Phil Spencer: Console Wars Are “Completely Distasteful”

Since the dawn of consoles, the gaming community has debated which has the ultimate package and it’s become more vociferous in recent years. As a result, you’re likely to see passionate “fanboys” blindly support their choice of platform and attack those who choose to enjoy the wonderful medium of gaming on something different. Unfortunately, this makes the industry less welcoming to new players and creates a more hostile environment. I still cannot fathom why individuals behave in such a manner because they should be spending their time enjoying games instead. In an interview with Gamespot, the head of Microsoft’s Xbox division Phil Spencer weighed in on the company’s more recent aggressive attitude on Twitter and said:

“And I don’t think we crossed the line there, but as it was going on I also made sure that we remain respectful. Confident, but respectful of what other people are doing”,

“I will always be respectful of my friends at the other platform holders; Nintendo, Sony. I have a lot of friends at Sony and Nintendo and both those companies are doing their best to deliver products based on their vision and I respect that. We’re doing the same. You won’t see me bad-mouth what the other platforms are doing but I am proud of the product decisions that we make and I think that we should be able to talk about it.”

Spencer also went on to discuss the notion of fans gloating about reviews scores for certain games on rival systems:

“And I don’t. I’ve been vocal about that as well. I’ll turn it around now. Like, when ReCore came out and there were some of the lower scores that were given, I would have PlayStation fans tweet me, happy that ReCore wasn’t getting great review scores from some outlets. I just thought it was such a negative thing for our industry for somebody to be gleeful that somebody gave a game a review that was lower than what the team expected. And I don’t just think about that in terms of the games that we build. I can look at Hello Games and No Man’s Sky. I’ve known Sean Murray for years, and I said I want them to be successful with the games that [the industry] builds. The games industry gets bigger and better as more people enjoy playing games. And I also think about the teams behind these games, and these are people who spend years of their lives, so committed to the art form of building games. And then when it comes out, for somebody to kind of fold that into a “My console is better than your console” in a very petty way, I find it completely distasteful.”

“I don’t have more fun with my Xbox based on the review scores of games that are on PlayStation, or vice versa. If you have an Xbox, I want to ship great games for you and have you have a great time on that console. And that is our focus, right there. It’s not about what somebody else is out there doing with their platform. I know there’s pockets in every community, I’m not saying Xbox is completely clean here, but as much as I have any influence on it at all, that’s not something I will support or entertain. Sorry, that’s just something I needed to get out.”

Phil Spencer’s professional attitude is to be admired and I wish the people he mentions adopted a similar level of professionalism. The amount of ridiculous fanboyism is becoming an epidemic and it would be beneficial for everyone to simply get along. Honestly, the gaming community should unite to share their love of games, and not hate on each other simply for selecting a particular device. This is especially true when you consider the differences between the major consoles are relatively small.