Phil Spencer

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Phil Spencer

Phil Spencer (* 1967/1968) is an American executive and currently head of Microsoft's entertainment products division, including the Xbox console division and the Xbox Game Studios game software division .

Personal

Spencer holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington . He lives in Bellevue , Washington with his wife and two daughters .

Career

Spencer joined Microsoft's CD-ROM workgroup as a programmer intern in 1988 at the age of 20 and held various technical and managerial roles in the years that followed. Among other things, he led the development of Microsoft's first CD-ROM products (including Encarta ), was Development Manager for Microsoft Money and General Manager for Microsoft's online and offline consumer application products, including Microsoft Works and Microsoft Picture It! .

Until 2008 Spencer worked as General Manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, which included the European development studios Lionhead Studios and Rare , after which he became General Manager of all Microsoft Studios, and the following year, finally, Corporate Vice-President. For Microsoft, he took part in the E3 industry fair from 2010 .

Spencer's promotion to head of the Xbox division came during a period of upheaval in the Microsoft group. In 2013, the company launched the Xbox One game console, equipped with numerous multimedia functions , the launch of which was unsuccessful for the group due to various communication failures. A few months before the start of sales, Microsoft's entertainment boss Don Mattrick , who was accused of being partly responsible for unsuccessful communication regarding the Xbox One, surprisingly left the company to become the new CEO of Zynga . In mid-March, after 14 years, Xbox product manager Mark Whitten also left the company. In the entire group, Steve Ballmer had given up his position as CEO. The new CEO Satya Nadella announced in an email to the workforce at the end of March 2014 that Spencer would in future lead the teams from Xbox, Xbox Live , Xbox Music and Xbox Video as well as Microsoft Studios .

Shortly after his appointment, Spencer admitted in an interview with Microsoft's community officer Larry Hryb wrong decisions in connection with the direction of the Xbox One and promised to focus more on the core function of computer games in the future instead of following the original approach of a broad entertainment platform . In Spencer's leadership time, among other things, the cancellation of the forced bundling of the Xbox One with the Kinect motion control, whereby the price of the device could be brought into line with the significantly cheaper competitor console, the PlayStation 4 . Spencer received words of praise from competitor Sony in the person of Shuhei Yoshida , who described him as a clever and sensible person compared to his predecessors who were not mentioned by name and who had made a positive contribution to the restart and the rapid stabilization of the Xbox division.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Phil Spencer . Xbox.com. Archived from the original on June 21, 2016. Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved April 6, 2014. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.xbox.com
  2. ↑ Getting to know Microsoft's new Xbox lead, Phil Spencer
  3. ↑ a b Kinect Accelerator Mentor: Phil Spencer . Microsoft. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  4. ↑ a b Welcome Phil Spencer, Microsoft's New Xbox-Everything Honcho . Time. March 31, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  5. ↑ E3 2010: Phil Spencer interview . The Telegraph. July 15, 2010. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  6. ↑ Phil Spencer E3 2011 interview . G4tv. June 7, 2011. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  7. ↑ E3 2012: Phil Spencer Post-Conference Interview . June 5, 2012. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  8. ↑ E3 2013: Phil Spencer Talks Xbox One Lineup . GameTrailers. June 10, 2013. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  9. ↑ Golem.de : Xbox boss Don Mattrick changes to Zynga
  10. ^ Xbox's Marc Whitten Leaves Microsoft
  11. ↑ Satya Nadella email to employees on tuning our organization . Microsoft. March 31, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  12. ↑ Phil Spencer admits Microsoft made 'wrong decisions' with Xbox One and pushes 'gaming first' strategy . The Next Web. April 4, 2014. Retrieved April 6, 2014.
  13. ↑ Sony's Shuhei Yoshida praises Microsoft's Phil Spencer
personal data
SURNAME Spencer, Phil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American manager
DATE OF BIRTH 1967 or 1968