A week ago, Phil Spencer announced his retirement from Xbox, with his official last day being Monday, February 23. It marks the end of a remarkable career: 38 years at Microsoft and 25 years at Xbox, almost the entire life of the brand, which he has led for the past 12 years.
Spencer has outlasted almost all of the other execs at Xbox, as well as many rival executives at its competitors – excluding in the famously long-tenured Japan. He’s worked with a huge range of studios, developers, and publishers, and was notably willing to engage with community and media as well. His legacy is complicated, recently marked by anger over studio closures and the impact of Game Pass, and anxiety over the ongoing struggles of the brand – but also covering more beloved decisions like the commitment to backwards compatibility and the turnaround of reputation, if not sales, following the launch of the Xbox One. Prior to that, he was a regular presence on the publishing and studio side during the heyday of the Xbox 360 along with Microsoft’s output for PC.
Throughout, there has been a common thread in everybody I’ve spoken to. Phil Spencer is a nice guy who plays a lot of games and is always willing to talk about them. That’s a rarity in the executive class, even in the games industry, and his evident enthusiasm for the form endeared him to developers and players alike. His successor, Asha Sharma, is candid about not having his level of gaming knowledge; it’s possible no other exec ever will. He has been with the platform since its birth, and has had a unique viewpoint on the development of both it and the modern console era.
To mark the end of an era, GamesIndustry.biz asked a wide range of leaders from across the industry to share their views on his time at Xbox and their memories of working with him. We received a huge range of responses that defy easy categorisation, so we’re running them verbatim.
Strauss Zelnick (Chairman and CEO, Take-Two Interactive)
Throughout Phil’s extraordinary tenure at Xbox, he demonstrated consistently his deep passion for our industry and an unwavering commitment to our community of players throughout the world. Under his leadership, Xbox played an integral role in elevating and expanding video games to become today’s most popular and successful form of entertainment. Personally, I have had the great pleasure to work alongside Phil, including serving on several boards together, and I have always appreciated his acumen, partnership, and friendship.
Yves Guillemot (CEO, Ubisoft)
Phil is a true gamer. His love of games’ creativity and innovation fuelled his vision and direction. He has consistently pushed to shape the future of our industry, embracing technological disruption, championing bold gameplay ideas, and keeping players at the centre of his decision making. He built a strong, passionate team of gamers at Xbox, and through his business leadership, reinforced the Xbox and PC ecosystems, creating meaningful opportunities for gamers, developers, and publishers alike.
On a personal note, it has been a real pleasure to work together over the years. And since I know he’s a longtime fan of Assassin’s Creed, Phil, you can rest assured that we’re working on plenty of new AC experiences for you to enjoy during your retirement. Thank you again for everything, and wishing you continued success in your adventures ahead!
Mike Rose (CEO, No More Robots)
Phil Spencer is one of the only platform CEOs I know who actually went out, met with devs, genuinely asked for their thoughts and views, and tried to act on them.
I met with Phil on numerous occasions during his time at Xbox, in both large-scale dev meetups and much smaller, focused chats, where he was candid with everyone involved. In fact, Phil once let me pitch a game at him directly, despite no doubt being busy as hell. How many platform CEOs would take individual pitch meetings with tiny studios like ours?
People will say all sorts of things about the way Phil ran Microsoft, but the actual truth is that he tried his damn hardest with the situation he was given, and while he had the keys to the machine in his possession, Xbox was moving in promising directions.
Peter Moore (Former Corporate VP, Microsoft)
Phil’s tenure at Xbox has to be viewed through the lens of longevity and resilience. He was a constant in a business that went through multiple leadership changes, strategic pivots, and some very public battles. That kind of staying power in a global platform business says a great deal about both his competence and his character.
What always stood out to me was his steadiness. Phil is not performative. He listens carefully, processes deeply, and rarely reacts emotionally in the moment. In an industry that can be volatile and ego driven, he brought a sense of calm and long term thinking. Internally, he was trusted. Externally, he was credible. That combination is rarer than people appreciate.
Strategically, he helped reposition Xbox from being seen purely as a hardware play into a broader gaming ecosystem. Whether people agreed with every decision or not, he understood earlier than most that gaming was becoming platform and community driven rather than box driven. That shift will likely be one of the defining elements of his legacy.
On a personal level, he was straightforward to work with. Clear in his expectations, honest in his feedback, and deeply committed to the teams around him. He cared about the people building the products as much as the products themselves. In summary, he’s a great lad, despite being a Chelsea fan!
History tends to smooth out the noise of the moment. When that happens, I suspect Phil will be remembered as one of the stabilising figures in Microsoft’s long journey in interactive entertainment. That’s certainly how I will remember his accomplishments there. Not an easy place to work, as I can personally attest!!
Patrick Söderlund (CEO, Embark Studios)
I’ve always gotten along really well with Phil. He’s one of the good guys. He’s a super nice person, a very kind soul, but what I think made him special is for someone at that level, in a company the size of Microsoft, running a business of that size, he’s always had a genuine interest in the product side. A couple of memories that spring to mind.
First, when we were about to launch Battlefield 1, which was surrounded by some controversy both inside and outside EA: why would they make a game about World War One? How can that be a video game that anyone would be interested in?
Our take on World War One was slightly different, of course, but I had to work quite hard inside of EA and externally to get people excited about the game.
We were out talking to partners about marketing support. Andrew Wilson and myself flew out to see Phil in Redmond with his team. No one at this point was convinced. We showed them the first trailer. The people in the room were a little bit surprised with what they saw, but Phil’s immediate reaction was, “Hell yeah, this is amazing, let’s back this.” He clearly understood that the game was more than the problems. He looked at it from the point of view of: “Is this a great game?” His instinct was spot on. That’s one of the things that I remember, because I had a lot of other conversations about the same assets, with people that should be unnamed, that were slightly more difficult. The game did relatively well when it came out.
Another memory is being on stage at the Microsoft E3 conference: I think it was Anthem. You know there are millions of people watching. Adrenaline and the stress levels are high. I go up and start talking, and the whole presentation crashes, and I’m standing there like a fool on my own, nothing is working.
Somehow we managed to move on and come out relatively unscathed. I walk off stage, obviously I’m upset, and Phil said, “Sorry about that, we’ll do the same thing next year.” I started laughing. That speaks to his personality and how he was – not at all arrogant, but more, “Listen, this is entertainment, we do things live, shit happens, let’s just both smile and deal with it.”
Finally, when we started Embark, we were ten happy people conceptualising Arc Raiders. I get a text from Phil, he happens to be in town, and he’s like, “Hey, would be interested to see what you are up to.” That’s unusual. We didn’t have anything to show. We were ten people in a small office. Still, he took the time to come see us because he was genuinely interested in what we were cooking and what we were doing. There was no business, no deal because we didn’t have anything to sell. There was nothing there, but he had a genuine interest in understanding our concepts, what we were thinking, what we were going to do.
He came and visited us and sat down with us for a couple of hours and just talked. He didn’t need to take that time. We were nothing at the time. Obviously we knew each other, but still he did not have to do that. He probably had 20 other meetings in Stockholm that day, but he prioritized seeing us. He was one of the few people who did.
Shuhei Yoshida (Former President, PlayStation Worldwide Studios)
Every time we bumped into each other at industry events, he was always super friendly and nice to me. My highlight was witnessing him playing Beast of Reincarnation in Game Freak’s office, asking questions and giving suggestions to the Game Freak team as he played the game. He played the game well and was a true gamer 😀
Rod Fergusson (SVP and Head of Bioshock, 2K Games)
I’ve known Phil for my entire 27-year gaming career (especially during my three stints at Microsoft gaming) and he is who you see publicly – a dedicated gamer and a player-first leader – which I’ve always appreciated. I would often invite Phil into our project presentations and reviews, even when not required, just because I valued his insights about what we were trying to accomplish with the games we were making. It’s definitely the end of an era, and I wish Phil all the best with whatever comes next.
Ago Simonetta (Chief Commercial Officer, GSC Game World)
Working with Phil Spencer has been both an honor and a pleasure. I’ve long admired his vision, passion, and drive to make gaming accessible and enjoyable for everyone. It was truly amazing to see him attend every ID@Xbox event year after year, spending hours immersed in indie games – playing everything and firing off thoughtful questions to developers about gameplay mechanics. He spotted the potential in Vampire Survivors early on, later pouring nearly 200 hours into the game in just a matter of weeks.
The Stalker 2 development story wouldn’t be the same without Phil and Sarah – they were both enthusiastic towards the project and sympathetic to our insane development challenges. They’ve been incredibly good to us, from helping us launch it on Game Pass day one to showcasing Stalker 2 at digital events and debuting the first-ever public demo at Gamescom.
Michał Nowakowski (Joint CEO, CD Projekt Red)
I remember the first time I met Phil. It was at Richmond HQ, and we were pitching The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt as “the next big thing”. One thing that really struck me was that Phil wasn’t an exec who just looked at numbers and projections. He clearly and earnestly cared about whether the game was going to be excellent or not. He cared about quality. He knew how games were made, connected with them personally, and asked us questions from a player’s perspective. He was super honest with us, and he was a very different kind of leader than we expected.
When I invited him to Warsaw, he eagerly accepted, and he spent a lot of time at the studio checking out The Witcher 3 and talking to us about games old and new. That’s the moment we properly kicked off our long partnership with Xbox, through The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077. All that time, through good and bad, we always felt his support.
Peter Molyneux (CEO, 22Cans)
Phil is one of the smartest and most genuinely caring people I’ve ever had the privilege to work alongside. What always struck me wasn’t just his intelligence, but his heart. He truly cared – about games, about the industry, and about the people making them. He always tried to do what was right and fair for developers, even when it wasn’t the easiest path.
He didn’t sit at a distance from the work – he played the games, talked about them with enthusiasm, and felt their successes and struggles. You could see that this wasn’t just business to him; it mattered.
Phil had an instinctive gift for navigating corporate culture without ever losing sight of what the games industry stands for. He carried that responsibility with quiet strength and integrity.
Gavin Raeburn (CEO and Head of Studio, Lighthouse Games)
It’s surprisingly rare to find execs in our industry who actually love to play video games, but Phil really does. Every major game, every major studio, including hundreds of hours of Forza Horizon. I found that really impressive.
Harvey Eagle (Former Xbox Business Lead, UK and Ireland)
I first met Phil on the football pitch. He was competitive – a quality he’d later bring to lift Xbox from its knees after the debacle of the Xbox One launch.
His journey from Microsoft intern to the very top table is a triumph of authenticity. Phil’s empathy created a culture where you could speak plainly and know you’d be heard; he answered honestly, owned mistakes quickly, and expected the same in return.
Despite being the most in-demand person in the room at any industry event, he always carved out time for people: at every E3, he’d slip away to meet a small group of UK retailer competition winners, talking games, listening, and asking what Xbox could be doing better.
Once he had the authority to reshape the organisation, he promoted talented women into senior leadership, changing the culture and strengthening the team in the process. Phil’s impact stretches far beyond the products he shipped. His legacy is wide-reaching and deeply felt.
Enjoy a well-earned retirement, Phil.
Nigel Lowrie (Co-Founder, Devolver Digital)
Shout out to Phil, he’s a real one.
