After stumbling with its showcases and livestreams over the past few years. It appears Xbox has struck gold with its Developer Direct.
It has been ten years of the franchise and a celebration is planned.
If you read Kotaku even semi-regularly, you already know that Xbox has been in a weird spot for some time now. And with today’s news that both Xbox boss Phil Spencer and President Sarah Bond are leaving and the new head of the brand will be a former Meta exec who previously lead Microsoft’s AI division, I think it’s time to call it. Xbox is dead. Time of death: February 20, 2026
This brand died in the last 2 years of 360 since Kinect announcement.. downfall started all of a sudden until reaching the point of no return with xbox 1 DRM disasters
So ready to defend that you posted it twice.
In any event, I have a more accurate quote: "It's dead, Jim".
Also Mark Twain:
I have never wished death on anyone but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.
While I normally agree... The future of xbox is on shaky ground. Well, xbox as we know it. Im not sure what they are shooting for but who they put in charge mixed with Phil retiring and bond just flat out leaving. It's not looking good.
Im with you but in western countries I have noticed a trend to put women in control to prevent any kind of critics.
Copilot is running the xbox division now, its first official act was fire Spencer and Bond then sell Xbox for scraps.
Oh come on, Xbox has been dead for at least 10 years now. I think what’s more important right now is Playstation’s death that is very slowly but surely happening through mismanagement and greed.
He's being clowned on by the entire internet but i have been clowning on him way before he became CEO. I hate modern PS so much man. To this day i have no idea how Astro Bot happend in this terrible PS era but that was clearly a miracle.
Every. Time! They compare the closing of a studio (one I liked, mind you, but they know their business better than internet dwellers) to the departure of not one but TWO major figureheads at Xbox. On top of Xbox's other problems, they are also now selling their games everywhere (not just PC).
Sorry diehard Xbox fanatics, we've been down this road before. PlayStation has closed studios. It happens. Maybe they weren't pulling their weight. Maybe they have a restructure in place. What ever the case, it won't come any close to tanking their brand. Xbox isn't in that boat. As a piece of hardware, it is all but irrelevant (hanging on only because of Game Pass at this point). It serves no other purpose because you don't even need that console to play its games. If it was just Xbox/PC, that would be different, but here we are.
So, this isn't the SonyToo that y'all love to hang on. Things are not good for Xbox hardware. At all. It is about time to start accepting that.
Respectfully, This is probably one of my least favorite tactics in making an argument.
I'll give you an example: If I like the color red, it doesn't mean I hate the color blue.
People lamenting the (potential) demise of the xbox brand has nothing to do with sony or playstation. It has everything to do with xbox. Now, for the sake of argument, you could say that Sony and Microsoft are two peas in a pod, and that they've both made absolutely baffling and worryingly stupid decisions in the recent past. But I truly believe that Xbox would be shooting itself in the foot regardless of Sony's presence (I look at you, Xbox One reveal with always online DRM and the inability to share games).
Sony, on the other hand, is making stupid decisions to stay competitive with the market, and like Microsoft, is seemingly forcing by proverbial gunpoint talented developers to try to make the next GAAS experience and never learning their lesson. I believe that Microsoft squandering RARE is the equivalent of Sony squandering Naughty Dog. Neither platform really knows what they want to be, BUT Sony is alot further along in figuring it out before Microsoft pulls out another revolver and takes aim at another of it's own toes.
Xbox died after the Xbox 360. The Xbox One was mediocre, the Series X was game shy. I'm glad Phil is retiring.
Exaggerated projection of xbox problems onto Sony. This is what gave xbox the extra slack all these generations to eventually run themselves into the ground.
This is why the views and comments are low, with lame articles that use divide-and-conquer pretensions.
To be fair "divide and conquer pretensions" have been present in the comment section of this website for years regardless of the articles title, composition or intent. It's therefore unlikely that's what's playing a part in low viewership and commenting.
Big changes are being made at the top of Microsoft's gaming division.
MS knack for one upping bad news from other companies so soon afterwards is pretty astounding lol. Can't say I'm surprised though, this gen has been dreadful for the xbox brand.
Being replaced by an AI boss exec though, yikes.
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I always had this theory that they both wait to see if the other announces something bad so they can announce their bad thing, thus the two talking points bleed together enough to cause overall confusion online.
It then becomes just a big bad thing for the industry rather than a specific company. Wouldn't be surprised if Ubisoft were up next again at this point.
Huh... well that is sure interesting.
@crash, is it bad news though? I mean many here have said he needed to leave... now he and Bond are leaving. That should be good news to some.
It's more the fact the person incharge of AI being taking over. That's a very deliberate decision.
Xbox fans have wanted Phil gone for a long time he's probably the least favourite exec of all time behind matrick purely because uber his leadership he decived fans and took the Xbox brand multiplatform
Considering MS's obsession with ai, this is probably a demotion for her. Still, I enjoy poking fun at Spencer but ultimately it's sad to see him go, he's made mistakes for sure but I think he genuinely cared about the Xbox brand. Sharma seems very corporate to me and certainly not the Spencer replacement Xbox fans would have hoped for.
Replies(7)I'm convinced "early retirement" is just them wanting to save both themselves the embarrassment and them getting forced out without the drama.
You bow out naturally while we make it all look like it's part of the plan, both of us look as competent as we can make out during the fallout
Jim Ryan was the exactly the same.
Replies(1)“ Phil has 3 days to clean out his office?”
Why spread fake news? The press release clearly says that Phil and Sarah are staying on throughout the summer to advise the new person.
I thought it was their best one yet.
It was a nice approach. I look forward to more.
If they did this once every month or two with a surprise launch then it would be perfect.
But I agree, we don’t need the random zoomer commentary to extend the showcase an hour and a half. I hate when MS does that.