Jesus, this old Major Nelson interview is all you need to see how far MS has come this generation

MrMatt555 said:

Thank God

Between the Bullshit DRM questions, the big ass AD w kinect in the background and Major's face as he gets peppered with questions he does not properly know how to answer, It's clear Spencer really came in and was the white knight (for lack of a better term) that Jettisoned XBOX brand out of hell and into a new beginning with kinect free bundles, Xbox one S and Xbox one X.

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You know there that MN clearly doesn't believe in any of that shit himself, but he's a truly corporate chap and just has to keep on the Mattrick/Ballmer script. Thank goodness the pair of them have gone.

They literally took everything that was popular and successful about 360 and just chucked it away. Luckily Spencer is steadily turning XBO in to the console it should have been in 2013, but he's had such a huge mess to clear up on so many levels.

Edit: I must say, I'm not MN's biggest fan, but you can't expect him to do anything but toe the company line in those situations, especially when on camera, no matter how ridiculous it seems in the circumstances. We'd all do the same if we wanted to keep our well paid job for life at Microsoft.

He had a pretty embarrassing one with Angry Joe some time ago. Gotta admit he's one of the reasons I never bought a bone.

"We are not going to change anything (after seeing Sony's pressconference)."

Bwahahahahaha.......they did a 180.

The Mattrick years

Now if only Microsoft's great lord and saviour would release games I want to play. *looks at dusty Xbox One* (that is slightly less dusty thanks to Cuphead)

When the PR job sucks.

It's a pretty great turnaround minus the games but a really obvious path to anyone. Microsoft were truly in a bubble back then smoking their own insane pipe dream. I hope they never get like that again. How they couldn't see the disaster until the eleventh hour is absolutely baffling.

If you start at minus 10,000 reaching zero seems like an accomplishment.

Man I remember these. Was put off so much by those comments, dropped the Xbox platform like a hot potato.

JJH said:

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did that halo show even happen

spencer was there when all this was going on. They have 180ed on a lot of things and finally become an attractive platform. But lets not forget that mattrick was just the fall guy

PositiveGamer said:

The Mattrick years

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This fool killed the xbox. And then he went and promptly killed the highest earning company that year. Trash executive.

PositiveGamer said:

The Mattrick years

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Yep. What an awful person. He tried shoving shit people didn't want down their throats and belittled them for having a problem with it. How quickly MS turned it around after he was out of the picture.

Made me forever lose trust in Microsoft unfortunately.

I wouldn't say the Xbox brand is doing very hot nowadays. Even after correcting many things.

Xbox One with the original concept would've been dead and burried by now, though.

Exotoro said:

did that halo show even happen

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Nah, they keep saying it's in the works but if there isn't a leak of anything and you usually get some tidbit in films and tv. I think it's completely dead.

oh wow the bear hat thing

that takes me back

I don't know how you'd know without working at MS. It seems like most of the positive shit that has happened at MS across the entire enterprise is when Nadella took the reigns. All of the stuff like play anywhere seems to correlate with Nadella's goals.

Major Nelson was just doing his job, really. He's not going to speak his mind or off the cuff much if he wants to keep his job.

Inuhanyou said:

spencer was there when all this was going on. They have 180ed on a lot of things and finally become an attractive platform. But lets not forget that mattrick was just the fall guy

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You don't know that. What we do know is what happened since Spencer took over and he's done a complete turn around.

K.Jack said:

Spencer is not in the messiah position to which he's been propelled by the fanbase.

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No but at least he isn't actively trying to kill the brand. So he's an improvement on the previous regime.

Triple H isn't a very good interviewer.

For us over the hill gamers.

"One of the basic premises of the Xbox is to put the power in the hands of the artist," Blackley said, which is why Xbox developers "are achieving a level of visual detail you really get in 'Toy Story.'"

Ahasverus said:

This fool killed the xbox. And then he went and promptly killed the highest earning company that year. Trash executive.

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I do wonder how many of the bizarre Xbox decisions were actually coming from Ballmer though. Especially the whole TV TV TV thing, seemed to be pressure coming from higher up in Microsoft, at a time when Netflix was blowing up and Microsoft wanted to have a finger in every pie. They're a lot more focused again across the board since Nadella took over.

see5harp said:

I don't know how you'd know without working at MS. It seems like most of the positive shit that has happened at MS across the entire enterprise is when Nadella took the reigns. All of the stuff like play anywhere seems to correlate with Nadella's goals.

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I suppose you could say nadella allowed a more gamer centric vision to flourish, and spencer took advantage of that.

But people really do like to pretend that Phil spencer hasn't been with the company the entire time.

I am so sad we didn't get family sharing... :(

jelly said:

Nah, they keep saying it's in the works but if there isn't a leak of anything and you usually get some tidbit in films and tv. I think it's completely dead.

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I though Nightfall or whatever it was called was the show?

Soulshotsthatthoughtspeak said:

I suppose you could say nadella allowed a more gamer centric vision to flourish, and spencer took advantage of that.

But people really do like to pretend that Phil spencer hasn't been with the company the entire time.

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That and MS has become a great hardware makers under Panos. The X and S is under Spencer with Panos over seeing it. That helped a great, great deal.

D65 said:

I am so sad we didn't get family sharing... :(

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That wasn't ever going to happen, tbh.

BernardoOne said:

That wasn't ever going to happen, tbh.

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It was the main trade off for the DRM stuff and I would have loved it. With how the race ended up, I feel like MS would have had the possibility of being in a better position with it.

Ahasverus said:

This fool killed the xbox. And then he went and promptly killed the highest earning company that year. Trash executive.

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He also was in charge of Xbox's most profitable years (aka the Kinect years). His problem was that he couldn't adapt the company fast enough.

Soulshotsthatthoughtspeak said:

I suppose you could say nadella allowed a more gamer centric vision to flourish, and spencer took advantage of that.

But people really do like to pretend that Phil spencer hasn't been with the company the entire time.

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And people really do like to say this all the time while ignoring what he has done for the brand since then.

You could say the same thing about Song and the PS3. Things change. For the better.

Being the loser is often a humbling experience.

D65 said:

I am so sad we didn't get family sharing... :(

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They have come very far. Sadly the first party situation is pretty bad imo but hopefully they rectify that in a few years

Can you imagine how strong Xbox One would have started if:

1) $399 no Kinect SKU at launch, $499 extra SKU
2) No DRM anything ever mentioned
3) 360 BC from day one as it is now

The UI still sucked and there were other issues but I imagine it could have been neck and neck with PS4 in US.

Bundy said:

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Not a great shoop and a grammar error to boot

sleepInsom said:

Yep. What an awful person. He tried shoving shit people didn't want down their throats and belittled them for having a problem with it. How quickly MS turned it around after he was out of the picture.

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Not sure if is a coincidence, but for me he was always synonymous with the Kinect. Since I was aware of him, he started pushing harder and harder the dreadful Kinect. The last years of the 360 was all Kinect and the beginning of the downfall.

It's nice that MS has a friendly face but I bought a lot more XBox games that started development when Mattrick was around.

Bringing back bad memories.

Has Spencer really done that great a job though? Xbox sales are still way behind the PS4, Japanese support is piss poor, third parties have stopped releasing exclusives for the platform and he has been cancelling most of Microsofts own exclusives and closing first-party studios. Hardware has improved and the xbox one S and X are steps in the right direction, but where are the games? The only major first-party games MS have had this year are Halo Wars 2 and Forza 7, great games but when you compare those to both Sony and Nintendo's first-party games and system exclusives its simply not enough.

Dont get me wrong the situation has improved over the last few years, but that is more down to how much of a disaster Don Mattrick and the xbox team were back then which would have improved no matter who had replaced them. Dont fuck things up worse than the last guy is hardly a major accomplishment when the last guy was Mattrick.

can anyone find the "i'm the man" phil video? its been wiped from the internet and I searched hardcore. But Phil admits he was there doing when they decided what the OG xbox was going to be, but since he took over, theirs also a reason why he's VP now and Mattrick is gone. Also the lead designer opf XBO left shortly after mattrick, but that could mean anything, or something. "shrug"

EightBitNate said:

He also was in charge of Xbox's most profitable years (aka the Kinect years). His problem was that he couldn't adapt the company fast enough.

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I wouldn't say that.. those were also the same years Sony finally catch up to MS in sales..

While MS was busy with Kinect and some hitters like Forza and the "lovely" Halo 4.

Sony was pumping Uncharted 3, Last of Us, Beyond 2 Souls etc..

Was expecting the Angry Joe interview where Larry straight up takes the mic from Joe lol.

K.Jack said:

Spencer is not in the messiah position to which he's been propelled by the fanbase.

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I still remember when he was in his old position and everyone thought he looked like a used car salesman lol.

Wasn't his old position head of 1st party during the ~4 year drought on 360? Then it got even worse when he was made the chief. Hmm I'm seeing a pattern here....