GamesBeat: I’m reading Robbie Bach’s book.
Spencer: I haven’t read it yet! How is it?
GamesBeat: I’m about halfway through. The first half is dedicated to the Xbox side, as opposed to his political work. There’s one fact that jumped out, where he said that the original Xbox lost maybe $5 billion to $7 billion, depending on how you do the accounting.
Spencer: That’s a big investment.
GamesBeat: They got a lot of leeway to experiment.
Spencer: For me, the profit thing—The most important thing there is, I think you should buy an Xbox One. I’ll tell you that right off. If you haven’t bought one I think you should buy one. When I say that, I want to know, as the head of the platform, that Microsoft is long on supporting that platform.
Microsoft is a publicly traded company. We need to be running a business. For me, the business aspect of Xbox One, clearly it’s the scorecard that Wall Street looks at companies with. But at the same time, as someone making a commitment to the people who buy our consoles and our games, I know that if I’m not running a viable business in the long run, I won’t be here.
On the profitability and the financial success, that’s what drives me. I love this product. I love what the brand means. I love what it can become. In order for us to realize what we want to realize, the financials have to work. This is why at certain times, when people will push on, “Hey, should Xbox console games go to PC? Why are you guys focusing on Windows?”—People have to step back and see that the more games we sell, the more people who are buying games on Xbox Live, the better the business is and the more we can invest in it. For Xbox fans, it creates more opportunity.
You see the lineup of games we have right now and say it’s the best lineup we’ve ever had. That’s because you get into a stronger financial position and you’re able to invest more and see the benefit of that investment. If selling games on Windows and Xbox means we get to invest more and build more, that’s a great thing for people who care about the Xbox brand.