LogInPhil Spencer spoke about "some of the worst game-choice decisions" he's made.
At PAX West 2024, CEO of Microsoft Gaming and Head of Xbox Phil Spencer took the stage during a Storytime panel to discuss what games influenced him the most, how to get into game development, and the game industry as a whole. During his speech, the CEO revealed a surprising bit of trivia regarding Xbox's first-party exclusives, stating that the company had once passed on the opportunity to sign exclusivity deals with the developers of Destiny and Guitar Hero.
As revealed by Spencer, before partnering up with Activision, Bungie had originally pitched its 2014 first-person shooter, Destiny, to Microsoft – a proposal that the company ultimately declined, unaware that the game would go on to become the biggest new franchise launch of all time and the second-best-selling FPS franchise in U.S. dollar sales, behind only Call of Duty.
Besides Destiny, Xbox also turned down Alex Rigopulos' offer to have them publish a small indie game called Guitar Hero, which you might know as one of, if not the most iconic rhythm game of all time. "I've made some of the worst game-choice decisions," Spencer confessed during the interview. "I'm not a regrets-type person, maybe that's a fault of mine, but I passed on so many games."
Bungie
When it comes to poor game-choice decisions, Spencer isn't wrong there, considering how many golden tickets Xbox simply threw in the garbage bin over the years. As highlighted by Twitter user NIB in response to the CEO's PAX interview, Microsoft has also refused the chance to sign exclusivity deals for Genshin Impact, 2018's Marvel's Spider-Man, and last but not least, Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto III – three games that dominated revenue charts upon release and became best-sellers in their respective years.
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