On the occasion of the launch of Xbox Series X | S, the manager reflects on the state of the brand only seven years ago, when doubts were a reality.
The launch of Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S around the world is being a success: sold out units, crashed servers, huge waiting lists to get a console … The situation was very different seven years ago, when a series of decisions companies put the future of Xbox in check with Xbox One. Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s video games division, has acknowledged that the situation reached the point of wondering if it was worth keeping the Xbox business.
Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox Continuity
In a meeting with Shacknews, Spencer looks back and remembers what the summer of 2013 was like, the summer before the launch of Xbox One. At that time Don Mattick was in charge of the division, but his departure to Zynga and the delegation of Responsibilities to Marc Whitten left Spencer in charge of the first party teams. This internal restructuring prevented clear launch leadership and things did not turn out as well as they wanted. “Some aspects of the platform were not totally ready,” Spencer assumes about the launch of Xbox One.
Phil Spencer, CEO of Xbox and vice president at Microsoft.
And the day came, early 2014, when Marc Whitten left for Sonos and Satya Nadella took over as CEO of Microsoft. The conversation was clear: “Are we going ahead with Xbox?” They wondered. It was then Spencer who raised her hand and let Nadella know that yes, it was necessary to keep Microsoft’s video game business afloat for the coming times.
Spencer assumes in the interview that Nadella’s first reaction was not entirely positive. He himself applied to assume that responsibility and lead Xbox completely. A series of coincidences and merits ended up leading to the figure of Spencer as the head of Xbox, now also a vice president within Microsoft. “I honestly think the reason I ended up in this position was because the old leaders left,” Spencer adds. “I laugh at myself and tell myself that I was the last person left on the list; there is some truth in all that ”, he assumes with glee.
Xbox Series S (front) and Xbox Series X (rear)
Be that as it may, Xbox has more than 90 million monthly players on Xbox Live and more than 15 million subscribers on Xbox Game Pass, the by some called Netflix of video games. In addition, Xbox Game Studios has a total of 23 internal teams following the acquisition of Bethesda (Zenimax Media). The generation has only just begun; the protagonists have first and last names: Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
