PHIL SPENCER, who led the Xbox business in Microsoft’s Game Category, replied on August 25 in an interview with the Economic Magazine. With various topics about Microsoft in the game industry, SPENCER’s private life as a gamer is interesting.
PHIL SPENCER joined Microsoft as an internship in 1988, and has served as a manager for software development. After the launch of the first Xbox in 2001, he served as a general manager who supervises the umbrella development studio and became the top of the Xbox business in 2014. He was known as an enthusiastic gamer, and was talked about last year that he was too addicted to Destiny 2 (related article).
In this interview, SPENCER recalls that he grew up playing arcade games when he was a child, and that Robotron 2084 was his favorite. He also played a lot of ATARI 2600, which his father bought, and he still owns it.
He was asked how much he usually plays the game, and he answered that he thinks it is about 15 hours a week. It takes about 2 hours a day. He seems to be busy, but he seems to have secured the time to enjoy the game. However, it doesn’t seem to stay up late. He says he is going to bed at 10:00 every night. It seems that friends who play online together may be teased about that.
The game that SPENCER has recently played is the Cult Order Management & Rogue Light Action Game CULT OF THE LAMB. It is a new work just released the other day, and it is a popular work, achieving one million copies of sales in a week from launch.
In addition, during a video meeting using Microsoft Teams, he confessed that he had played a game secretly. It is said that his direct boss, Chairman Microsoft Chairman and CEO, Satha nadella. During the topic of Destiny 2 mentioned earlier, Spencer stated that he played the same work at Xbox Cloud Gaming during the meeting. These episodes also show that he is a gamer from the ground up.
By the way, his favorite music genre is punk rock. He said he would like to see Ramones’ heyday performance.
The interview also mentions the acquisition policy of Microsoft’s ACTIVISION BLIZZARD. Currently, regulatory authorities in each country are currently underway, and the first approval in Saudi Arabia is now underway, as it will be a huge acquisition of a major industry manufacturer. SPENCER is not clearly confident because he has never had a huge deal of trading of $ 68.7 billion (about 9.53 billion yen, current rate), but he is not clearly confident. Commented that he had a positive impression and felt that his progress was going well.
When asked about the background of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Spencer first mentioned his smartph1. He said the world’s largest game platform was mobile, while Microsoft did not have its own foundation in the mobile field, and was interested in Activision Blizzard’s abilities. This point and the two of the two BLIZZARD Entertainment, which have a strength in the PC game, are a major reason for the acquisition.
In the case of Activision Blizzard, it is new to remember that the accusations of harmful work culture such as harassment have been repeated last year. The company’s CEO Bobby Kotick was responsible for this issue, but for the time being, it has been abandoned (related article). SPENCER, who was asked about Kotick’s advance and exit, replied that he could not comment because the acquisition was not completed. He said that Activision Blizzard believes that it is working on improving corporate culture.