Ten years in the past on March 31, 2014, then-Xbox Sport Studios boss Phil Spencer was named Head of Xbox. And he inherited fairly a multitude. You all know the story; there’s no must beat the horse corpse for the ten-thousandth time. The model was in disarray after what can, with out hyperbole, be known as a fairly disastrous launch of the Xbox One. So how far has Xbox come beneath Spencer’s tenure? And the place’s it going from right here? Let’s look again after which look ahead.
To his credit score, Spencer didn’t waste any time attempting to wash up that mess. In Might of 2014 he unbundled the Kinect movement controller from the Xbox One, thus immediately decreasing the value of the console to $399 and again to cost parity with Sony’s PlayStation 4. One yr later at E3 2015 he introduced Xbox’s in depth backwards compatibility effort to a number of the loudest applause I’ve ever heard at an Xbox E3 press convention. It was a much-needed dose of player-first excellent news for Xbox followers, and it could be a years-long effort that introduced lots of of legacy video games ahead to current and future Xbox consoles (with a lot of them later technically improved as well), however it could not be the final.
The Xbox One technology was however a tough one for Spencer and the Xbox group, although, primarily due to some important first-party disappointments throughout a lot of that point. Halo: The Grasp Chief Assortment’s on-line multiplayer was an unmitigated catastrophe at launch and for a very long time after (although to the studio’s credit score, 343 Industries ultimately obtained it working brilliantly whereas additionally including Halo 3: ODST and Halo Attain into the package deal). Lionhead weirdly tried to pivot Fable right into a 4v1 multiplayer sport, and never solely did it not work, the sport obtained canceled shortly earlier than launch and the studio was shut down. The extremely anticipated Scalebound was canceled too. Crackdown 3 was a dud. Halo 5’s marketing campaign couldn’t stay up to its unbelievable advertising and marketing marketing campaign.
However there have been some severe vivid spots. Sundown Overdrive was a criminally neglected gem from a studio that had solely ever labored with Sony previous to this and, in hindsight, Insomniac’s critically acclaimed and commercially profitable Spider-Man sequence wouldn’t have occurred with out it. Unique-at-launch Cuphead was a breakout indie hit and some of the visually distinctive video games ever made. Microsoft purchased the Gears of Battle franchise from Epic Video games and its new caretakers at The Coalition made two completely unbelievable sequels to proceed the sequence. The Ori video games had been each phenomenal.
{Hardware} was given a welcome refresh beneath Spencer’s watch too. The Xbox One S was a a lot smaller, sleeker, and even barely extra highly effective model of the console that, as a bonus, had a built-in energy provide, that means that there was no huge energy brick like the unique Xbox One had. The Xbox One X got here alongside in 2017 and was a real step above the PlayStation 4 Professional in horsepower, in a position to ship native 4K gaming whereas the PS4 Professional ceaselessly faked it. And console costs continued to come back down.
One other initiative that launched in 2017 might be the one that can go on the very high of Spencer’s profession resume when it’s all stated and completed: Xbox Sport Move. It’s honest to say that it has modified gaming as an entire, providing subscribers entry to a catalog of lots of of video games every month, together with any and each first-party sport Microsoft makes. In truth, there’s even a first-party Sony sport in it! In simply seven years, Xbox Sport Move has swelled to over 34 million month-to-month subscribers and arguably turn out to be the factor you consider first whenever you consider the Xbox model.
In fact, you want a number of video games to feed a service like Sport Move so as to preserve folks subscribing every month, and so Spencer got down to repair the first-party sport downside within the boldest of how: by leveraging Microsoft’s huge struggle chest and shopping for studio after studio after studio. A ton of expertise all of the sudden got here by Microsoft’s door, from the Forza Horizon wizards at Playground Video games to the RPG gurus at Obsidian to sport design legend Tim Schafer and his group at Double Superb Productions.
He additionally deserves credit score for Xbox’s trade management in normalizing accessibility options in gaming, successful awards within the course of. From the Xbox Adaptive Controller to ASL help baked immediately into video games, Xbox has walked the stroll of Spencer’s discuss of bringing gaming to everybody.
As Spencer did what he may to salvage the Xbox One technology, his {hardware} ambitions obtained larger for the primary console technology that he’d be heading up from the get-go. The Xbox Sequence X is a nice machine that has loads of horsepower, seems to be superior, and works as whisper-quietly because it does reliably. In the meantime, Spencer’s technique of decreasing the value of entry for the brand new console by providing a non-4K model of the Sequence X within the type of the Sequence S additionally appears to have paid off, with Xbox doing higher than it ever has.
However Spencer would solely get bolder because the Xbox Sequence period unfolded. Microsoft spent $7.5 billion and purchased Bethesda/ZeniMax, which included Todd Howard’s Bethesda Sport Studios, Doom developer id Software program, Dishonored’s Arkane, and extra. After which they spent SIXTY-NINE BILLION DOLLARS to choose up the entire of Activision-Blizzard-King, which incorporates Name of Obligation, Diablo, World of Warcraft, and Sweet Crush. The acquisition worth dwarfs the earlier largest online game trade acquisition ever by an element of 5, triggering regulatory challenges in a number of nations earlier than the deal was in the end accepted and finalized. Sadly, thanks partly to the pandemic and in addition to the ever-growing incubation time wanted to make AAA video games, gamers nonetheless have but to see a gentle circulate of first-party video games regardless of all of those bigger and smaller acquisitions.
And so I might argue that Phil Spencer’s first decade as the highest man at Xbox might be summed up this manner: a gamer-first give attention to nice companies like backwards compatibility and Xbox Sport Move that hasn’t fairly but delivered a constant amount and high quality of first-party video games, although the long run seems to be extremely vivid regardless of the place and the way you prefer to play. As for the subsequent ten years? Personally, I’m extremely excited, as Spencer has proven that, above all else, he places gamers first and he’s not afraid to spend cash to construct out Xbox Sport Studios. Quickly there will likely be a endless wave of first-party video games in any style you might ask for, all obtainable as a part of your Xbox Sport Move subscription, and also you would possibly even have the ability to play them on the go too. Right here’s to the subsequent decade of Xbox.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s government editor of previews and host of each IGN’s weekly Xbox present, Podcast Unlocked, in addition to our month-to-month(-ish) interview present, IGN Unfiltered. He is a North Jersey man, so it is “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.