Xbox's Phil Spencer apologizes for Redfall, says great games alone aren't enough to win a console generation
Phil Spencer is taking responsibility for Xbox's latest first-party game launch. Redfall, a game developed by Arkane, was released on May 2nd, to atrocious critical reviews, and even worse player reception. Billed as an open-world co-op first-person shooter, players overwhelmingly found it to be repetitive, glitchy, and bland. The game also promised to run at 60fps prior to its launch, but drew controversy when it was walked back, and the developers instead planned to have a 60fps update made available sometime post-launch.
When appearing as a guest on the Kindy Funny Games podcast, Xbox's CEO Phil Spencer bluntly stated, "There’s nothing that’s more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community, and just to watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I’m disappointed, I’m upset with myself," adding that, "we let a lot of people down this week with the launch of the game, but we will continue to strive on." In a response to fans asking why the game wasn't just further delayed, Spencer claimed, "I think there’s a fundamental piece of feedback that we get that the game isn’t realizing the creative vision that it had for its players. That doesn’t feel like a 'hey, just delay it' [situation]--that feels like the game had a goal to do one thing, and when players are actually playing they’re not feeling that thing, that creative execution of the team."
Furthermore, Spencer was questioned about the current state of affairs with Xbox, following this, on top of the CMA's refusal to allow Microsoft to acquire Activision. His response focused on how losing the Xbox One generation was "the worst generation to lose", and that great games aren't enough to draw customers in anymore, saying, "this idea that if we just focused more on great games on our console that somehow we’re going to win the console race doesn’t really lay into the reality of most people. There is no world where Starfield is an 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5s, that’s not going to happen." His plans for Xbox's future is to, "stay focused on making sure that console experience is awesome, but I know some people want to hold us up as being a better green version of what the blue guys do, and I’m just going to say there’s not a win for Xbox by staying in the wake of somebody else. We have to go off and do our own thing with Game Pass, the stuff we do with xCloud, and the way we build our games."
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