It's very rare that someone in a position of power is humble enough to concede; to admit to wrongdoing; to use hindsight to recognize what went wrong and how to right those wrongs. In this case, Phil Spencer acknowledges that the original DRM policies for the Xbox One and its focus on TV on your TV was just not the right way to go.
Total Xbox picked up some juicy quotes from an IGN Podcast interview with the current head of Xbox.
Spencer stated that...
"I see it sometimes on Twitter and other places, where people want to call me out as somebody who was at the leadership table when decisions were made for Xbox One, and that's absolutely true."I've never tried to wash my hands or distance myself from my role on the Xbox One leadership team through the announcement of the console, E3 2013 - I was there, and I'm not trying to create some kind of false history that makes me look better, to say I wasn't there, I wasn't involved. I'm going to take responsibility for those decisions, absolutely, good ones and bad ones. I have to, otherwise I don't have any credibility in what I do going forward."I wouldn't trust me if all of a sudden I tried to say 'well, I was asleep during those meetings'. It would be silly. I was there."
It's nice to see Spencer still owning up to the participation in the original Xbox One's vision. He had previously come forward before – after lots of reluctance and plenty of blame-shifting – to finally acknowledge that customers weren't wrong, or ill-informed or didn't understand Microsoft's vision, it was Microsoft who didn't understand what the consumer market wanted.
The thing is, Microsoft had an opportunity to take what they did with the Xbox 360 and advance on that. Instead they thought they could hit the casual market by tapping into the television and media sector; bad idea.
The reality is that the casual consumer is just so much harder to tap into. You still need a strong core market to filter out toward the casuals, something Nintendo managed to do with the Wii and something Sony is doing right now with the PS4.
Spencer also acknowledges that the Xbox One should have been a gaming console first before tackling entertainment and media, something the PS4 is dabbling in after fleshing out a massive library of games from indies to AAA titles...
"I think we get permission as a platform to focus on entertainment when we're a great gaming platform. And before we've earned that permission, and we go out and try to explain to people that we're an entertainment platform, without checking for all the Xbox fans out there that this is going to be the place they want to play games - I think that's where we confused people."
At this point, us Xbox fans have to slowly be wooed back over as Microsoft starts focusing more on games and brand content rather than gunning for “TV on your TV” features.
I wouldn't mind the lower-end specs of the Xbox One at a $399 price-point if it had an awesome array of software titles and exclusive, in-house developed games that take advantage of the system's capabilities, similar to the GameCube or the Wii U. But right now it looks like Microsoft is just starting to realize the identity they need to focus on for the Xbox One, after working assiduously toward shedding the image it never needed.
