It feels like companies like this eventually become vehicles for like 5 people to make lots of money. You can't let go the guy making these mistakes - lining his pocket is the purpose of the company! It'd be ridiculous to fire him! Unless some of the other 4 people making money decide he's keeping them from lining their pockets.
No common folk is getting rich thanks to the stock market. Maybe richer if they’re lucky, but let’s not pretend it’s a tool for social mobility. It’s the opposite.
What incentive does a rich billionaire have for starting a business? Money? They have billions.
The only business they start are for themselves / the benefit of other businesses they own. Their wealth accumulates, and it is spent only to perpetuate its growth. It does not find its way into new businesses. It does not create new sector growth.
However, the people that want billions and don’t have it have a hell of an incentive to start a business and run it well.
It’s funny because companies are using AI for job listing’s and are simultaneously getting swamped by hundreds or thousands of applications due to AI as well. AI is completely messing up the job application process. Not like the process was any better prior to AI but now it’s an even bigger mess
I may be in the minority here, but I still like Phil Spencer… I feel like he’s a good dude who has been hamstrung by Microsoft from a larger overall management angle.
He’s certainly better than Don Mattrick, but admittedly Xbox has continued to suffer even after Don left.
Every time I saw an interview with Phil, he was amicable, seemed to actually understand game dev and the challenges, and he pushed to do things like Game Pass which have largely been successful.
Meanwhile Don was the guy who tried to copy off Nintendo’s motion gaming, pushed for making the Xbox do TV shit moreso than be a fun gaming console, and essentially said “get a 360” when people complained about lack of reliable internet access potentially preventing their ability to play any XB1 game.
Just because Don was bad, doesn’t make Phil good. He did a lot right at the start, but in the last few years he has basically driven Xbox as a brand into the ground. He’s the one that has pushed “everything is an Xbox” which basically means they have no product. Even the Xbox handheld is just a product from a different company with an Xbox logo slapped on.
He also pushed the primary focus of the company into a subscription service, rather than being a platform to play games. Not to mention, Microsoft has spent the last couple of years buying up a ton of competitors, only to shut down a ton of them and lay off the devs. Ultimately, I think he puts on this persona of being a “gamer” like you. But it’s clear by the actions of the company that he’s just another suit destroying the industry for profit.
True that no matter what - Phil IS a CEO, which means he’s not a good dude… but I guess I just look at it as shades of gray.
I think Microsoft decided it doesn’t want to do ANY kind of hardware, because of how poorly they did both in the X era, and in international markets like Japan…
And like you said - if Xbox becomes a brand rather than an actual piece of hardware, then there’s no reason to buy an Xbox. I had a 360 starting right before Halo 3 came out in 2007, but with every single one of their games being fully multi-platform with ZERO exclusives I never had a reason to get any of their systems after my original Elite.
Don Mattrick left Xbox in 2013. It was more than a decade ago. He may have ruined the XOne launch, but Spencer has had all the time and money in the world to rectify his mistakes and, so far, has only worsened them to the point that most doubt that a new Xbox will exist at all. Nintendo was on the brink of disaster after the Wii U, and managed to turn their fates around in half the time and with a fraction of the money. Why couldn’t Spencer?
In all these years, Spencer’s legacy has been of failed deals, shutting down/letting go multiple studios, and moronic attempts at building AAA and GAAS games on the back of seasonal contractors. We should stop blaming Mattrick for things that happened a decade after he left the company.
Don Mattrick left Xbox in 2013. It was more than a decade ago. He may have ruined the XOne launch, but Spencer has had all the time and money in the world to rectify his mistakes and, so far, has only worsened them to the point that most doubt that a new Xbox will exist at all.
Xbox’s brand was one that gained all of its clout basically as a result of Halo for the original console, and then pretty much almost the entirety of the 360 era. Damaging a brand is easy to do, and the consequences are long-standing. True that plenty of time has passed… but I still think that the main issue is that Microsoft is still pulling the strings that damage the Xbox brand.
Nintendo was on the brink of disaster after the Wii U, and managed to turn their fates around in half the time and with a fraction of the money. Why couldn’t Spencer?
Because Nintendo is completely independent, and is controlled wholly by their own CEO… they are not a division of a larger shitty company interested in Copilot and Window 11 subscriptions.
In all these years, Spencer’s legacy has been of failed deals, shutting down/letting go multiple studios, and moronic attempts at building AAA and GAAS games on the back of seasonal contractors. We should stop blaming Mattrick for things that happened a decade after he left the company.
I’m not blaming Mattrick DIRECTLY for anything that’s happened in the last 10 years… but I AM blaming Microsoft as a whole probably forcing Phil’s hands, based on the interviews I watched with both Mattrick and Phil back in the day.
I really do think Phil likes games and is basically having to fly a plane that Microsoft keeps taking away parts from. I don’t think someone who actually worked on games like Phil did early in his career wanted to close the studio that made HiFi Rush.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d love to see some evidence showing Phil coming across as even half as bad as ANY interview or stage presentation with Mattrick.
Unfortunately, Microsoft is bigger than 1 good dude. Remember when this one executive threatened to pull MS out of an entire nation because the CMA had an objection regarding the ABK merger? For every one Phil, there are probably 9 of these rich pricks.
Either he’s been selling the AI kool aid for so long that he actually believes his own bullshit, or he’s just stuck in “must sell AI for all things at all times always” mode. Either way it’s a new level of depravity for these exec assholes.
he’s been selling the AI kool aid for so long that he actually believes his own bullshit
I worked for an Internet startup in the ‘90s and at one point we were sucking up to R. J. Reynolds’ venture capital division for more funding. This tobacco company had so much fucking money they had actually branched out into venture capitalism to do something with it. The VCs came to visit us one day; we were in a non-smoking office and these assholes spent the entire day literally chain-smoking in the meeting room. We had not much ventilation and the smoke was so thick you couldn’t see to the end of the hallway. I kept walking past the meeting room and loudly coughing and my bosses eventually sent me home.
We ended up not getting any money from them. The only good part of this story is that these guys have all surely died horrible deaths from cancer or emphysema by now. But in order to sell the lie that cigarettes aren’t harmful, these R. J. Reynolds executives had first convinced themselves of it. The human capacity for self-delusion is truly remarkable.
AI would replace CEOs better than devs and you’d save a lot more money. What’s the issue if we’re so confident in it – aren’t we supposed to think of the shareholders?
I mean that would save millions and millions of dollars right off the top. Between salary, bonuses and stock were talking hundreds of millions in some cases. Maximum shareholder value increase.
Given his post, he’s likely already using an AI for making decisions and writing emails (and LinkedIn slop). Much less work while still enjoying a bloated paycheck - what’s that saying about having your cake and eating it, too?
Decades and decades of no consequences for their actions. If your bonus gets bigger despite every meaningful kpi you aren’t are great CEO, you are a capitalist exploiting your resources.
I feel like this is all driven by MS diving full force into AI stuff. Their capex is going to be insane so they’re cutting shit left and right to keep Wall Street happy while they set cash on fire trying to make AI something more than anime profile pic generators.
Maybe they’re just buying these studios to acquire their IPs, code and artwork to train new AI’s on. Then close the studio, as you’ve acquired all its data and it serves no further purpose to them. Probably hoping to release full AAA-AI slop in the future. Don’t think it’ll work and they’ll waste enormous amounts of energy and resources before the AI bubble bursts and everyone realizes that current ‘AI’ (LLMs) will never become AGI.
Eh? They’ve been chasing the one-off Xbox 360 high for two generations now, and are nowhere near it. Sony have near full dominance in the console space. Valve have so much dominance in the PC space that they’ve got people to try Linux.
The aim of GamePass was that people would stream games and not need a console at all, and that just hasn’t happened for them. Their entire gamble was on cloud gaming, and it’s not paid off at all.
As much as the higher tiers of PSN aren’t as good value as GamePass, it’s certainly lead to higher quality games for Sony’s platform as they can still get sales revenue from shorter or niche games, rather than just looking at a single figure and laying off whole studios.
I’d much rather pay money for a full game now (and I’ll be honest, my day one purchases this gen are limited to games I’m really interested in), or wait and play on sub later (and it’s about 18 months I think for games to go “free”), than have half a game on sub now and get nickle and dimed for the rest of it.
It's probably the latter because the former implies not huffing AI paint and I just don't believe anyone that high up making such a stupid statement isn't huffing AI paint.
Don’t be that shocked. Humans make their minds up based on instinct and emotion and then justify it later. It is common for all of us to use flimsy excuses (when better ones don’t present themselves) to rationalize our ideals.
I call out people who support the same things I do for flimsy reasons for that reason. I doubt I’m any more immune to it than anyone else, it’s just easier to spot it in others than ourselves. Shit sometimes I spot flaws in my own reasoning only when someone else gives voice to it. That’s fucking aggravating.
That being said, it’s completely self-serving and upsetting to me because the people affected are more like me than him, and I could easily be next on the chopping block, and people like that dude will give not a single shit.
Matt Turnbull doesn’t have a singular clue what LLMs do and what they should be used for. Except touching up your resume, I think that’s actually a good use for LLMs. However, he also suggested using it as a career coach and even a psychiatrist. That man is a raving lunatic.
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