ago
  In addition, I believe they have already announced they plan to continue support for other consoles/systems, and they definitely announced they support a PS "gamepass". Wouldn't be surprised if ABK would be included in a PS gamepass (Microsoft ultimately makes money from that).
  - etempleton 5y ago
    I think there is some chance that future CoD will not be on PlayStation. They might even be used as a bargaining chip to get game pass on PlayStation. I could see it as, “if you let us put game pass on PlayStation we will sell Microsoft games on your storefront, including Cod. If not, no CoD.” This paints Sony as the unwilling party. Microsoft can say, “we would love to have CoD on PlayStation.” Why else buy them? Most Blizzard games are PC first anyway.
  - The-Bus 5y ago
    Sony (the studio) is an "arms dealer" and works with many different streamers. No reason they can't do the same on the gaming side and release, say, Spider-man, on Gamepass or Stadia after sales on their own consoles slow down.
  - viktorcode 5y ago

jahlove 5y ago

The series Microsoft recently put out on Youtube about the history of Xbox is surprisingly good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJYsA1jXf60

ekianjo 5y ago

> Congratulations to Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" and is now "CEO of Microsoft Gaming" - a Microsoft Senior Leadership position You forgot to mention he started with billions of dollars backing him up. It was not like a small startup or something.

ethbr0 5y ago
> billions of dollars How big were Sony and Nintendo at the time? Even with Microsoft's war chest, it was an uphill battle.
- hydrok9 5y ago
  Not really. It was clear that there was space for another large player in the console market. Sega was done or dying, Sony and Nintendo couldn't keep the entire playerbases to themselves (and PC and Mac are barely worth mentioning im sorry to say).
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    I'd say Sega's floundering indicated the opposite, despite a huge portion of that being own goals. I don't see any fundamental reason the market couldn't have been a duopoly. And, to the GP point of crediting Spencer, there weren't even many synergies to exploit with a Microsoft console in the first XBox generation. It certainly didn't "integrate" with Windows in any way that made you more likely to buy it over alternative consoles. AFAICT (as someone who doesn't spend much time console gaming now), its success was essentially built on the back of (1) access to capital, (2) savvy exclusives, (3) intelligent acquisitions, (4) avoiding missteps in hardware refreshes, and in later generations (5) strength of social platform. So, props where props are due, because 4/5 of those are skill. Especially while no doubt having to fight an internal battle against all the other Microsoft political power centers.
    - hydrok9 5y ago
      IMO, and dismiss this as just gut feeling if you want, but it was just a matter of time before there was a 3rd big player. Console gaming was getting too big, too fast for there to be just 2 options for the market. Someone was going to come along and do it better than Sega. Now, all credit to the bigwigs for having the business savvy to pull it off. But with the size and scale of console gaming, 2 consoles was just not going to cut it. (PC gaming was finished as a true competitor due to cost differences).

apatters 5y ago

Sounds lovely for the suits. As a longtime Blizzard fan and a former Microsoft employee, maybe I'm just getting too old for this shit, but there's really only one thing I care about: Will they finally start getting the fucking games right again?

lgessler 5y ago
Old Blizzard is dead and has been for almost a decade--the name's the same but their job now is not to make great games that push the envelope in game design but rather to manage cash-printing franchises. It's hard not to think this when so many of the people behind the original groundbreaking games (StarCraft, WC3, D2) have left the company and in some cases disavowed it. Be happy that old Blizzard happened, I say, and look on with eagerness to new indie studios, many of which are being run by the same Blizzard vets.
- kergonath 5y ago
  If they can keep the Warcraft and Diablo balls rolling, with competent releases every so often, I’m fine with it. That way we have the best of both worlds: developing franchises, and the indies.
katbyte 5y ago
Hopefully first they will fire everyone responsible for cultivating a toxic culture culminating in sexually harassing a women to suicide and having a "Cosby" room at events. Don't care how good of games they are when thats the company behind them.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hydrok9 5y ago
As a fellow longtime Blizzard fan and someone who retired from gaming (in part due to being too old for this shit), Don't get your hopes up :)

d3ckard 5y ago

Phil Spencer is my favorite executive. His work since he had taken over has been splendid and I like his calm manner of discussing competition. He doesn’t make it into war. He seems like a genuinely nice guy and I am happy to see him succeed.

femiagbabiaka 5y ago

Talk about failing upwards.

jonny_eh 5y ago
Phil Spencer only took over after the failure of the Xbox One. They've been killing it since then.
- femiagbabiaka 5y ago
  I’m not sure I would describe the state of Microsoft gaming as killing it, but I did miss that he came in after the OG Xbox One release.
  - jonny_eh 5y ago
    The fact that the brand didn't completely die at that point was surprising.
    - femiagbabiaka 5y ago
      Yep agreed, that was definitely a do or die moment.

macilacilove 5y ago

> spin off gaming into an independent company at some point Unlikely without regulatory intervention. The added value for MS shareholders here is that MS has now more leverage to gently heard gamers towards their platforms.

jonny_eh 5y ago

> Phil Spencer, who started out leading an upstart team at Microsoft for a new game console called "Xbox" According to Wikipedia[0]: > Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios such as Lionhead Studios and Rare until 2008 He came to be in charge of Xbox via his experience managing their internal studios. How's Lionhead doing these days btw? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executive) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Spencer_(business_executi...