“I’m upset with myself.”
Xbox bossPhil Spencerhas personally apologised for the failure of Arkane’sRedfall, which was widely panned this week.
It is Arkane’s worst-reviewed game, and has a “mostly negative” user review rating on Steam.
I’ve been a part of it for a long time.
And just to watch the community lose confidence, be disappointed, I’m disappointed.
I’m upset with myself.
“What can we learn?
What can we get better?
One thing I’ll fight is what went wrong.
I’m just not a believer in that.
“Maybe that means I’ll under deliver for some of our fans out there.
We under-delivered on that and for that I apologise.
It’s not what I expect, not what I want.
But it’s ours to deliver.”
Why not delay Redfall?
That’s not a delay question if the answer is no.
This isn’t a Redfall specific conversation.
That doesn’t feel like a hey, just delay it.
It’s in the pocket of what we would expect.
We will go work on those.
And did we realise that creative ambition?
I’m a huge supporter of Arkane Austin.
Their track record is awesome.
I love a lot of the great games they’ve built.
This is one where the team didn’t hit their own internal goals when it launched.
“So I look at them in different camps.
If there’s a production timeline issue, we’ve been open to delaying.
That’s one of the disappointing things.
We would never strive to launch a game that we thought was going to review in the low-60s.
It’s not part of our goals.
But that’s not on anybody but us.
We have to own that.
“But I also know these games are $70.
I’m going to take full responsibility for launching a game that needs to be great.
There are still questions that pop every so often, of how committed is the company to this category?
When are we just going to push Xbox out of the market?
There’s a lot of Twitter ‘firing of Phil’ right now, which is fine.
I’m way overpaid for the role I have anyway.
I get that’s my responsibility.
That’s my commitment to the community.
But it very much stays.
I want to support the team.
I want to support the creative ambitions of the teams.
And I want to support the players.
You have to, right?
That’s what creative is about.”
And I’m not pointing at anybody but myself.
What went wrong with Redfall?
We need to improve on engaging in games that are midway through production when they become part of Xbox.
There’s a different expectation in terms of how you’re going to perform on our console.
“So, we left them to go work on the game.
“We did a better job with Starfield.
Again, nobody should believe it until they’re playing the game.
“We should have been there for Harvey [Studio Director, Arkane Austin] and the team earlier.
That’s on us.
And then through the process, it’s an Unreal game.
We have a bunch of studios that have done some really great work on Unreal over the years.
“That’s not an excuse.
So when the 60fps issue came up, we were definitely diving in.
“I take that as learning, as painful as it is.
