Phil Spencer is a legitimate gamer. Like, he's a real gamer's gamer. Don't believe me? Just look at his Bungie profile and tell me that isn't a man who loves him some vidya games. It turns out that Phil Spencer, the head of the Xbox division, has logged more than 340 hours into Destiny. Is that not insane or what?
Gamespot spotted a tweet from Mike Ybarra, the partner director for program management at Microsoft, who outed Spencer's playtime in Destiny with the following tweet.
That's a lot of playtime. Heck, there's few games I have that courted me with undeniably fun gameplay that resulted in more than 300 hours being put into it, so Spencer is no slouch when it comes to hardcore gaming.
Heck, I'm almost surprised he isn't in the pits of /v/ threads arguing over waifus and whether or not Anthony Burch was the best or worst thing to happen to Borderlands.
You can see Spencer's profile for Destiny over on his Bungie profile page. It reveals what games from the iconic company he's played and what kind of time he's put into those titles. In the case of Destiny he has two Guardians, a Titan and a Hunter... both males.
Unfortunately Spencer isn't in any clans in Destiny but he has 2575 Grimoire. Also, his kill/death ratio is insane. Check it out on his page: 17.48. He has more than 36,000 kills. I've never had a K/D ratio that good in any game I've played and I used to be pretty good at a few them. This guy is legit hardcore.
It's time to stop gushing over the numbers and explain why this is important: Before Spencer took over from Don Mattrick, a lot of gamers felt as if the Mattrick-era Xbox brand was moving away from gamers and that the brand wasn't focusing on the things that made Xbox famous in the first place. All the DRM restrictions and requirements during the Mattrick-era of the Xbox One turned a lot of gamers off. The common question was “Do they even play games at Microsoft?” Well, we now know the answer to that question... it's an emphatic “yes!”.
Spencer talks the talk and walks the walk. He knows what gamers want and has been working with the Xbox team to deliver something that people can proudly stand behind as a worthwhile brand in the gaming industry. A lot of people joke that the Xbox One has done a bunch of 180s, but since Spencer took over it's all been for the best.
When people say it's important for executives to play games so they understand the culture, I think this is a prime example of someone who plays a ton of games and is moving the brand in the right direction because they understand the culture. In the Twitter feed of Ybarra, it's also mentioned that Spencer is an avid Forza Motorsport player. After seeing his Destiny profile I don't know where he finds the time to play all these games but I wouldn't doubt that he could shred some mean rubber on the track.
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