Xbox Revisits Franchise Strategy After 'Mistakes'

As Xbox navigates gaming's evolving landscape, CEO Phil Spencer reflects on missed opportunities and the “poorest decisions” they've made throughout the years. Read on to learn about his remarks and more on the upcoming games expected to debut on Xbox.

Xbox Executive Phil Spencer Reflects on “Poorest Decisions” with Significant FranchisesDestiny and Guitar Hero Were Major Missed Opportunities for Xbox

During a "Story Time with Phil Spencer" sit down interview at the recently held PAX West 2024, Xbox boss Phil Spencer discussed the games that have shaped his career at MSFT's gaming arm—and the ones that got away. Spencer opened up about some of the biggest franchises he "passed on," including Bungie's Destiny franchise and Harmonix's iconic Guitar Hero series, decisions he said he considers among "the worst" of his career.

Spencer, who started at Xbox when Bungie was part of Microsoft, shared his mixed feelings about Destiny. "There's so many mixed emotions and stories for me around Destiny," he said. "Obviously, Bungie was part of Microsoft when I started at Xbox, and I shared a floor with Alex Seropian, Jason Jones in the building that we were in Redmond. I learned a ton from just being around Bungie."

Despite the tight bonds with the studio, Spencer confessed that Destiny "didn't truly resonate" with him initially, and it wasn't until the game's maiden expansion, House of Wolves, that Destiny found a chord with him. As for Guitar Hero, Spencer also recollected his initial reservations. When Harmonix proposed the game, Spencer was dubious. "I've erred on some of the most dreadful… like, made some of the most regrettable game-choice blunders," he acknowledged.

Xbox Release Envisioned for Dune: Awakening, but Still Daunting for Funcom

Despite these missed opportunities, Spencer said that he isn't one to dwell on regrets. "I'm not a regrets-type person," he said. "Maybe that's a flaw of mine, but I passed on so many games. I could look back and—but no, I try to look forward and be positive about the things that we are doing."

Xbox is indeed looking forward, with plans to bring even bigger franchises into the fold. One such example is Dune: Awakening developed by Funcom, an action RPG adaptation of the iconic Dune film/novel franchise. The game is expected to be released on Xbox Series S alongside PC and PS5, though Dune: Awakening’s Xbox release has presented obstacles to the developer.

- Scott Junior, Funcom’s Chief Product Officer

• "There's a lot of optimizations we need to do before we release on the Xbox. But yeah, Xbox Series S is a challenge."
• "perform well on hardware that's years and years old. We'll be able to do it!"
• Entoria: The Last Song from indie developer Jyamma Games
• Xbox version remains up in the air
• the game's official Discord channel
• reportedly added, "Obviously they don't care about Enotria and they don't care about you... We've Xbox Series X/S version ready, but we can't proceed with submission and release, I spent a lot of money for porting and they decided to ignore us."
• "the game has been postponed due to a lack of communication from Xbox regarding an issue where the developer cannot open its store page, and consequently submitting the game. "We really want to release the game on Xbox ASAP," the studio tweeted, "but with lack of communication on their side it is a hard task indeed."