Phil Spencer: Xbox One was "a real cold dose of reality"

It's no secret that the launch of Xbox One was one of the most troubled of all time. It was less powerful than PlayStation 4, it was €100 more expensive due to a poorly working camera (that was always filming and picking up private sounds), lending a game to a friend was a hassle due to poorly thought-through rules, it lacked all kinds of localisation and wasn't even properly released in large parts of Europe until one year of waiting.

Phil Spencer was promoted to Xbox boss during this time and started turning things around to what we have today with a more powerful console than the competitor, plenty of major developers, great support for older games, and Xbox Game Pass. When Spencer recently was interviewed by IGN, they touched upon the Xbox One launch, something he referred to as a "a real cold dose of reality":

"It was such a seminal moment for the team in really checking, what did we stand for? What did we want to be as we went forward? How did we want to bet on each other? Obviously for the brand it was a challenging year, there was a lot for us to learn.

The things that I see in the team now - listening to the community, challenging ourselves, not staying in the bubble that we're in but trying to innovate and evolve what this is about - I think so much of what we are today is really from that first launch year of Xbox One where we got a real cold dose of reality in terms of focusing not on what the customers wanted, but maybe what we thought we needed. [It] didn't work."

What are your opinions on the Xbox One at launch and what it is today?

Thanks, Pure Xbox.