It seems the Big Papa of Xbox Phil Spencer is regularly dropping bars recently.
In an interview with Axios, Microsoft’s head of gaming Phil Spencer had more to say about stuff. This time, the Xbox head spoke about Bungie, the studio that brought us hard-hitters like Halo and Destiny. Bungie was acquired by Microsoft in 2000, and remained part of the company for seven years until splitting and becoming the independent Bungie LLC. Microsoft retained ownership of the Halo franchise while Bungie went on to forge a deal with Activision to create the Destiny franchise. In the interview, Spencer reflected on the split and how it could’ve been different in the modern era.
When discussing Bungie’s history with Xbox, Spencer mentioned that they “learned a lot”. He continued, when asked about whether or not Microsoft could’ve held onto Bungie, by saying:
“Could we do it today? I think we could.”
Spencer also went on to explain that he understands why Bungie ultimately decided to split from Microsoft, saying, “At the time they had big ambitions. They had sold their business for a certain amount of money. They saw what Halo turned into. And it’s like, ‘OK, Microsoft benefited more than Bungie did from the success of Halo.’ There’s no other story that can be written there.”
He added, “If you’re saying, ‘Hey, I think I’ve got another one of those in me. I want to really take another chance,’ I can understand the allure of doing that as an independent company.”
As mentioned, we’ve been seeing a lot of the Xbox Boss in the news lately. Most recently, Spencer sent an email to staff commenting on the Activision Blizzard situation. He mentioned that he and the gaming leadership team are “disturbed and deeply troubled by the horrific events and actions” at the somewhat-disgraced publisher, while also stating that “this type of behaviour has no place in our industry”. In turn, the head of Xbox and co. are “evaluating all aspects of our relationship with Activision Blizzard and making ongoing proactive adjustments”.
We’ve also seen Spencer in the media talking about video game preservation, The Elder Scrolls VI and Halo Infinite.
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