Phil Spencer is an American business executive and the CEO of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

Gaming. He is currently the head of the

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

brand and leads the global creative and engineering teams responsible for gaming at Microsoft.

Personal life

Spencer attended Ridgefield High School in Ridgefield, Washington, and then earned a bachelor's

degree Degree may refer to: As a unit of measurement * Degree (angle), a unit of angle measurement ** Degree of geographical latitude ** Degree of geographical longitude * Degree symbol (°), a notation used in science, engineering, and mathematics ...

in technical and scientific communication from the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattle a ...

. He serves on the boards of the First Tee of Greater Seattle and the Entertainment Software Association.

Career

Spencer joined Microsoft in 1988 as an intern and has worked in a number of technical roles, leading the development of Microsoft's first CD-ROM-based titles (such as ''

Encarta ''Microsoft Encarta'' is a discontinued digital multimedia encyclopedia published by Microsoft from 1993 to 2009. Originally sold on CD-ROM or DVD, it was also available on the World Wide Web via an annual subscription, although later articles ...

''), development manager for

Microsoft Money Microsoft Money was a personal finance management software program by Microsoft. It had capabilities for viewing bank account balances, creating budgets, and tracking expenses, among other features. It was designed for computers using the Micro ...

, and general manager of Microsoft's online and offline consumer productivity products including

Microsoft Works Microsoft Works was a productivity software suite developed by Microsoft and sold from 1987 to 2009. Its core functionality included a word processor, a spreadsheet and a database management system. Later versions had a calendar application and ...

and Microsoft Picture It! During his early time at Microsoft he was known by other employees to be an avid gamer, playing games such as

Ultima Online ''Ultima Online'' (''UO'') is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) released on September 24, 1997 by Origin Systems. Set in the '' Ultima'' universe, it is known for its extensive player versus player combat system. ...

in the office. With the launch of the

in 2001, Spencer joined the Xbox team and served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios such as

Lionhead Studios Lionhead Studios Limited was a British video game developer founded in July 1997 by Peter Molyneux, Mark Webley, Tim Rance, and Steve Jackson. The company is best known for the ''Black & White'' and ''Fable'' series. Lionhead started as a br ...

and Rare until 2008, when he became the general manager of Microsoft Studios, eventually becoming the studio's corporate vice president a year later. He has participated in Microsoft's E3 conferences since 2010. In late March 2014, Satya Nadella announced in a corporate e-mail that Spencer was to "lead the

Xbox Live The Xbox network, formerly and still sometimes branded as Xbox Live, is an Internet, online multiplayer video game, multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. It was first made available to the Xbox ...

Groove Music Groove Music (formerly Xbox Music or Zune Music Pass) is a discontinued audio player software application included with Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. The app is also associated with a now-discontinued music streaming service, Groov ...

and Movies & TV teams, and

Microsoft Studios Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher and part of the Microsoft Gaming division based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, ...

" as part of the Windows and Devices division. In September 2017, Spencer was promoted to the Senior Leadership Team, gaining the title of Executive Vice President of Gaming and reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella. In 2018, Spencer delivered the keynote address at the 2018 DICE Summit and spoke at the 2018

Game Awards The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by game journalist Geoff Keighley, who worked on its predecessor, the Spike Video Game Awards, ...

. In January 2022, along with

's acquisition of

Activision Blizzard Activision Blizzard, Inc. is an American video game holding company based in Santa Monica, California. It was founded in July 2008 through the merger of Activision, Inc. (the publicly traded parent company of Activision Publishing) and Viven ...

, Spencer was promoted to the role of CEO of Microsoft Gaming. Since taking over both Xbox and the Gaming division, Spencer has advocated for

cross-platform play In video games with online gaming functionality, also called cross-compatible play, cross-platform play, crossplay, or cross-play describes the ability of players using different video game hardware to play with each other simultaneously. It is c ...

, as well as launched key initiatives, such as reintroducing

backward compatibility Backward compatibility (sometimes known as backwards compatibility) is a property of an operating system, product, or technology that allows for interoperability with an older legacy system, or with input designed for such a system, especiall ...

to the Xbox platform, the purchase of

Mojang Mojang Studios is a Swedish video game developer based in Stockholm. The studio is best known for developing the sandbox and survival game '' Minecraft'', the best-selling video game of all time. Mojang Studios was founded by the independ ...

and Bethesda, the further development and support of ''

Minecraft ''Minecraft'' is a sandbox game developed by Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Persson in the Java (programming language), Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made pub ...

'', the introduction of

Xbox Game Pass Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass are video game subscription services from Microsoft. Both services grant users access to a rotating catalog of games from a range of publishers and other premium services, including Xbox Live Gold and EA Play, fo ...

, launching the

Xbox Adaptive Controller The Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC) is a video game controller designed by Microsoft for Windows PCs and the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S video game consoles. The controller was designed for people with disabilities to help make user input for vi ...

, an increased focus on PC gaming, porting some Microsoft published games to other platforms including the

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a Tablet computer#Gaming tablet, tablet that can either be docking station, docked for use as a home video ...

, the launch of

xCloud Xbox Cloud Gaming (formerly known as Project xCloud and colloquially known as xCloud) is Microsoft's Xbox cloud gaming service. Initially released in beta testing in November 2019, the service later launched for subscribers of Xbox Game Pass ...

, and increasing the number of first-party development studios. Spencer received the Lifetime Achievement award at the 25th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards on February 24, 2022.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Spencer, Phil Living people Microsoft employees Video game businesspeople Businesspeople in software American computer businesspeople University of Washington alumni 20th-century American businesspeople 21st-century American businesspeople Xbox Xbox Game Studios Year of birth missing (living people)