Newly appointed Xbox division boss Phil Spencer admits some decisions the company made regarding the Xbox One were “wrong decisions,” and emphasized games will be the focus for the company’s E3 showing later this year.
Earlier in the week, Microsoft announced that Xbox executive Phil Spencer would be taking over as the head of the Xbox games division. Following that, Spencer went on camera for his first interview as the head honcho of the Xbox brand with Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb. In the video chat, Spencer admits that Microsoft made some wrong decisions last summer with the Xbox One console, but states there are two sides to it.
There are two sides to the ledger. There is a lot of learning that I did as a leader in the organization, when I just heard how our message resonated with people and some of the decisions that we made, that I think were actually the wrong decisions, and we had to revisit those decisions.
While Spencer didn’t elaborate which decisions made were the wrong ones, a fair assumption would be the Xbox One’s controversial “always-online” DRM system that got trashed following poor reception from gamers. In the same interview, Spencer was asked about this year’s E3 and what he has in mind for Microsoft’s presser, to which the executive replied they will once again focus on games — just like last year’s showing.
I had a big content review just yesterday. I mean, it’s kind of “inside baseball” but people will see that almost every week, sitting down with the teams and looking what we want to put on stage, what do we want to announce, what we really want to push. We’re going to push games. I thought we did a good job last year announcing a lot of new games and having games, games, games being the focus of the show. I want to do the same thing again this year. Not a lot of executive middle-management on stage, just make sure we have creators up there. We got great games that we’re showing. You know, people invest a lot of money in Xbox, and that money is invested so that they know they have the best place to play games and that’s where their friends will be playing. It’s our responsibility to stand up on stage to give them the promise of the games that are coming.
Even if Spencer is just a few days in at his new post, I have to say, it’s a very refreshing change. From being all about TV, apps and other entertainment ideas, Spencer seems to push games at the center of the Xbox brand, which is ideal since, y’know, it is a videogame console first and foremost.
Are you liking Spencer’s new direction with the Xbox One or will you only believe it once they actually deliver on their promise of putting games first before other entertainment mediums?
For more Xbox One news, take a look at a tech video demoing how the “cloud” can benefit games on the Xbox One platform.
Source: Xbox YouTube
