Amid some of the most turbulent times at Xbox, the only way to move forward is to remove Phil Spencer, users agree

If you’ve been following everything Xbox-related on social media, you know what’s happening right now with the company. Microsoft closed several Xbox game studios including Arkane Austin, Tango Gameworks, and Alpha Dog, which are studios behind some of the most popular Xbox games around, such as, you know, Hi-Fi Rush.

Many were sad and angered by the decision, which also prompted the head Arkane Lyon, Dinga Bakaba, to post some very raw but sincere thoughts on X (formerly known as Twitter), asking for corporations (in this case, Microsoft) to stop treating game studios like Darwinist jungles.

Don’t throw us into gold fever gambits, don’t use us as strawmen for miscalculations/blind spots, don’t make our work environments darwinist jungles. You say we make you proud when we make a good game. Make us proud when times are tough. We know you can, we seen it before.

Dinga Bakaba

On the other hand, as if Microsoft could already see the outcry, the Redmond-based tech giant reportedly has a lot of interesting titles coming out in the second half of 2024, including Starfield: Shattered Stars, the expansion pack for Bethesda Game Studios space-based RPG, the next Call of Duty game, and the hotly-anticipated Awoved RPG.

However, the Xbox community is not pleased at all. And many Xbox users find one person to blame: Phil Spencer, the current head of the company.

On Reddit, Xbox lovers have taken it to say that Spencer is good at PR, but not good at leading the company, with many calling him a master at delusions. But they’re not entirely wrong either.

Phil Spencer has been the head of Xbox for a decade now. He was anointed as such in 2014, and under his leadership, Xbox came up with the now-popular and the industry standard, Game Pass, which sparked a series of imitation services from competitors.

But as many others have shown, Phil Spencer’s legacy at Xbox is mainly composed of false (or rather, underwhelming) promises, apologies, layoffs, or poor sales.

In 2023, Microsoft cut 10,000 jobs, including 800 positions at Xbox. Then, a few months after the gigantic acquisition of the ABK triad (Activision-Blizzard-King), Xbox laid off more than 1900 positions at Activision. As we’re noticing now, that was the point gaming studios under Xbox’s wing and Spencer’s leadership began to worry.

Users are not particularly happy about it. On Reddit, which is often known to harbor some of the most sincere posts, many Xbox users are angry too.

I know a lot of people will defend him by saying he had the Herculean task of undoing the Xbox One era , but having a Head of Xbox with the mentality of “we’re in third place, we will always be in third place, we have lost, good games will not make people buy Xbox, despite Sony and Nintendo selling their consoles purely off strong exclusives” was a death sentence for Xbox. And the rate Xbox is laying off its employees and closing studios, by the end of the year, Xbox will be a glorified Call of Duty publisher that also publishes a Bethesda title once every 10 years.

Reddit user

He is doing exactly what he was tasked to do which is acquire tons of high grade IP to make exclusive to the Xbox GamePass everything else is collateral damage as with any industry.

Eventually Microsoft will probably step out of the console industry and only have GamePass on all other consoles and PC they’ve hinted at it several times in the past.

Reddit user

Thanks for making the only memorable game on Xbox last year, your reward is death. Japan is crucial for our strategy, let’s show how much by closing our only studio in Japan. I don’t know if there’s a way to salvage Xbox, but if there is, it starts with removing Phil Spencer.

Reddit user

What do you think about it? Are they right? Should Phil Spencer step down from leading Xbox? Or it doesn’t really matter after all?