In a recent podcast, Xbox head Phil Spencer admitted that Xbox had lost after the Xbox One generation. As a founding member of the Xbox team, I offer my perspective on what went wrong.
@@laurafryer6321 I came across your channel recently and really enjoy your content and the expereinces you share. Seeing the first gears of war footage is what made me get my 360 as a young teen. Do you have a video on what you are up to currently or have you left the industry?
Phil Spencer done the opposite of trying to bring the culture back he has done nothing but try and look for ways around managing Xbox studios and putting out great games, I don't actually know what he does outside of play Diablo 4 and Destiny 2 whilst Xbox sits there burning.
To be fair, he has to report to Nidella who is "cloud first" and that surely changed the overall strategy. I won't comment on how much of the downfall is due to what our who, as I don't think we have enough info.
You nailed it perfectly: The qualifications no longer mattered at MS. Nepotism, patronage, and politics became the new culture, so the qualified people left, and the monkeys took over the circus.
Thank you for mentioning and giving so much credit to Peter More. For some reason, I see that many sites and channels never connect the leaving of Peter More to the beginning of the downfall of Xbox. I'm a fan of his work since his "Sega" times. People only seem to remember him for the 3 red lights of death, but I have fond memories of how Xbox 360 was so trendy during his leadership. Btw, his stage appearances were SO epic, such a charismatic persona! It was so memorable when he announced GTA IV (with the arm tattoo) and Final Fantasy XIII were going to be launched on the same day on Xbox as on Playstation. He was leading Xbox during its most successful times.
Credit to Peter More for having the guts to go to Steve Ballmer and put his career on the line to say we screwed up and we need to give extended warranties to save the brand….. at the estimated cost of 1.15 Billion.
honestly I think xbox even during his time was still gonna flop. Did they build upon existing ip that they gad, no they just used timed exclusively to trick people into thinking they had so many exclusives like with bioshock or mass effect and didn't build upon the ip they made back with the original xbox apart from halo, fable and forza, one game which was made by a massive liar and another one which was built upon extremely rocky development. Having no clear plan of where you want the console to stand, having no confidence in your smaller ip, imo is just as big of a faliure in terms if management and relying on halo, fable, gears and forza was foolish. And not investing in your other ips.
Not to mention even then barely anything was made in house for the Xbox and Xbox 360. Xbox just threw money around and commissioned exclusives like with gears that is not healthy instead of developing studios and keeping them around.
I really dislike Phil Spencer and Microsoft, since they just purchased popular franchises just to deprive other platforms of those franchises, instead of working hard and creating a unique and refreshing franchise.
Phil Spencer and Microsoft had no other choice tbh, they needed to do these big acquisitions or leave the market. Sony has grown their connections in the console market and those connections were too strong.
@@Vyyc-m9g no other choice than to deprive other systems of titles that were always multi platform... They are too lazy to do hard work and create new franchises, and to make things worse, they opt for a Netflix model for content consumption, which will lead to quantity over quality and be rubbish like Netflix.... Microsoft should lead and allow Sega to make a comeback.
@@ILLRICARDOI agree with all your sentiments, except Sega is broke as fuck right now, probably broker than they've ever been, so Sega ever coming back is just not in the cards. I will, however, accept Microsoft buying Sega and allowing them to take the reins on hardware and change the Xbox brand to the Sbox
I literally came here to say this!!! @laurafryer6321 Why do you only have 20 Subscribers!?!?!? ... SUBSCRIBED (now 21, lol).... You need to have 250-500K Subs minimum considering the amount of videos and their view counts on THIS VERY TOPIC.. To have an ACTUAL Xbox Employee vs A UA-cam Personality's opinion on this matter weights heavily.. KEEP MAKING VIDEOS!!!!
Wow. You are the first person on UA-cam to ever criticize Xbox for having terrible work culture. I follow dozens of video game enthusiast channels including Kinda Funny (Xcast) and not a single one have ever mentioned Xbox as having bad work culture and more specifically, poor management. Xbox has spent tens of billions of dollars on acquiring Bethesda and Activison / Blizzard in recent years and no one has stopped to ask this simple question: If Xbox has that much money at their disposal, why can’t they invest that same amount of money into the hundreds of studios they already own by hiring up, paying the devs more, and developing exciting new IP? Because they would rather buy popular IP than create it themselves because they simply do not know how. If I were a developer for one of the many many first party Xbox studios that haven’t put out a good game in years, I would think to myself, “None of the management have any faith in us to develop and ship high quality games because they’d rather buy IP than invest in their current staff.” Xbox is simply going to become the Elder Scrolls / Call of Duty machine as opposed to the Halo / Gears of War machine. I think they’re simple moving laterally but no one realizes it because so much money being thrown around. I would be very surprised if Xbox is still making consoles in 7 years given their current strategy and poor leadership.
the people who are defending xbox , and letting them monopolize gaming bu buying very large publishing studios and not work on games - should watch this video
@@proggz39 it has a long term disadvantage , very big one. you don't own a single game you play on gamepass , sure you can say we are able to play a game on a low price but its totally on their hand when they can add more games and when they remove games from service.
@@being47 you don't own digital games you purchased. Read the terns and you will see. Even some physical games may never be playable again if publishers want to. I can give you an example. I "own" Battleborn, but I cannot play it in co-op or solo anymore. Yes, this game had an amazing campaign that I cannot play anymore.
It's crazy because you can tell when a product is different or has a different vibe when people who worked on it are no longer there. Simpsons is an excellent example of this, with most of their writers leaving for other projects. I felt the same thing when I played Gears of War 3 and felt that it didn't feel like the previous games. Gears is one of my favorite franchises and thank you for playing a special part in its creation.
Yeah, I think it was about TV. Xbox lost because in 2013 they got up on stage and said "the next Xbox isn't for games, you weird loser nerds, it's for watching TV on TV, even tho your TV already watches TV. It's a pointless box that does nothing. Also if you live outside the US, fuck you." It was insane, it was an insult, they were saying they don't care about games. They also them went on to remove LAN and splitscreen from Halo and STILL have never put it back. They took away the very thing that built Xbox in the first place, the thing that made it fun. And we're still not allowed to have it even now. I would buy an Xbox JUST for splitscreen Halo, but it doesn't have it. Xbox is dead because at the height of its popularity, Microsoft shot it in the head. They then shot another 5 bullets just to make sure their own product was dead, and continued to kick the corpse for the next 11 years. They slapped every single one of their customers in the face, they insulted us for liking games instead of TV, they slapped in the face everyone outside the US, and then did absolutely nothing to undo the damage.
Love the xbox 360 and breaks my heart what has happened and is still happening. Just the basic features like console and app UI and achievements have never been fixed. The starting point should be getting the platform to be an intuitive robust easy to use experience. It took 9 years to add a direct 'uninstall' option instead of some convoluted manage and save changes function. And i still can't see what games I have completed so I know I can delete them. The console still expects to be online only. A network glitch will stop achievements and can instantly terminate your digital or gamepass game losing all your progress. Wish the old team could get back together and make xbox a great platform again. The lack of world class games and charging 70 dollars for redfall is another story. If you want to release a weak game then charge 30. Pricing sets expectations correctly.
Seems like you picked the one weak game released way too early to fill a void and forget all the great games on the platform the last 3 years. Sony set the $70 rate. It almost makes Gamepass more appealing in a bittersweet way. Sure there was plenty of mistakes. Takes awhile to right a sinking ship
The answer for why Xbox lost is that Microsoft lost all consumer trust with the horrendous Xbox One reveal Don Mattrick almsot single handedly killed the Xbox brand with his dumb braindead decisions regarding the Xbox One and once you lose consumer trust it is very very hard to build that back
Fascinating video. I remember this all well. I was an Xbox fan yet I decided to buy a PS4 as a direct response to this. To the attitude. To them trying to push the product that THEY wanted us to have, rather than providing a product that we would like. That said I'm still an Xbox fan. I never loved my PS4 like I loved my 360 and I can't wait to get my Series X. I sincerely hope Xbox keeps going, doesn't give up and keeps making consoles well into the future, as long as there is a market for them.
I loved Xbox original and the early years of the 360. Then Mattrick came in, and the focus shifted from pursuing the hardcore gamer demographic to trying to compete with the Wii for the casual audience. Hence, the latter focus on Kinect and all the shovelware that came with it. "To thine own self be true," as the saying goes, but Xbox stopped being true to itself and just started chasing other current trends.
Very good video. Unfortunately for me as a day 1 Xbox owner/Halo and Gears fanatic, the thing that broke my trust was 343i. MCC release being a nightmare is an understatement to a lifelong fan, it destroyed my love of Xbox, and that was really sad.
but that is only your personal story it has not really anything to do with why Xbox lost to Sony and Nintendo overall, Microsoft was in a great position after the very successful Xbox 360 but Don Mattrick almost single handedly killed the Xbox brand with the horrendous Xbox One reveal Microsoft lost all consumer trust at that point and is very very hard to build that trust back
@@danhalo1405The Xbone launch was mirror image of the PS3 launch. In both cases Microsoft and Sony respectively thought they could do whatever the wanted their fans would still buy them. I do need to say something about the Xbone though. The media center idea was a good one on paper. Sony had just launched two consoles that done just that. The PS2 for DVDs and the PS3 for Bluray. So you can understand why they would make a big deal about TV and Film. What killed the Xbone for gamers are the three most had letters in the era of physical media DRM. Doesn't matter that they walked it back. It shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. The always on connect was also an issue.
@@danhalo1405 The Xbox One reveal was the major turning point. They tried to transform Xbox from a game console to a Microsoft entertainment box that would be an extension of Windows. They obsessed over integrating television into it which is a big red flag. It's a sign that you have old non-gamers in charge of what should be a videogame console and who are blissfully unaware that even back then, TV was seen as a declining entertainment medium. And then trying to sell the idea of a game console that had to be connected to the internet in order to play and that they were working with publishers to prevent the resale of games, and that potentially they might prevent a friend from loaning a game to another friend. What an absolute trainwreck.
Isn't Robbie Bach the one who arrogantly said that Nintendo is a toy maker and Xbox do not seem them as competitor? This was right before the Wii crushed the Xbox360.
No. He did not say Nintendo is a toymaker or not a competitor- he said that the Nintendo Wii was more similar to a child’s toy and was not in a different bracket of product compared to the 360. He was making the point that you couldnt compare the products because Nintendo was doing something different to Sony and Microsoft, and he said you wouldnt likewise compare a PSP to a 360. Gaming industry is a business and companies + reps are going to spin anything to make their product look stronger compared to its rivals- the argument Bach was making was that the Wii was going for mass appeal with a shorter lifecycle (which it was) and the 360 was a more dedicated gaming platform with stronger features. That was actually in response to the Wii starting to outsell the 360, and he even called it a revolutionary product in the same interview.
Hi from Bosnia. I watched Power On the day it was released, then during the summer of 2022 once more, again in the winter of 2023/24. And once more, just right now, where I am at Ep 2, and I literally googled you out where you talk about kinder garden game.... what I want to say, you, Seamus, Bonnie, Kevin, and everyone else involved in the research and development of the original Xbox, are the best inspiration I found ever. Being a software developer myself, primarily working as a web dev for most of my career, working mostly under non-Windows dev. environments, you guys helped me get back on the system on which I started learning and loving software engineering. All the internal insights you and other engineers from Microsoft from that time give are just pure gold. Recently, Dave Cutler and Raymond Chen, had their appearances on Dave Plummer's "Dave's Garage" YT channel, which is also insightful on how stuff at Microsoft used to be at some point, and how it is now - consumed by bureaucracy. To wrap it up, I LOVE ALL YOU GUYS - you made the best piece of technology under impossible conditions, against an established competitor, in a very resonant market, especially at that time!
The things you said about the kinect, can be said about the series s, just on the other side of the spectrum. Many Developers don't want to support it, extra work, with no extra incentives. Great insight
The Kinect mandate and the Series S are both Xbox equivalents to PS3's Cell Processor decision. Utterly baffling gimmicks trying to reinvent the wheel and spreading themselves too thing, dumping the burden on developers and gamers alike to put up with in order to pursue a corporate agenda that is at odds with and not aligned with the common people's interests
Honestly imo I think the writing was already on the wall, the 360 only got a head start due to the flunders of the ps3 and wii. They relied too much even back then in halo gears and forza and didn't build up the ip they used from the previous generation like crimson skies phantom dusk etc and closed a lot of studios like Microsoft japan studios. Gears was always going to flop after the third one, cod modern warfare 4 became massive and epic didn't know what to do with the franchise and left to make live service stuff then a gaming launcher for pc. Halo was always managed poorly and it always seemed like it was going to crash, look at what happened with bungie and sony. Fable was made by a compulsive liar. Xbox relied on using timed exclusively on things like mass effect even in the early days instead if building upon existing ip from the original xbox days and didn't make a lot of franchises, they commisioned games but didn't own the ip to them like with ninja gaiden. This doesn't showcase a stable foundation, it shows that they were mainly ble to do well partly just due to luck and timing, but majnly luck. I remember watching a documentary and it seems even at the beginung the developers of the xbox had no real idea or path they wanted to go with it and threw money making ip but shelved most of it. The foundation of the box imo was too rocky.
not to mention microsoft just paying developers to not port to pc back in those days and do timed exclusivity, that doesn't show a healthy ecosystem or one where they even had any real confidence in.
@laurafryer6321 No, no, Thank YOU for all your insights! I said this on a different video, but I don't think you can even begin to fathom the amount of lives you have impacted with your work. I owe my career choices to people like you.
What incredible insights. Getting this behind the scenes look is awesome. Id love to see videos from you explaining/teaching the behind the scenes processes that matter most for shipping games, and marketing, and interview dos/donts, and other kinds of decision making processes and principles of good business and communication, and so forth all geared towards game development and building game studios. Backing it up with examples youve lived or seen would help make it memorable and applicable too
Love your channel, Laura. I really missed working with the early XBox team. They were passionate, blunt, open-minded and really cared about their relationships and making XBox the best. Politics seemed to matter very little. How things change. I hope the channel does well: as far as I know, it’s the only one of its kind.
Now that I found this vid, I am sad about how Xbone turned out and how Xbox in general hasn't been the same since. You have any thoughts on the Series S and Series X?
Businesses don't know how to understand what makes a good company culture, since culture and artistry and good quality imagination from minds of merit is not something they can quantify in dollar figures. That is the special ethereal magic "je ne sais quoi" beyond the purview of single-minded short-term-thinking-only myopic stockholders. It requires taste. And as Steve Jobs once said about Microsoft, Microsoft has no taste.
You can thank Steve Balmer for that. It was politics in management that some folks didn't see or hear about. When Peter left, Steve felt that he needed to make sure a couple of things: 1. He wanted his own people in leadership so they were easier to deal with. 2. He knew what would happen once Peter left, thus clearing the way for an entire new leadership. Anyone who was from the old regime was never going to move up, and to Steve's, they were considered a game that needed to be shipped out.
They seem to be content being the “also ran” to Sony, leaning on Gamepass and Bethesda exclusives. The original X-Box was considerably more powerful than its contemporaries (as I’m sure you well know), basically being a GeForce 3 gaming rig for less than half the price. It’s use of pixel and vertex shaders enabled games/ports like Doom 3 that weren’t feasible on the competition. Since the XBone, hell, the 360, the X-Box has been very similar to its Sony contemporaries with a few internal CPU tweaks/differences, but overall very close in performance/capabilities which is good in the sense that it makes porting easier, but bad because the homogenized hardware landscape (Switch excepting) gives the “other” hardware less innate appeal. It’s not like the days of the PS1/Saturn/N64 when games on the systems looked and played very differently and there were games that took advantage of the unique quirks of their target hardware that just wouldn’t have worked or been the same on other hardware.
Makes sense. Even with all the money thry are pumping into xbox the games are STILL SO GODDAMN AWFUL. Truly halo reach or gow 3 are some of the last good xbox games. And the were releaded more than 10 years ago... xbox has relased nothing worthwile in 10 years even after buying 25 studios. There must be a problem in hie the company is working lol
So glad you popped up in my algorithm a while ago. Your videos are really great. I love stuff like this, it's almost conversational. You're very well spoken and deeply knowledgeable. I love the insights. I'd probably be pissed for you just like your coworkers were! 😅
I just discovered this channel and I have to say it’s criminally underrated. At the time of writing there’s only 30k subscribers. You should easily have millions.
Great video, Laura! It's always nice to hear from the OG team and your vision. Also, thanks for shipping Gears 1 & 2! P.S. Can you please make a video on your opinion about Gamepass, it's ripple effect on consumer purchasing decisions, how the market for AAA's and Indies factor into this business model, and is it risk averse? Thanks again!
No disrespect to you, but thank you for finally saying what many of us have been saying for years because since you're the right race, gender or whatever preference matters apparently people like Destin are suddenly willing to listen.
Hello Laura. This video really spoke to me, and maybe you've noticed that I'm someone who has discovered your channel very recently and am watching your content each day. I am a game producer right now thrust into a role of an EP and I want to know how I can possibly connect with you for the sake of myself but moreso the producers under my wing that I want to train and lead in a direction that will bring them success and fulfillment. What... if you are willing, is the best way that I may connect with you? I sense that it isn't very often that I would discover the fledgling channel of a game industry legend that is willing to leave comments on my comments.
I was in a similar position, Dir IT, CTO then CIO, to you in the tech industry, not gaming but software development and partnerships with large companies or the government. By the time I left the industry, 2016, it felt like I was a dinosaur with my focus on merit, fairness, team dynamics and such. The company failed about 2 years after I left. Not because I left but their failure to keep existing customers while pushing new product that failed after massive investments. A few people made a lot of money when the company’s assets were sold but none of the employees were kept. I understand what happened and why but it is a shame and it pains me to see it happening over and over again. Even in a company “too large to fail” like a MS, a lot of good people are gone I imagine. In previous work, Banking, I was a senior software analyst for mid-range, we were a massively important customer of MS and had Bill and Steve court myself and my bosses personally. I was flown out a few times to work the NT team, mostly just to bring needs. That was ‘97-‘99 and seems like a lifetime ago. I imagine I would have enjoyed working with you. Cheers.
So how the Hell is the Kinect creator/promoter still an employee at MS? Japanese game companies ridicule, fire, then ridicule even more, any employee that cost the company thier reputation with gamers, but at MS they get promoted for thier screw ups. Also, recon does that good ol boy still wear shades indoors? Hes so cool creating Kinect AND wearing shades indoors. Just ask MS, they'll tell you how cool that cat really is lol
@Laura Fryer did you miss out on the fact that Microsoft has failed even harder this generation and that was with Phil Spencer now being in charge for 10 years. It's amazing how people give him a free pass just because of the fake way he comes across (FTC case revealed who he really is and how he operates). 10 years is enough and it's time to give someone else shot. All the other companies have had their executives come ago but for Microsoft executives hang on for way too long. The only thing he has to his name is he way over paid for a company that has its 3 main franchises ailing and going down in sales.
Xbox needs to reach old to the veteran Xbox team and try to get as many of them back. Convince them somehow to return because this new blood of management isn’t going to work. Phil Spencer can only do so much, he’s only one person. A captain can’t steer the ship without his crew. I digress, I loved the Xbox 360 to death. It’s my 2nd favorite console of all time right behind the N64. Xbox One was a train wreck. So far Xbox Series X is just a continuation of that, with subpar games like Halo Infinite and RedFall. They need to expedite this new vision of theirs and just leave console behind and go full subscription service already. I know it’s coming anyway.
i'd love to start an indie game-dev group. Sounds like some of your rules for this would be 1. Open to Criticizm: Actually listening to Constructive Criticizm & accepting it 2. Open-door: Being available to talk
It was great to hear the thoughts of someone who clearly knows what they are taking about. I think XBONE (a dumb name but still not as bad as the Wii) is a fascinating case study in a product strategy that lost sight of what the market wanted. They chased motion control because of the Wii. That many people used their consult as a media player dragged focus to TV TV TV. When customers just wasted a games machine. I see it as a failure of market research.
The Wii and the PS3 both had lifestyle stuff like weather channels and web browsers and media viewers (and PS3's PlayStation Home and Folding@Home), they were just additional bonuses rather than the central gimmick. Xbox, however, has always been drolly unambitious and sticks only to what they know, because every time they try to do something actually new it blows up in their faces, and so they leave the originality and risk-taking to others, only considering adopting the feature years after it's already been proven (when they could've been the first to capitalize on the void). They are the complete opposite of the days of ambition when they committed hard to Xbox Live and at least attempting to have exclusives
I thought I was going to be watching gaming videos but now I'm learning how to successfully navigate large corporate environments and advocate for myself in my career. Thanks Laura!
Such a great video on so many topics - how Xbox sabotaged themselves, insider views into corporate politics (patronage vs. meritocracy) and how it drives productivity vs. protectionism. So glad to find your channel!
Thank you for this video. It may be too late for xbox at this point. Many of my 360 friends switched to ps4, and now own ps5, with no plans to own the Xbox ever again. There is no real incentive to switch back. Initiatives that made xbox a better sell, such as backwards compatibility, have been abandoned. 😢
I was never a console player, but I still followed the news and even I could say that Xbox One reveal caused enourmous damage, and they did very little to fix it.
what’s your thoughts on gamepass? Ed fries said it makes him nervous, likewise with me on the effect it could give in the industry. i’m asking this cause Phils team doesn’t believe in the successful sony/nintendo traditional business model anymore of focusing on their hardware and pushing it to its limits with the best games to experience exclusively on that console.
well pushing hardware to it limits has never been a good idea. look at FF16 a game that says it pushes PS5 to its limit and the performance and thermals are horrible. 1080p to 1440p then upscaled to 4K and it cant even hit 60fps with horrible frame times. then a 1440p upscaled to 4K 30fps quality mode that cant hold 30fps. on top of that we got the memory modules hitting 95c which is 5 degrees short of its 100c thermal limit. switch is another issue we got games running at 10 15fps. even Zelda TOTK which was a huge success because its zelda suffers from huge performance issues due to pushing the hardware past what it can do. 20-30fps a dynamic resolution scaler with poor AMD FSR implementation and a aggressive sharpening filter. XC3 a dynamic 720p resolution that goes down to 540p and even with the huge resolution cut it still cant hold 30fps and you get slowdowns under heavy loads. so No pushing consoles is horrible choice because it just shows how badly the console is from a design standpoint and shows all of its short comings
@@matthewjuarbe5826 😂😂!!! yet those games are successful asf! and get more brand awareness/recognition that benefits their hardware in sales as evidence proves today, yet microsoft today is doing the complete opposite of what you said is a “horrible choice”, as you mentioned, yet their numbers aren’t doing much. still last place in the business. all that diversity that everyone knows about to not needing a console to play their games or being able to play on pc as well, yet everyone is seems to still want to pay 500$+ premium price for a nintendo/playstation console with high quality games.. and don’t forget spider man 2, it’s pushing the hardware of the ps5 and look at how amazing it runs, with full ray tracing support that cant be disabled in game, whats your excuse for that?
@@matthewjuarbe5826Totk pushes the Switch to it's limit and it's one of the best games made ever. Frame rates and resolutions don't really matter if the game is good
My thoughts on Game Pass are the same as any streaming service, it looks good for your wallet in the beginning then it becomes bad for it as the costs increase. I haven't even touched on how it ruins creativity and independence. Just look at how it has hurt Film and Music industry. Why do I want to pay for 95% content I don't want when I only want 5% of it. The best option already existed. Go into a shop and buy the media you want when you want. It is ironic that the so called "capitalists" have no problem with the socialisation of media.
I may be wrong but it seems like Microsoft keeps making decisions that will damage their gaming business till this day! Spending $70B on IP when they could’ve invested 10% of that on building and managing competent teams to ship content for game pass and make it exclusive on the Xbox then launch cloud gaming when the tech is sufficiently capable. Ubisoft plus is executing on a similar strategy, they have about 1M subscribers now.
@@laurafryer6321you should consider making another video. Not to question the efforts of Phil Spencer and his team, but rather what were the conditions that lead up the layoffs in comparison to everyone else.
All the systems or consoles i really dislike through out all the generations were the ones that played movies better than their games. Always got the consoles that only played and prioritized games first. think the ps4 was finally the first console i bought that played both games and movie discs.
I remember talking to a higher up, who quickly got promoted to an even higher position. I asked him if he was over his head? He said I don't have the luxury to complain because I get paid the big bucks to lead, not complain. As a boss and a leader, engage the team. Ask them what they need. Be the buffer between the CEOs and the team. Like you, you are a good leader and do these things. So no, you shouldn't pity your new boss. He should have learned what it is to become a leader
This is such an important video. Everything you are saying here about culture change is so true. I've seen it happen time and time again. We need more people to see this video.
I am sorry to hear you had such a poor deteriorating experience at XBone. I mean Microsoft Xbox. Sadly, departments/organizations that have a long existence have the same difficulties/challenges. While I was off on long term disability with my last org (huge health battles) the company, and my department manager were 100% behind me until the manager was shafted to a new role. A new manager was brought in from outside the company and as part of his first decisions, he decided to let me go. Which is theoretically against labour laws, unless you are a big org with deep pockets and lawyers. Anyway suffice it to say that manager changed the culture for the worse; he was fired and my old manager was brought back in, as he listened and grew his employees, and they worked amazingly well under his guidance-which is the best way a leader can lead.
While it is sad hearing how it all changed, it is very lovely to hear you describe the culture past in such a warm way. I think many developers today yearn to be part of such teams, so it is easy to imagine many great memories must have been created during those days!
Awesome insight Laura. 👍👍 Despite the insane struggles that Xbox had to endure, Xbox is now in a much better place. Thanks to Phil Spencer and his team.
They are out of touch with everything they make. As far as on the gaming front the best they can do is sell it off to a more industry understanding company.
Sounds like standard corporate BS to me. Hate it, especially in US companies when they still claim that "we listen" and "hype" the "great culture" when turnover rate of people multiplies.
I loved the original Xbox, I was the only one in line to buy it on Launch day. When the 360 launched I had to wait weeks to get my launch model because everyone wanted one. I remember seeing the Xbox culture change before the Xbox one was released, and so disgusted I started looking at Sony at that point. The reveal of the Xbox One was a punch in the gut to Xbox fans, Don Mattrick poisoned his product so badly that MS is still trying to get back that power they had, even all these years later.
1) Kinect needing to be online 2) drm The 360 did so damn well but Xbox made questionable, no, stupid decisions which shot themselves in the foot. Xbox still has the best controller I've ever used and i have gamed since '78. 💯👍🏾
Your content is on another level. Truly by someone with actual experience and insight and i just love when expert is actually someone who says it like it is. You are in this position where you can talk it straight not this typical hr talk and trying to cover your ass. Studios need more like you in lead. It is so important to have same principles that you are free to have opinions. Not just or another developer being half activist while being in some really weird personal crusade of the righteous. Think how it is to work in studio like that. Then every body else needs to think same or there are problems or you need to just say yes and yes
You are exactly what Xbox needs right now Laura. I really like your attitude to constructive criticism. It’s a real shame what has happened to Xbox as a console. Subscribed.
With the recent news that Forza Horizon 5 is going to PS5, I can't help but feel that I'm getting a sense of Deja Vu about what happened to Apple during the 90's. Marketshare is down year over year, management has no idea what they're doing, inferior hardware and software compared to the competition, the head of the company isn't even interested in the product he's a part of, etc. The only difference is that Xbox isn't going to have a Steve Jobs messiah figure who will completely reform and rejuvenate the company and place it back to where it once was during the 360 era. Instead they're just throwing in the towel, pitifully admitting defeat without even attempting to at least go out with a bang. It's really sad that the line of consoles I grew up with in middle and high school won't have a 10th generation, but what fills me with dread is the fact that if Sony didn't have plans to sell the Playstation 6 at an MSRP of at least $600 at launch, they probably do now. Sony is basically going to be without competition. Physical media will probably die out for good next gen, games will further rise in costs, draconian end-user license agreements, etc. It's scary to think about that. "But that's just ancient history now, it doesn't really matter anymore." -Steve Jobs, 1995.
Was torn between buying a XBox -X for Starfield and RedFall or A Ps5 for Final Fantasy 16 and Baldur's Gate 3 , Glad I picked the Ps5. In the end it's just about who has better games .
Easy Sub! :'D came to your channel from destin, apreciate the well researched information, as well as the insight from an insider. Thanks a lot! *edit: I really hope gaming get more spotlight in politics, don't get me wrong, for legal reasons and mxt's/lootboxes especially, hope macron's words wasn't empty stuff for publicity-reasons.
This was insightful. I almost skipped the video when it seems like a voiceover recorded one with jokes and what not but when uou mentioned your chops that you were on the Xbox team and actually worked and undertstood where the culture had lost its way, i had to watch the video to the end.
People made the box, not policies. That’s what most tend to forget. Thanks for the insight into where things started to go wrong. I knew it wasn’t an instant switch, more like a slow moving coup.
"It doesn't matter what you say you're culture is. People watch what you do and how you act, and that is your culture" Such a true statement that very few understand. So many people/leaders say how they're this and that, but when you watch their actions, they're just not... but no one can argue with what the leader says, so if they say they're supportive, then they must be....
Such a shame Spencer bought activision. Such a misstep and overcorrection for failing to nurture internal studios. This is why Xbox is failing. Love the content - very insightful as a manger of dev teams.
Late to your wonderful video and insight into what we as fans felt was happening. I was just a teenager enjoying the amazing products that you contributed to, and it was so special back then. I’ll never forget playing Horde mode in Gears 2 with all of my friends one summer. My only disagreement with this only comes toward the end. I see what you’re at least implying in regard to Phil’s turnaround of the work culture, however the business and product execution has been challenged to say the least. Not to mention upending the industry. But there wasn’t another choice after what Mattrick did. From the outside looking in, it seems that Microsoft is now micromanaging the Xbox division; acquiring one of the worlds biggest publishers put a target on their back. Anyways we’ll see what happens next, great job!
There's always some input from the rest of Microsoft that you have to navigate but I agree the big buyout would increase that pressure. Thank you for your comments and for watching!
I wonder if the creative director she is talking about is Josh Holmes? Creative Director and then Lead on Halo 4 and 5. Formally only shipping one product, a basketball game. In charge of a multibillion dollar franchise. Never understood that decision.
we need more of you in these Gaming UA-cam streets.
an actual industry veteran, holy smokes, i feel lucky to subscribe
Thank you for your kind words and for subscribing!
@@laurafryer6321 I came across your channel recently and really enjoy your content and the expereinces you share. Seeing the first gears of war footage is what made me get my 360 as a young teen. Do you have a video on what you are up to currently or have you left the industry?
Phil Spencer done the opposite of trying to bring the culture back he has done nothing but try and look for ways around managing Xbox studios and putting out great games, I don't actually know what he does outside of play Diablo 4 and Destiny 2 whilst Xbox sits there burning.
To be fair, he has to report to Nidella who is "cloud first" and that surely changed the overall strategy. I won't comment on how much of the downfall is due to what our who, as I don't think we have enough info.
I always knew the moment Peter Moore left was when things went downhill for the brand. This video confirms it
You nailed it perfectly: The qualifications no longer mattered at MS. Nepotism, patronage, and politics became the new culture, so the qualified people left, and the monkeys took over the circus.
Thank you for mentioning and giving so much credit to Peter More. For some reason, I see that many sites and channels never connect the leaving of Peter More to the beginning of the downfall of Xbox. I'm a fan of his work since his "Sega" times. People only seem to remember him for the 3 red lights of death, but I have fond memories of how Xbox 360 was so trendy during his leadership.
Btw, his stage appearances were SO epic, such a charismatic persona! It was so memorable when he announced GTA IV (with the arm tattoo) and Final Fantasy XIII were going to be launched on the same day on Xbox as on Playstation.
He was leading Xbox during its most successful times.
The Halo 2 release date with an arm tattoo is still one of the best moments on stage ever for Xbox.
Credit to Peter More for having the guts to go to Steve Ballmer and put his career on the line to say we screwed up and we need to give extended warranties to save the brand….. at the estimated cost of 1.15 Billion.
he's a legend and a badass of gaming in the 360 era.
honestly I think xbox even during his time was still gonna flop. Did they build upon existing ip that they gad, no they just used timed exclusively to trick people into thinking they had so many exclusives like with bioshock or mass effect and didn't build upon the ip they made back with the original xbox apart from halo, fable and forza, one game which was made by a massive liar and another one which was built upon extremely rocky development.
Having no clear plan of where you want the console to stand, having no confidence in your smaller ip, imo is just as big of a faliure in terms if management and relying on halo, fable, gears and forza was foolish. And not investing in your other ips.
Not to mention even then barely anything was made in house for the Xbox and Xbox 360. Xbox just threw money around and commissioned exclusives like with gears that is not healthy instead of developing studios and keeping them around.
I really dislike Phil Spencer and Microsoft, since they just purchased popular franchises just to deprive other platforms of those franchises, instead of working hard and creating a unique and refreshing franchise.
Phil Spencer and Microsoft had no other choice tbh, they needed to do these big acquisitions or leave the market. Sony has grown their connections in the console market and those connections were too strong.
@@Vyyc-m9g no other choice than to deprive other systems of titles that were always multi platform... They are too lazy to do hard work and create new franchises, and to make things worse, they opt for a Netflix model for content consumption, which will lead to quantity over quality and be rubbish like Netflix.... Microsoft should lead and allow Sega to make a comeback.
@@ILLRICARDOI agree with all your sentiments, except Sega is broke as fuck right now, probably broker than they've ever been, so Sega ever coming back is just not in the cards. I will, however, accept Microsoft buying Sega and allowing them to take the reins on hardware and change the Xbox brand to the Sbox
They can’t afford to deprive other platforms of those popular franchises though and have essentially gone multi-platform at this point.
wow that was some great insight from a person who was actually in the trenches! you deserve millions of subscribers!
Thank you!
I literally came here to say this!!! @laurafryer6321 Why do you only have 20 Subscribers!?!?!? ... SUBSCRIBED (now 21, lol).... You need to have 250-500K Subs minimum considering the amount of videos and their view counts on THIS VERY TOPIC.. To have an ACTUAL Xbox Employee vs A UA-cam Personality's opinion on this matter weights heavily.. KEEP MAKING VIDEOS!!!!
Thank you!
BILLIONS
TRILLIONS
Wow. You are the first person on UA-cam to ever criticize Xbox for having terrible work culture. I follow dozens of video game enthusiast channels including Kinda Funny (Xcast) and not a single one have ever mentioned Xbox as having bad work culture and more specifically, poor management. Xbox has spent tens of billions of dollars on acquiring Bethesda and Activison / Blizzard in recent years and no one has stopped to ask this simple question: If Xbox has that much money at their disposal, why can’t they invest that same amount of money into the hundreds of studios they already own by hiring up, paying the devs more, and developing exciting new IP? Because they would rather buy popular IP than create it themselves because they simply do not know how. If I were a developer for one of the many many first party Xbox studios that haven’t put out a good game in years, I would think to myself, “None of the management have any faith in us to develop and ship high quality games because they’d rather buy IP than invest in their current staff.” Xbox is simply going to become the Elder Scrolls / Call of Duty machine as opposed to the Halo / Gears of War machine. I think they’re simple moving laterally but no one realizes it because so much money being thrown around. I would be very surprised if Xbox is still making consoles in 7 years given their current strategy and poor leadership.
Because the video is literally the opposite.
She said that Microsoft was extremely good and fair, but bad management made the Xbox team the exception
this is what i want to say, but yeah
Phil really meant it. " we should give up" Didn't Xbox say they don't want to make consoles...
the people who are defending xbox , and letting them monopolize gaming bu buying very large publishing studios and not work on games - should watch this video
Yeah but gamepass is the best value in gaming with no possible long term negative affects on the industry to speak of!
@@proggz39 it has a long term disadvantage , very big one.
you don't own a single game you play on gamepass ,
sure you can say we are able to play a game on a low price but its totally on their hand when they can add more games and when they remove games from service.
@@proggz39yes for the price but the longetivity, not good (my opinion though)
@@being47 you don't own digital games you purchased. Read the terns and you will see. Even some physical games may never be playable again if publishers want to.
I can give you an example. I "own" Battleborn, but I cannot play it in co-op or solo anymore. Yes, this game had an amazing campaign that I cannot play anymore.
The OG Xbox and *especially* first half of the Xbox 360 were "Gamechanging" Times... Literally!
It's crazy because you can tell when a product is different or has a different vibe when people who worked on it are no longer there. Simpsons is an excellent example of this, with most of their writers leaving for other projects. I felt the same thing when I played Gears of War 3 and felt that it didn't feel like the previous games. Gears is one of my favorite franchises and thank you for playing a special part in its creation.
You are welcome!
Yeah, I think it was about TV.
Xbox lost because in 2013 they got up on stage and said "the next Xbox isn't for games, you weird loser nerds, it's for watching TV on TV, even tho your TV already watches TV. It's a pointless box that does nothing. Also if you live outside the US, fuck you."
It was insane, it was an insult, they were saying they don't care about games.
They also them went on to remove LAN and splitscreen from Halo and STILL have never put it back. They took away the very thing that built Xbox in the first place, the thing that made it fun. And we're still not allowed to have it even now. I would buy an Xbox JUST for splitscreen Halo, but it doesn't have it.
Xbox is dead because at the height of its popularity, Microsoft shot it in the head. They then shot another 5 bullets just to make sure their own product was dead, and continued to kick the corpse for the next 11 years.
They slapped every single one of their customers in the face, they insulted us for liking games instead of TV, they slapped in the face everyone outside the US, and then did absolutely nothing to undo the damage.
Love the xbox 360 and breaks my heart what has happened and is still happening. Just the basic features like console and app UI and achievements have never been fixed. The starting point should be getting the platform to be an intuitive robust easy to use experience. It took 9 years to add a direct 'uninstall' option instead of some convoluted manage and save changes function. And i still can't see what games I have completed so I know I can delete them. The console still expects to be online only. A network glitch will stop achievements and can instantly terminate your digital or gamepass game losing all your progress. Wish the old team could get back together and make xbox a great platform again. The lack of world class games and charging 70 dollars for redfall is another story. If you want to release a weak game then charge 30. Pricing sets expectations correctly.
Seems like you picked the one weak game released way too early to fill a void and forget all the great games on the platform the last 3 years. Sony set the $70 rate. It almost makes Gamepass more appealing in a bittersweet way. Sure there was plenty of mistakes. Takes awhile to right a sinking ship
Excellent post I feel the same
It seems simple too. Look at success stories. Steam, Xbox 360.
The answer for why Xbox lost is that Microsoft lost all consumer trust with the horrendous Xbox One reveal Don Mattrick almsot single handedly killed the Xbox brand with his dumb braindead decisions regarding the Xbox One and once you lose consumer trust it is very very hard to build that back
Fascinating video. I remember this all well. I was an Xbox fan yet I decided to buy a PS4 as a direct response to this. To the attitude. To them trying to push the product that THEY wanted us to have, rather than providing a product that we would like.
That said I'm still an Xbox fan. I never loved my PS4 like I loved my 360 and I can't wait to get my Series X. I sincerely hope Xbox keeps going, doesn't give up and keeps making consoles well into the future, as long as there is a market for them.
Xbox series X is one of the worst consoles I ever got.
Get a gaming PC or a PS5.
@@888YouCantHandle Why don't you like it? What's wrong with it?
play Starfield and Redfall.
Then play FF16 and BDG3
Get the Ps5.
@@Crashed131963 Thanks for actually giving a reason. But I've no interest in Final Fantasy and Baldur's Gate will make its way to Series X eventually.
@@cursedmonkey1033 I could go on and on . No New God Of War ot Horizon Forbidden West .
Sony just gets better games .
I loved Xbox original and the early years of the 360. Then Mattrick came in, and the focus shifted from pursuing the hardcore gamer demographic to trying to compete with the Wii for the casual audience. Hence, the latter focus on Kinect and all the shovelware that came with it. "To thine own self be true," as the saying goes, but Xbox stopped being true to itself and just started chasing other current trends.
Sony did the same thing with the Move controllers.
@@frank234561 But Sony earnestly tried with serious exclusives.
Very good video. Unfortunately for me as a day 1 Xbox owner/Halo and Gears fanatic, the thing that broke my trust was 343i. MCC release being a nightmare is an understatement to a lifelong fan, it destroyed my love of Xbox, and that was really sad.
but that is only your personal story it has not really anything to do with why Xbox lost to Sony and Nintendo overall, Microsoft was in a great position after the very successful Xbox 360 but Don Mattrick almost single handedly killed the Xbox brand with the horrendous Xbox One reveal Microsoft lost all consumer trust at that point and is very very hard to build that trust back
@@danhalo1405The Xbone launch was mirror image of the PS3 launch. In both cases Microsoft and Sony respectively thought they could do whatever the wanted their fans would still buy them.
I do need to say something about the Xbone though. The media center idea was a good one on paper. Sony had just launched two consoles that done just that. The PS2 for DVDs and the PS3 for Bluray. So you can understand why they would make a big deal about TV and Film.
What killed the Xbone for gamers are the three most had letters in the era of physical media DRM. Doesn't matter that they walked it back. It shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. The always on connect was also an issue.
@@danhalo1405 The Xbox One reveal was the major turning point. They tried to transform Xbox from a game console to a Microsoft entertainment box that would be an extension of Windows. They obsessed over integrating television into it which is a big red flag. It's a sign that you have old non-gamers in charge of what should be a videogame console and who are blissfully unaware that even back then, TV was seen as a declining entertainment medium. And then trying to sell the idea of a game console that had to be connected to the internet in order to play and that they were working with publishers to prevent the resale of games, and that potentially they might prevent a friend from loaning a game to another friend. What an absolute trainwreck.
Isn't Robbie Bach the one who arrogantly said that Nintendo is a toy maker and Xbox do not seem them as competitor? This was right before the Wii crushed the Xbox360.
No. He did not say Nintendo is a toymaker or not a competitor- he said that the Nintendo Wii was more similar to a child’s toy and was not in a different bracket of product compared to the 360. He was making the point that you couldnt compare the products because Nintendo was doing something different to Sony and Microsoft, and he said you wouldnt likewise compare a PSP to a 360.
Gaming industry is a business and companies + reps are going to spin anything to make their product look stronger compared to its rivals- the argument Bach was making was that the Wii was going for mass appeal with a shorter lifecycle (which it was) and the 360 was a more dedicated gaming platform with stronger features. That was actually in response to the Wii starting to outsell the 360, and he even called it a revolutionary product in the same interview.
Hi from Bosnia. I watched Power On the day it was released, then during the summer of 2022 once more, again in the winter of 2023/24. And once more, just right now, where I am at Ep 2, and I literally googled you out where you talk about kinder garden game.... what I want to say, you, Seamus, Bonnie, Kevin, and everyone else involved in the research and development of the original Xbox, are the best inspiration I found ever.
Being a software developer myself, primarily working as a web dev for most of my career, working mostly under non-Windows dev. environments, you guys helped me get back on the system on which I started learning and loving software engineering.
All the internal insights you and other engineers from Microsoft from that time give are just pure gold. Recently, Dave Cutler and Raymond Chen, had their appearances on Dave Plummer's "Dave's Garage" YT channel, which is also insightful on how stuff at Microsoft used to be at some point, and how it is now - consumed by bureaucracy.
To wrap it up, I LOVE ALL YOU GUYS - you made the best piece of technology under impossible conditions, against an established competitor, in a very resonant market, especially at that time!
Thank you! I appreciate your kind words!
The things you said about the kinect, can be said about the series s, just on the other side of the spectrum. Many Developers don't want to support it, extra work, with no extra incentives.
Great insight
Good point! Thank you for watching.
The Kinect mandate and the Series S are both Xbox equivalents to PS3's Cell Processor decision. Utterly baffling gimmicks trying to reinvent the wheel and spreading themselves too thing, dumping the burden on developers and gamers alike to put up with in order to pursue a corporate agenda that is at odds with and not aligned with the common people's interests
Honestly imo I think the writing was already on the wall, the 360 only got a head start due to the flunders of the ps3 and wii. They relied too much even back then in halo gears and forza and didn't build up the ip they used from the previous generation like crimson skies phantom dusk etc and closed a lot of studios like Microsoft japan studios. Gears was always going to flop after the third one, cod modern warfare 4 became massive and epic didn't know what to do with the franchise and left to make live service stuff then a gaming launcher for pc. Halo was always managed poorly and it always seemed like it was going to crash, look at what happened with bungie and sony. Fable was made by a compulsive liar.
Xbox relied on using timed exclusively on things like mass effect even in the early days instead if building upon existing ip from the original xbox days and didn't make a lot of franchises, they commisioned games but didn't own the ip to them like with ninja gaiden.
This doesn't showcase a stable foundation, it shows that they were mainly ble to do well partly just due to luck and timing, but majnly luck.
I remember watching a documentary and it seems even at the beginung the developers of the xbox had no real idea or path they wanted to go with it and threw money making ip but shelved most of it. The foundation of the box imo was too rocky.
not to mention microsoft just paying developers to not port to pc back in those days and do timed exclusivity, that doesn't show a healthy ecosystem or one where they even had any real confidence in.
Don Mattrick and Phil Harrison are two of the worst executives to ever fail their way to success in this industry.
I remember the "This is how you share games in PlayStation 4" ad.
I think that was one of the most fatal blows Xbox could have.
I agree! That video was funny! Thank you for watching!
@laurafryer6321 No, no,
Thank YOU for all your insights!
I said this on a different video, but I don't think you can even begin to fathom the amount of lives you have impacted with your work.
I owe my career choices to people like you.
What incredible insights. Getting this behind the scenes look is awesome. Id love to see videos from you explaining/teaching the behind the scenes processes that matter most for shipping games, and marketing, and interview dos/donts, and other kinds of decision making processes and principles of good business and communication, and so forth all geared towards game development and building game studios. Backing it up with examples youve lived or seen would help make it memorable and applicable too
Thank you for watching and the suggestions!
Love your channel, Laura. I really missed working with the early XBox team. They were passionate, blunt, open-minded and really cared about their relationships and making XBox the best. Politics seemed to matter very little. How things change. I hope the channel does well: as far as I know, it’s the only one of its kind.
Definitely make more videos talking about your time at Xbox and the video game industry!
Great video to btw!
Now that I found this vid, I am sad about how Xbone turned out and how Xbox in general hasn't been the same since. You have any thoughts on the Series S and Series X?
This feels like a problem that every business has now.
Every big business pretty much
Businesses don't know how to understand what makes a good company culture, since culture and artistry and good quality imagination from minds of merit is not something they can quantify in dollar figures. That is the special ethereal magic "je ne sais quoi" beyond the purview of single-minded short-term-thinking-only myopic stockholders. It requires taste. And as Steve Jobs once said about Microsoft, Microsoft has no taste.
Valve is fairly solid.
Geez. Even as an Xbot this is an A+ wish it was an hour long.
You can thank Steve Balmer for that. It was politics in management that some folks didn't see or hear about. When Peter left, Steve felt that he needed to make sure a couple of things:
1. He wanted his own people in leadership so they were easier to deal with.
2. He knew what would happen once Peter left, thus clearing the way for an entire new leadership.
Anyone who was from the old regime was never going to move up, and to Steve's, they were considered a game that needed to be shipped out.
Dunno why this hit my feed by I'm gonna watch all of it.
I got it after watching a vid from destin,where he had insights on a vid she made
They seem to be content being the “also ran” to Sony, leaning on Gamepass and Bethesda exclusives. The original X-Box was considerably more powerful than its contemporaries (as I’m sure you well know), basically being a GeForce 3 gaming rig for less than half the price. It’s use of pixel and vertex shaders enabled games/ports like Doom 3 that weren’t feasible on the competition. Since the XBone, hell, the 360, the X-Box has been very similar to its Sony contemporaries with a few internal CPU tweaks/differences, but overall very close in performance/capabilities which is good in the sense that it makes porting easier, but bad because the homogenized hardware landscape (Switch excepting) gives the “other” hardware less innate appeal. It’s not like the days of the PS1/Saturn/N64 when games on the systems looked and played very differently and there were games that took advantage of the unique quirks of their target hardware that just wouldn’t have worked or been the same on other hardware.
Makes sense. Even with all the money thry are pumping into xbox the games are STILL SO GODDAMN AWFUL. Truly halo reach or gow 3 are some of the last good xbox games. And the were releaded more than 10 years ago... xbox has relased nothing worthwile in 10 years even after buying 25 studios. There must be a problem in hie the company is working lol
So glad you popped up in my algorithm a while ago. Your videos are really great. I love stuff like this, it's almost conversational. You're very well spoken and deeply knowledgeable. I love the insights.
I'd probably be pissed for you just like your coworkers were! 😅
It's a platform that won't be around in 2027 anyway. It doesn't matter what happens now.
I’ll be back in 3 years 😎
I just discovered this channel and I have to say it’s criminally underrated. At the time of writing there’s only 30k subscribers. You should easily have millions.
Great video, Laura!
It's always nice to hear from the OG team and your vision.
Also, thanks for shipping Gears 1 & 2!
P.S. Can you please make a video on your opinion about Gamepass, it's ripple effect on consumer purchasing decisions, how the market for AAA's and Indies factor into this business model, and is it risk averse? Thanks again!
Thank you for your comments and your video suggestion!
No disrespect to you, but thank you for finally saying what many of us have been saying for years because since you're the right race, gender or whatever preference matters apparently people like Destin are suddenly willing to listen.
The right race and gender? wtf you talking about
Hello Laura. This video really spoke to me, and maybe you've noticed that I'm someone who has discovered your channel very recently and am watching your content each day. I am a game producer right now thrust into a role of an EP and I want to know how I can possibly connect with you for the sake of myself but moreso the producers under my wing that I want to train and lead in a direction that will bring them success and fulfillment.
What... if you are willing, is the best way that I may connect with you? I sense that it isn't very often that I would discover the fledgling channel of a game industry legend that is willing to leave comments on my comments.
This is the best channel on UA-cam because it's an actual mature business oriented video game channel. Your sound is too loud on your mic though.
Wow this is an incredible take, and point of view. Thank you for being so open and informative about what goes on on the inside. Subscribed!
I was in a similar position, Dir IT, CTO then CIO, to you in the tech industry, not gaming but software development and partnerships with large companies or the government. By the time I left the industry, 2016, it felt like I was a dinosaur with my focus on merit, fairness, team dynamics and such. The company failed about 2 years after I left. Not because I left but their failure to keep existing customers while pushing new product that failed after massive investments. A few people made a lot of money when the company’s assets were sold but none of the employees were kept. I understand what happened and why but it is a shame and it pains me to see it happening over and over again. Even in a company “too large to fail” like a MS, a lot of good people are gone I imagine. In previous work, Banking, I was a senior software analyst for mid-range, we were a massively important customer of MS and had Bill and Steve court myself and my bosses personally. I was flown out a few times to work the NT team, mostly just to bring needs. That was ‘97-‘99 and seems like a lifetime ago. I imagine I would have enjoyed working with you. Cheers.
So how the Hell is the Kinect creator/promoter still an employee at MS? Japanese game companies ridicule, fire, then ridicule even more, any employee that cost the company thier reputation with gamers, but at MS they get promoted for thier screw ups. Also, recon does that good ol boy still wear shades indoors? Hes so cool creating Kinect AND wearing shades indoors. Just ask MS, they'll tell you how cool that cat really is lol
@Laura Fryer did you miss out on the fact that Microsoft has failed even harder this generation and that was with Phil Spencer now being in charge for 10 years. It's amazing how people give him a free pass just because of the fake way he comes across (FTC case revealed who he really is and how he operates). 10 years is enough and it's time to give someone else shot. All the other companies have had their executives come ago but for Microsoft executives hang on for way too long. The only thing he has to his name is he way over paid for a company that has its 3 main franchises ailing and going down in sales.
Thank you for the insight. I appreciate it. Although, I don't see Spencer doing well.
Xbox needs to reach old to the veteran Xbox team and try to get as many of them back. Convince them somehow to return because this new blood of management isn’t going to work. Phil Spencer can only do so much, he’s only one person. A captain can’t steer the ship without his crew. I digress, I loved the Xbox 360 to death. It’s my 2nd favorite console of all time right behind the N64. Xbox One was a train wreck. So far Xbox Series X is just a continuation of that, with subpar games like Halo Infinite and RedFall. They need to expedite this new vision of theirs and just leave console behind and go full subscription service already. I know it’s coming anyway.
343 is in better shape now with Pierre Hinze as the lead. Redfall was a Zenimax gaas game from 2017, that was converted after the 2020 acquisition.
i'd love to start an indie game-dev group.
Sounds like some of your rules for this would be
1. Open to Criticizm: Actually listening to Constructive Criticizm & accepting it
2. Open-door: Being available to talk
Exactly! Even if you don't agree with the feedback, it's good to hear the ideas, consider other viewpoints.
I hope that you’re ready for the massive wave of new subscribers and views that’s coming your way, great stuff 👍
Thank you!
Laura don't need the stock footage, story is interesting enough.
Absolutely loved this video. Thank you for the insight, thoughts and putting this together.
Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it. :)
It was great to hear the thoughts of someone who clearly knows what they are taking about. I think XBONE (a dumb name but still not as bad as the Wii) is a fascinating case study in a product strategy that lost sight of what the market wanted. They chased motion control because of the Wii. That many people used their consult as a media player dragged focus to TV TV TV. When customers just wasted a games machine. I see it as a failure of market research.
The Wii and the PS3 both had lifestyle stuff like weather channels and web browsers and media viewers (and PS3's PlayStation Home and Folding@Home), they were just additional bonuses rather than the central gimmick. Xbox, however, has always been drolly unambitious and sticks only to what they know, because every time they try to do something actually new it blows up in their faces, and so they leave the originality and risk-taking to others, only considering adopting the feature years after it's already been proven (when they could've been the first to capitalize on the void). They are the complete opposite of the days of ambition when they committed hard to Xbox Live and at least attempting to have exclusives
I thought I was going to be watching gaming videos but now I'm learning how to successfully navigate large corporate environments and advocate for myself in my career. Thanks Laura!
Please get into more on the 343 breakout from Xbox Games. It has been heartbreaking to see what has happened to that brand and the lost opportunities
Such a great video on so many topics - how Xbox sabotaged themselves, insider views into corporate politics (patronage vs. meritocracy) and how it drives productivity vs. protectionism. So glad to find your channel!
Leadership was dogshit, thank goodness we got Phil Spencer before we completely lost xbox
Thank you for this video. It may be too late for xbox at this point. Many of my 360 friends switched to ps4, and now own ps5, with no plans to own the Xbox ever again. There is no real incentive to switch back. Initiatives that made xbox a better sell, such as backwards compatibility, have been abandoned. 😢
I've been in the industry for almost 20 years, your content is amazing.
I was never a console player, but I still followed the news and even I could say that Xbox One reveal caused enourmous damage, and they did very little to fix it.
It's interesting you heard about it even though you weren't a console player. Thanks for sharing!
what’s your thoughts on gamepass? Ed fries said it makes him nervous, likewise with me on the effect it could give in the industry. i’m asking this cause Phils team doesn’t believe in the successful sony/nintendo traditional business model anymore of focusing on their hardware and pushing it to its limits with the best games to experience exclusively on that console.
well pushing hardware to it limits has never been a good idea. look at FF16 a game that says it pushes PS5 to its limit and the performance and thermals are horrible. 1080p to 1440p then upscaled to 4K and it cant even hit 60fps with horrible frame times. then a 1440p upscaled to 4K 30fps quality mode that cant hold 30fps. on top of that we got the memory modules hitting 95c which is 5 degrees short of its 100c thermal limit. switch is another issue we got games running at 10 15fps. even Zelda TOTK which was a huge success because its zelda suffers from huge performance issues due to pushing the hardware past what it can do. 20-30fps a dynamic resolution scaler with poor AMD FSR implementation and a aggressive sharpening filter. XC3 a dynamic 720p resolution that goes down to 540p and even with the huge resolution cut it still cant hold 30fps and you get slowdowns under heavy loads. so No pushing consoles is horrible choice because it just shows how badly the console is from a design standpoint and shows all of its short comings
@@matthewjuarbe5826 😂😂!!! yet those games are successful asf! and get more brand awareness/recognition that benefits their hardware in sales as evidence proves today, yet microsoft today is doing the complete opposite of what you said is a “horrible choice”, as you mentioned, yet their numbers aren’t doing much. still last place in the business. all that diversity that everyone knows about to not needing a console to play their games or being able to play on pc as well, yet everyone is seems to still want to pay 500$+ premium price for a nintendo/playstation console with high quality games.. and don’t forget spider man 2, it’s pushing the hardware of the ps5 and look at how amazing it runs, with full ray tracing support that cant be disabled in game, whats your excuse for that?
@@matthewjuarbe5826Totk pushes the Switch to it's limit and it's one of the best games made ever. Frame rates and resolutions don't really matter if the game is good
My thoughts on Game Pass are the same as any streaming service, it looks good for your wallet in the beginning then it becomes bad for it as the costs increase. I haven't even touched on how it ruins creativity and independence. Just look at how it has hurt Film and Music industry. Why do I want to pay for 95% content I don't want when I only want 5% of it. The best option already existed. Go into a shop and buy the media you want when you want. It is ironic that the so called "capitalists" have no problem with the socialisation of media.
I may be wrong but it seems like Microsoft keeps making decisions that will damage their gaming business till this day!
Spending $70B on IP when they could’ve invested 10% of that on building and managing competent teams to ship content for game pass and make it exclusive on the Xbox then launch cloud gaming when the tech is sufficiently capable.
Ubisoft plus is executing on a similar strategy, they have about 1M subscribers now.
Great video! I loved original Xbox and 360 so much. I really hope Xbox can turn everything around.
11:08 sorry to say, they didn’t.
Thank you for the insight. Always good to listen to an insiders perspective.
LOL! Thank you for watching!
@@laurafryer6321you should consider making another video. Not to question the efforts of Phil Spencer and his team, but rather what were the conditions that lead up the layoffs in comparison to everyone else.
I'm really enjoying your channel! Your insights are super enlightening. I hope the algorithm starts to pick up more of your videos. Take care!
Love this video. Don Mattrick is the very face of failing upwards.
All the systems or consoles i really dislike through out all the generations were the ones that played movies better than their games. Always got the consoles that only played and prioritized games first. think the ps4 was finally the first console i bought that played both games and movie discs.
I remember talking to a higher up, who quickly got promoted to an even higher position. I asked him if he was over his head? He said I don't have the luxury to complain because I get paid the big bucks to lead, not complain.
As a boss and a leader, engage the team. Ask them what they need. Be the buffer between the CEOs and the team. Like you, you are a good leader and do these things. So no, you shouldn't pity your new boss. He should have learned what it is to become a leader
Great insights Laura, I hope you get a tonne of subscribers!
Where do you get all of your stock footage from?
I've been using envato. Thank you for all of your comments!
@@laurafryer6321 Of course, thank you for replying, I love your videos!
This is such an important video. Everything you are saying here about culture change is so true. I've seen it happen time and time again. We need more people to see this video.
I am sorry to hear you had such a poor deteriorating experience at XBone. I mean Microsoft Xbox.
Sadly, departments/organizations that have a long existence have the same difficulties/challenges.
While I was off on long term disability with my last org (huge health battles) the company, and my department manager were 100% behind me until the manager was shafted to a new role.
A new manager was brought in from outside the company and as part of his first decisions, he decided to let me go. Which is theoretically against labour laws, unless you are a big org with deep pockets and lawyers.
Anyway suffice it to say that manager changed the culture for the worse; he was fired and my old manager was brought back in, as he listened and grew his employees, and they worked amazingly well under his guidance-which is the best way a leader can lead.
While it is sad hearing how it all changed, it is very lovely to hear you describe the culture past in such a warm way. I think many developers today yearn to be part of such teams, so it is easy to imagine many great memories must have been created during those days!
Awesome insight Laura. 👍👍
Despite the insane struggles that Xbox had to endure, Xbox is now in a much better place.
Thanks to Phil Spencer and his team.
They are out of touch with everything they make.
As far as on the gaming front the best they can do is sell it off to a more industry understanding company.
This was unexpected but interesting to watch.
Sounds like standard corporate BS to me. Hate it, especially in US companies when they still claim that "we listen" and "hype" the "great culture" when turnover rate of people multiplies.
I loved the original Xbox, I was the only one in line to buy it on Launch day. When the 360 launched I had to wait weeks to get my launch model because everyone wanted one. I remember seeing the Xbox culture change before the Xbox one was released, and so disgusted I started looking at Sony at that point. The reveal of the Xbox One was a punch in the gut to Xbox fans, Don Mattrick poisoned his product so badly that MS is still trying to get back that power they had, even all these years later.
It's so interesting hearing about your perspective and experience. I'm glad I found your channel, keep up the good work!
1) Kinect needing to be online
2) drm
The 360 did so damn well but Xbox made questionable, no, stupid decisions which shot themselves in the foot.
Xbox still has the best controller I've ever used and i have gamed since '78. 💯👍🏾
Your content is on another level. Truly by someone with actual experience and insight and i just love when expert is actually someone who says it like it is. You are in this position where you can talk it straight not this typical hr talk and trying to cover your ass. Studios need more like you in lead. It is so important to have same principles that you are free to have opinions. Not just or another developer being half activist while being in some really weird personal crusade of the righteous. Think how it is to work in studio like that. Then every body else needs to think same or there are problems or you need to just say yes and yes
You are exactly what Xbox needs right now Laura. I really like your attitude to constructive criticism. It’s a real shame what has happened to Xbox as a console. Subscribed.
With the recent news that Forza Horizon 5 is going to PS5, I can't help but feel that I'm getting a sense of Deja Vu about what happened to Apple during the 90's. Marketshare is down year over year, management has no idea what they're doing, inferior hardware and software compared to the competition, the head of the company isn't even interested in the product he's a part of, etc.
The only difference is that Xbox isn't going to have a Steve Jobs messiah figure who will completely reform and rejuvenate the company and place it back to where it once was during the 360 era. Instead they're just throwing in the towel, pitifully admitting defeat without even attempting to at least go out with a bang. It's really sad that the line of consoles I grew up with in middle and high school won't have a 10th generation, but what fills me with dread is the fact that if Sony didn't have plans to sell the Playstation 6 at an MSRP of at least $600 at launch, they probably do now. Sony is basically going to be without competition. Physical media will probably die out for good next gen, games will further rise in costs, draconian end-user license agreements, etc. It's scary to think about that.
"But that's just ancient history now, it doesn't really matter anymore."
-Steve Jobs, 1995.
I was wondering where I have seen you since I started watching you earlier this evening! And now you have informed me: The Xbox Documentary!
“It doesn’t matter what you say your culture is.. People watch how you act and what you do and that is your culture..” Truth.
Was torn between buying a XBox -X for Starfield and RedFall or
A Ps5 for Final Fantasy 16 and Baldur's Gate 3 , Glad I picked the Ps5.
In the end it's just about who has better games .
I didnt expect to see this video in my recommended at 6:30 in the morning but screw it.
I just found your channel, and I have to say, bravo! New sub!❤
Thank you for the sub!
Easy Sub! :'D came to your channel from destin, apreciate the well researched information, as well as the insight from an insider. Thanks a lot!
*edit: I really hope gaming get more spotlight in politics, don't get me wrong, for legal reasons and mxt's/lootboxes especially, hope macron's words wasn't empty stuff for publicity-reasons.
This was insightful.
I almost skipped the video when it seems like a voiceover recorded one with jokes and what not but when uou mentioned your chops that you were on the Xbox team and actually worked and undertstood where the culture had lost its way, i had to watch the video to the end.
Thanks for watching, despite the audio problem. :)
It’s painful how joff leaky just doesn’t even push back at the notion that 360 is your “offline” choice for the next gen. Coward media.
People made the box, not policies. That’s what most tend to forget. Thanks for the insight into where things started to go wrong. I knew it wasn’t an instant switch, more like a slow moving coup.
"It doesn't matter what you say you're culture is. People watch what you do and how you act, and that is your culture" Such a true statement that very few understand. So many people/leaders say how they're this and that, but when you watch their actions, they're just not... but no one can argue with what the leader says, so if they say they're supportive, then they must be....
Such a shame Spencer bought activision. Such a misstep and overcorrection for failing to nurture internal studios. This is why Xbox is failing. Love the content - very insightful as a manger of dev teams.
Thanks for seeing through the end of Gears of War 1 and 2 🫡
How can you support Phil? He said that games don't matter. How crazy that statement is. Games is the only thing that matters. Look at switch
Games don't matter on a Gaming console ?
Love it LOL
"You either die a hero, (Dreamcast) or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain (Xbox)
Late to your wonderful video and insight into what we as fans felt was happening. I was just a teenager enjoying the amazing products that you contributed to, and it was so special back then. I’ll never forget playing Horde mode in Gears 2 with all of my friends one summer.
My only disagreement with this only comes toward the end. I see what you’re at least implying in regard to Phil’s turnaround of the work culture, however the business and product execution has been challenged to say the least. Not to mention upending the industry. But there wasn’t another choice after what Mattrick did.
From the outside looking in, it seems that Microsoft is now micromanaging the Xbox division; acquiring one of the worlds biggest publishers put a target on their back. Anyways we’ll see what happens next, great job!
There's always some input from the rest of Microsoft that you have to navigate but I agree the big buyout would increase that pressure. Thank you for your comments and for watching!
I wonder if the creative director she is talking about is Josh Holmes? Creative Director and then Lead on Halo 4 and 5. Formally only shipping one product, a basketball game. In charge of a multibillion dollar franchise. Never understood that decision.
That was difficult to watch... where is my therapist :)
Informative video I feel very sad for those who worked hard on the Xbox one but were mislead by unemapthetic leadership.