Phil Spencer

Phil Spencer is the Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Gaming, a position he attained in January 2022 after Microsoft announced their purchase of Activision Blizzard. Spencer started as an intern at Microsoft in 1988 working on early CD-ROM titles including Encarta and eventually headed up products including Microsoft Money, Microsoft Works, and Microsoft Encarta. His interest in playing games, which started in his arcade playing time when he played Robotron 2084 and his addiction around Ultima Online, made him join the Xbox team in the year 2001. In 2008 he became a general manager of Microsoft Studios, later becoming company vice president in 2009. He succeeded as head of Xbox in 2014, and in 2017 he was made an Executive Vice President of Gaming, directly reporting to CEO Satya Nadella.

During his time, Spencer directed the change of Xbox through a console-centric brand to a multi-platform gaming ecosystem. One of his most radical initiatives was introducing Xbox Game Pass as a subscription-based service game-changing approach to game access and pursuing cross-platform play, especially with the release of the Better Together Update in Minecraft in 2017. He led the acquisition of huge gaming companies like Mojang, ZeniMax Media, and Activision Blizzard, to widen the range of Microsoft game content. Spencer was also focused on backward compatibility, accessibility with the Xbox Adaptive Controller and cloud gaming through xCloud, making a point over platform exclusivity in favor of inclusiveness and player choice. This vision has guaranteed the integration of Xbox titles to PC, Nintendo Switch, and even PlayStation since he considers limiting games to a specific platform is not beneficial to games.

Nevertheless, Spencer remains a central figure despite the latest difficulties in his management, such as heavy layoffs in 2025 that involved companies such as King and Bethesda. His leadership received Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2022 D.I.C.E. Awards. Based in Seattle, USA with his wife and two daughter, Spencer carries forward in developing a future of gaming, by combining innovation and difficult business choices.