Xbox's Phil Spencer 'Not Retiring' After Dark Day of Cancellations and Job Cuts

Most positive PlayStation news of the year so far?

Lies of p Spencer x box got trillions of dollars and you laying up people and canceling games🤫.makes no sense. Word up son

I think that every higher-up and executive in Xbox, Microsoft Gaming, and Microsoft deserve a huge bonus and salary boost for their brave work today. It takes a hell of a lot of ambition and hard work to do something so stupid.

Keep up the great work Phil 😂

A lot of this doesn’t make sense to me.

I thought perfect dark actually looked really good and was looking forward to a ps5 port.

Hope all those affected find work soon and receive good redundancy pay.

If there was any actual logic to the firings, the executive staff would be the first to go.

@get2sammyb @Dodoo Rumours have it, what we saw of Perfect Dark was nothing than a fancy tech demo, just like the Witcher 4, but at least CDPR told us it was one.

Can anyone remember the last time Phil Spencer was in the news for something positive?

As much as Sony is sucking, MS is sucking so much more

When Phil came in he often talked about allowing developers the creative space to make the games they needed.

It seems they were left to do that entirely unrestrained and The Initiative and Rare are paying the price.

It is a credit to Sony that they have for so long managed to get studios putting out strong, creative games within a reasonable budget and time frame.

Hopefully we will see that again now the live service thing has struggled

@get2sammyb It’s possible it could have been a tech demo similar to The Witcher 4, but I’d be shocked if it was. It looked very good.

My issue with these cancellations is that these games weren’t going to be Xbox exclusive, at least further down the road. They were going to come to PlayStation and would have made money.

This man is scum and should've been fired years ago

Maybe after expedition 33 every western gaming executive thought it's better to hire 33 super talented devs to make game of the year candidate rather than hundreds of normal one to make games that's fails.

I really think what clair obsucre expedition 33 devs do is game changing for this bloated gaming industry.

Laying off people from call of duty and candy crush. Canceling perfect dark and other games as well. Your job is never truly safe, not even at a trillion dollar corporation.
Unless of course you are an executive and than you get a golden parachute and all the more promotions to come 🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒😒👀

Steve Buscemi’s “How do you do, fellow kids?” scene is apt here. Look, I get that it’s nice when you feel like you can relate to leadership but these folks aren’t your friends. I was bullied out of my college program by faculty after the institution got a new president whose whole shtick was “I’m super fun”. Not much different from Phil Spencer here, I don’t give crud if you’re fun. I care if you’re good at your job.

You are a number to people like this, nothing more. Relate to the art, not to the people behind it.

I'm sure absolutely no one saw all these lay offs coming with all the massive acquisitions Microsoft was making.

anyone else would have been fired.. but firing phil would be xbox admitting failure.. and they cant do that..

"Many of you will get fired but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make" - Phil 'Farquaad' Spencer

@johnedwin eh!, they have only closed one studio that never actually released a game, it didn't release a massive flop or anything.

Any games they cancelled (2 known ones) were clearly not getting done despite many years of development, but they still have around 40 games in development despite job cuts.
Seems like they are getting ready for next gen in a serious way.

They're replacing him with a new generative AI model.

Same artificial behaviour without the need for a salary.

People kept saying Xbox needs to get out of hardware and just make games. Sounds good on paper but this proves that Xbox as a whole is the problem. Perfect Dark looked ok so far. I'm sure they have a plan for live service and microtransaction all made by AI.

this is bad news for everyone , the industry sucks

@Lavishturtle the live service hate lives rent free 😂

@get2sammyb Apparently the PD demo showcased last year was all fake, according to Kotaku. I'm at work right now and can't look further into it at the moment.

@johncalmc That's even more nutso when you think about all the devs that came from established studios that made up the this studio .

Gaming is in a weird place

When lives are destroyed and companies shuttered, never forget that nothing bad ever happens to CEOs. If they do have to leave, they get a nice massive bonus that could have fed multiple employees that were let go. What a garbage system.

Please Understand

@ATaco that’s the Peter Principle for you.

Ceo’s and managers usually suck.

So, another Microsoft studio closed. They really can't manage them.
Not sure why they decide to axe half of turn 10 as well. End of Forza?
Rare is only open cause of sea of thieves and that is all they are allowed to work on until closure.

Like... nothing is working at Xbox. I don't know what they think they are doing.

Remember how Ryan was the devil for trying to make love service happen on PlayStation? Remember how Phil was the hero for bringing Game Pass to fruition and putting Xbox exclusives on the competition’s machine? Remember how Ryan left PlayStation stronger than it’s ever been when he left? Remember how Phil took the Xbox brand to the worst place it’s ever been?!

Look, I’m not even a champion of Jack Ryan’s. But damn, how did he take so much flack from the PS crowd? The same crowd that seemed to have wanted Phil Spencer to be cinducting PS train?

“@Medic_alert It is a credit to Sony that they have for so long managed to get studios putting out strong, creative games within a reasonable budget and time frame.“

Sony has closed down multiple studios this generation.

Sony canceled 12 of their 15 first party studio games that have been in production for years. Yeah they’re really good.

Concord did really good, lasted like 3 days, and then close the game and shut down the studio.

When has the last time Sony has released a first party title other than Concord?

Do you know when they’re releasing their next title?

Keep in mind that death stranding 2 and hell divers 2 is not a first party developer. It’s paid exclusive. Plus we know one of them is timed.

Phil getting locked out of the building and security won’t let him back in to get his ozempic from the office fridge would have been a more amusing rumour but oh well.

@ATaco I worked for Washington Mutual bank back in 2008 when it went under and was bought out by Chase. The CEO at the time received a 15.3 million dollar severance after he destroyed the company. The guy who took over after him received a 12 million severance for 23 days of work! 23! Don’t fret though. Many of us were let go. Some people even lost their full retirement packages. It’s evil!

@Deshalu yes what you’ve said is correct but you’ve forgotten that Sony has consistently pumped out first party quality for over 30 years.

MS have been very inconsistent for 20.

@Dodoo
Don't think Sony owned a single studio 30 years ago. Releasing first party games, they weren't.

I don’t think the C suite at Microsoft feels the same way about Phil Spencer as the rest of the gaming community does

It's crazy Phil Spinner still keeps his job after these massive layoff. MS higher ups clearly doesn't have any dignity 🙄

@Deshalu "When has the last time Sony has released a first party title other than Concord?"
"Do you know when they’re releasing their next title?"

• Last year Astro Bot won GotY
• Ghost of Yotei, 2nd October

@Dodoo I would argue Sony loyalty.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it Microsoft old IP’s like gears of war which has actually been out for a while, Forza horizon series aren’t those in the top of the charts for Sony selling titles on PlayStation console? Yeah I think there’s some bias there.

And I’ve been reading these forms for a while, but a lot of you Sony players have been chopping at the bits to get halo on PlayStation, man Microsoft has some bad IP’s

Looks, I think we both can agree that both companies have good games, competition is always good, and some people don’t always like business decisions that have to be made.

I do think Sony and Microsoft are doing a lot of good decisions for gaming with some bad. But we as consumers and gamers need all, Sony Microsoft and Nintendo to be competitive with pricing, competitive with quality games competitive, and with service.

Really wish Phil Spencer would go away. I originally thought he was great for Xbox, but lately I've really changed my mind about him and Xbox in general.

@PuppetMaster Not to sound like a bad guy

If you look at the people that were let go and the gaming studios that were closed we’re not very good teams and their games were announced in like 2017 2018.

I get that some of those people made really good games 20 years ago, but it sounds like they need to be let go

I think people are being too hard on Microsoft and Phil Spencer on this layoff

At the end of the day, you still have a business to run

Think about all the good stuff that Phil Spencer is actually doing. Yes it is from Spencer doing this. Back in 2013 the man literally said that he wanted to get rid of exclusives. He wanted to compete more about who could offer the best service and features.

I don’t remember the articles or anything, but you can actually ChatGPT this and it’ll pull up where it’s from. It was also in an interview. Exclusives do hurt the developers and the gamers.

And if the man gets steam to be the forefront OS of the next Xbox that gets PlayStation titles playable on Xbox or forces Sony to take their titles off steam

Certainly been a boatload of layoffs in the industry the last two years. Every other day we have news of games being cancelled and studios been shut down. This is just more than usual all at once from one publisher. I guess they prefer to take the PR hit all at once.

Still, it doesn’t garner much confidence in the company and its forecasted situation. Xbox has doubled down on GamePass and having their games everywhere. For that, the philosophy was always high volume output, so cancelling games and teams doesn’t accomplish that. I can appreciate that they are being fiscally responsible and filtering game production to keep the quality high, but you have to wonder if mismanagement is the main problem here.

@Deshalu you seemed to have interpreted my comment as if i'm talking about the last year or 2. I was not.

I mentioned the failure of the live service and the fact that it was something I hoped Sony returned to.

And someone else already answered your 2 questions.

MS haven't consistently got this right at any point in their history despite the backing of a trillion dollar company and buying up a myriad of studios and just when it looks like they might have it worked out today happens.

At least someone's safe

I have to say, @get2sammyb, I think that is a very underhanded, and spiteful, thing to say.

Let's put it this way, it is known by all that Phil Spencer is the head of Xbox. He is, however, not the head of Microsoft. It is also widely known, and has been reported on many times, that everything that Xbox is doing now is being driven by Nadella.

In other words, when Nadella tells Spencer to lay of 10% of his Xbox staff, Spencer has two choices; one, resign, though all that will achieve is him having lost his job, and someone else taking up the roll and then that person laying off the 10% of staff. In other words, Spencer resigning makes absolutely no difference. The second option, is for Spencer to remain in post and do as he has been told.

If whomever is in charge at Push Square, tells their subordinates to do something, they expect it to be done. No ifs, no buts. Why should that be any different for Spencer? If his boss tells him to do something, he is contractually obliged to do it. That is his job. If Spencer was in charge of Microsoft, then any criticism would be well justified, but we both know that isn't the case.

Your subheading just looks like you are playing to the crowd, and just comes off as mean...

@Fiendish-Beaver most of the reporting about these layoffs across media online have been aiming to fan flames tbh.

Most of these layoffs are of course upsetting but as far as layoffs go most of these make some mediums of sense. Forza Motorsport (not horizon) has had several not fantastic releases, perfect dark apparently was a wreck, an mmo is one of the toughest things to make and likely a tax write off, call of duty studios (plural) are pretty bloated in staff numbers. None of this is good but layoffs happen, especially in the current state of the industry. I wish people would just think more instead of giving into internet hate and anger so easily.

Damn. I was really looking forward to Perfect Dark

Much like Hermen Hulst's miraculous executive gymnastics of compelling or green lighting Sony Worldwide Studios games on the basis of their live services & being the next Formite but possibly being more like Concord & throwing everyone else onto proverbial the train tracks.

Likewise "Gamer" Phil Spencer has his well rehearsed emails & pet puppy dog sighs of "its been a really tough day",posts whilst he & the rest of the upper M$ execs including Satya, Sarah & him still somehow get their yearly efficiency bonuses!🙄

Much like the Activision Blizzard buyout was promoted as some wonderful creative nirvana away from the executive greed of Bobby Kotick, things in the corporate gaming world largely remain unchanged regardless who's in charge,with executives being largely immune so long as they have minion studios to blame.

On the Playstation side of things,with Hulst's inferred favourites & favouritism towards green lighting projects aligned with the live services & trying to crack his Fortnite/COD/GTA Online style megabit ever since the Jim Ryan era, I remain concerned for the likes of Sony Bend, MM,Bluepoint etc.,becoming the next Japan Studio/UK Liverpool like casualties.😕

AAA Games design is hard to not only come up with something new & engaging,(or not botch up a reboot of an older classic). But likewise if for example,when upper execs influence studios moving away from having made previously single player titles & then tell them their next game needs to be multiplayer online which forces older creatives out,& the new projects fall flat,it's a tad rich for all of the failure to be lumped solely on the dev?

Thx for the news pure xbox

@Ernie They are the new EA the killer of studio's.

@Fiendish-Beaver They bought to much and now they need to lose the extra. Fire the workers keep the IP. But in the end he is part of the problem. He runs the Xbox branche that isnt do great he is part of the problem for sure.

@hYdeks Same. I was a fan of Xbox, now I am all about PS5 Pro and Switch 2, Xbox feels like it died this year.

If only someone could have predicted letting Microsoft buy up half the gaming industry was such a bad idea.

These ***** made $88.1 billion in profit last year.

@ElectricWizard "Don't think Sony owned a single studio 30 years ago. Releasing first party games, they weren't."

Well you would be wrong.

Firstly Sony bought Psygnosis in 93 and they shipped games for the US launch.

Secondly, before they were publicly called that in the 2000s, "Japan Studio" consisted of several teams in the 90s. Some games were contracted out, others developed internally.

One such internal studio, Poly's Entertainment shipped Motor Toon GP in 94 two weeks after the console launched, You may not have heard of the studio by that name, but that studio was renamed Polyphony Digital a few years later.

Since Xbox has made irreversible damage to the industry, it's amazing to see that this guy still has a job. Almost as amazing as people still rooting for the brand.

I'm really sorry for the developers impacted. MS once again reports record profits and still this is the outcome.

@Deshalu "Think about all the good stuff that Phil Spencer is actually doing. Yes it is from Spencer doing this. Back in 2013 the man literally said that he wanted to get rid of exclusives."

I find it difficult to give the man credit for wanting to do away with something that was holding them back or causing them lost marketshare because the other platforms were doing it.

It's like giving them credit for wanting cross play between consoles when they were one of the platform holders actively holding it back at the time. It was just his way of addressing lost sales to people who picked their console depending on what their Fortnite/Fifa/whatever mates were using.

Despite "Uncle Phil's" supposed humble consumer friendly angle, it's not difficult to see that these were business decisions not consumer first efforts. And that's fine in itself, but there is little point in pretending they are gifts from heaven.

Its a pattern that followed through to their studio acquisitions, "I'm not buying studios to put our games on other platforms" was basically a thing he said, that counters your own older quote. Then that changed because they needed to sell games to people to balance the books.

Spencer's "good things" are just ways to try and change how the market works because they were so bad at the way the industry traditionally operates. If Microsoft were more competent during the One debacle their attitude would have been very different for the last 15 years. I'm not saying that trying to change the industry is bad, just that they are only doing it because they went from a building generation, to a leading position to being third place in under 15 years.

@Lowdefal

Fair enough.

Yeah I played GT. With a 'rumble' steering wheel in '96.

A stretch though to say they were "consistently pumping out first party games for 30 years".

Took a few years to get to that stage.

@Deshalu "I think people are being too hard on Microsoft and Phil Spencer on this layoff.
At the end of the day, you still have a business to run. Think about all the good stuff that Phil Spencer is actually doing"

Phil Spencer statement basically said:

"The company earned more money than ever. We also got more players to play Xbox games. So now these 9000+ employees who worked hard to put this company in the green are not needed anymore. These guys can F* off while i'm keeping my job and enjoying my new yacht and condo."

But now you told me that Phil Spencer doesn't deserves the criticsm for doing a bad job. In fact, he deserves a praise because he's doing all these "good stuff"? Wow. You got some hot take there sir.

I would love to see you say that in front of the 9000+ people who just got layoff.

I thought M$ told the judge if they got to buy Activision Blizzard - no layoffs for 5 years?? Guess they forgot about that if they sacked people from the COD team...

Retiring?
He'll be getting a fat salary increase...

It may sound harsh but i have no pity for anything bad happens to microsoft. I'ts a scum company supporting worldwide wars and bigger evil plans beyond personal computers and video games.

@Zeke68 If that's true then last year MS lay off 1900 Acti-Bliz & Xbox employees already violate their promise
https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/25/24049050/microsoft-activision-blizzard-layoffs

@AdamNovice Hi Adam not sure wether your going to see this comment but your spot on..
Unfortunately. you have principles and integrity and morals matter to you. These people operate on a different level when money is involved. For them it overides doing what you and I would do and make the right choice........Phil S Salary is $10m a year so the impact to him falling on his sword and admitting he has been involved and made or enforced bad decisions causing widespread misery to people who cant bounce back that quickly would be a small price for him...

@Fiendish-Beaver His headline is justified...The definition of not being mean is not axing 9000 jobs..
Phil S is paid $10m a year so he can take the hit and should resign for either directly making bad business decisions or enforcing them.. This is where integrity comes into play....and I guess he's okay looking at himself in the mirror every morning.

He's not the guy in charge, @Ta424. He's simply the messenger. If Spencer resigned, or was fired, Nadella would simply employ someone else to pass on the bad news instead...

I disagree, @Flaming_Kaiser. Spencer had a vision for Xbox and turned the brand around after the disastrous Xbox One era. The problem is that Nadella has taken the reigns, and is dictating the new strategy. We won't know for certain whether Spencer's vision would have worked, but we certainly won't now after the really poor decisions that Nadella has made. Nadella has done this in every post he has ever had. He comes in, and maximises profits for the shareholders, no matter the damage it does to the brand or his subordinates...

@Fiendish-Beaver You seriously need to understand how Mangement works.
Your totally missing the point
Its about Spencer doing the right thing...
What comes after is not his concern..
Morals and principles cost thats why few can do them.

Spencer is in charge of the XBOX group...and yes, ultimately he reports to Nat but he is not paid $10m for nothing and so is
responsible for the decisions he takes like that dumb move to buy market share in purchasing AB which has backfired.

Do your research, @Ta424. Activision approached Microsoft. Xbox did not have anywhere near the money to make the purchase.

As for understanding management, you have no idea who I am, what I do or did, nor what level of supervision I had or gave.

Ultimately, it was Nadella that decided on the cuts, but Spencer who had to implement them. Even if Spencer had walked, what do you think would have happened? No one would have been sacked? Seriously! All that would have happened if Spencer had walked would have been Bond or Booty, or another corporate yes man would have become boss of Xbox and the same level of cuts would have been made. Why? Because Nadella had said so.

Maybe it is not me who needs to understand how management works...

You can argue that, @AdamNovice, and you may well be right. There again, maybe Spencer (and his advisors) believes that he is the only one able to stand up to Nadella at all. Maybe Nadella wanted to cut 30% of the staff, and the only reason we are seeing 10% is because Spencer stood up to him. We simply do not know. Maybe Spencer believes he is the only one capable of turning the Xbox brand around. Or maybe Nadella has persuaded him to stay because he believes that Spencer is the only one capable of doing the job. Again, we just do not know.

I think the only certainty here is that no matter who stands as the boss of Xbox, they will have to to as they are instructed by Nadella because that is how management works. It matters not who that boss is, Nadella has determined (probably wrongly) that these cuts need to be made, and so even if it was Bond, Booty or some other industry yes man in the roll, these cuts would be being made...

Sorry, @Kierant202, but I have to inform you that you are on the wrong forums if you want to try and behave sensibly... 😉

Oh, and I entirely agree with you...

@playstation1995 sony should do the same to media molecule.
they haven never made a game after lbp 3 that sold more then 500.000.
sorry littlebig planet 2 was there last good game.
as lbp3 was made by sumo (crackdown 3 studio).

Oh yes... I was worried the exec wouldn't land on his feet. 😂

@get2sammyb According to Jeff Grubb back in 2024, he'd been "hearing for years" that Perfect Dark was in "rough shape" overall. That's why Microsoft had to get Crystal Dynamics involved in 2021. They weren't originally supposed to work on this game.

IMO Perfect Dark was doomed from the start because, according to Grubb, development began with Microsoft unable/unwiling to set a clear direction for it. Management allegedly initially couldn't decide if the Perfect Dark reboot should be a FPS or not!

Management paralysis/dysfunction is the beginning of a perfect storm that'll usually lead to cancellation/vaporware.

@The_ghostmen "littlebig planet 2 was there last good game"

Did you played Tearaway? It's a fun & unique platforming and it received positive receptions from critics and gaming community. It got 87% at Metacritic and OpenCritic.

I never get the chance to play Dreams though. But it also got very positive receptions on average 96% OpenCritic and 89% Metacritic. I heard good words from people who played and used it to create some unique level or games.

It's pretty unfortunate that both Tearaway and Dreams doesn't sold well despite the positive receptions. But i guess that's the reason why Sony didn't put MM in the chopping block because MM has very good track records.

@PuppetMaster Yeah crap, I totally forgot about that

reviews from critics do not matter at all if the game doesn't sell past half a million.
don't forget it sold 400.000 on ps4 the og version on vita only sold around 20.000.

the only reason media molecule is still running is because of the funds they get from tax payers.
they get around 30 million a year.
without that they would have been shutdown mm in 2016.

He should fall on his sword. Activision deal was his baby along with gamepass that effectively killed XBOX and turned it into just large 3rd party publisher

1st thing playstation should be happy with this because with phill at the helm nothing good will ever come to xbox
2nd like i already said before gamepass killed xbox i would love to hear the xbox players that defend this i keep saying that xbox is doing good
3rd this guy as 0 shame the only reason why he won't step down is because money he doesn't care about the cancelled games or the ppl who got fired he keeps getting is money at end of the month no matter how bad this are so why bother right

@The_ghostmen "reviews from critics do not matter at all if the game doesn't sell past half a million"

Well reviews are matter for Sony when they give bonus for their devs if their games got good reviews / performed well. Sony marketing also loves flexing all those 9-10's score or "it's masterpiece" with accolade trailer. You can look at Death Stranding 2 accolade trailer
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=od0ULrKzylQ

"the only reason media molecule is still running is because of the funds they get from tax payers"

I'm pretty sure Media Molecule isn't a government company. I tried searching about it but there's nothing that say Media Molecule funds are from tax payers. So i'm not sure the validity of your statement.

@PuppetMaster
no one is getting a bonus if the games sales are low.
look at concord.
the game only sold 25.000 copies sony pulled the plug.

if i can remember it was kalled UKGTF.
a london based funding company that promots diversity and inclusion.
these days the budgets are lower because they almost never made a profit.

@The_ghostmen "look at concord"

Concord didn't get good reviews but Tearaway and Dreams did. And like i said Sony do care about good reviews because they gave performance bonus to their devs.

Tearaway and Dreams also sold a lot more than Concord who only sold around 25K copies. I just check Tearaway Vita sold around 80-100K copies in the span of two weeks after the game released. And Dreams sold around 90K-100K copies from early access but it got 300K players after released on PS+

The thing here is Sony target sales. If they had low target sales where 100K-300K copies are enough for AA games like Tearaway and Dreams to break even and keep the studio alive then that's possibly what happened to Media Molecule.

"if i can remember it was kalled UKGTF"

I just check that UKGTF was established in 2015 while Media Molecule was founded in 2006, released LBP 1 in 2008 which published and funded by Sony, and Sony acquired the studio in 2010.

So i'm sorry to say this but it seems your claim about Media Molecule funded by UK tax payers through UKGTF sounds like a false alarm.

@Fiendish-Beaver
Playing the crowd comes with being a press person.

That I understand, @Chupa_loyzer. However, personal ethics would prevent me from being that type of individual...

Where would modern gaming be without the visionary genius of Phil Spencer? I'll tell you where - it'd be a lot better off.

Regardless, it's time for Phill to go. I just don't think Sarah looks like much of an improvement. Xbox desperately needs a full-on overhaul that is long overdue.

It's time for Phil and the entire management team at Xbox to go.
And I'm not playing favourites here, do the same with PlayStation's management.