Console Tribalism ‘One of the Worst Things in the Industry’ Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Says

In a new interview, Xbox boss Phil Spencer shared how toxicity can harm the video game industry, calling console tribalism “one of the worst things about” the video game industry.Speaking with The Verge, Spencer spoke out against what he calls “tribalism in the industry,” though more popularly referred to as the “console wars.” Spencer, who heads up Microsoft’s Xbox operation, goes as far as to say that tribalism may be the only thing that could force him out of the games industry.

“The tribalism in the industry, if there was anything that would ever drive me out of the industry, it’s actually that,” Spencer says on The Verge’s Decoder podcast. When he talks about the vocal core “that just really hates the other consumer product,” Spencer says “that’s just so off-putting to me… To me, it’s one of the worst things about our industry.”

And even beyond that, Spencer says Microsoft’s competition isn’t actually Sony or Nintendo. “We’re in the entertainment business. The biggest competitor we have s apathy over the products and services, games that we build.”

This isn’t the first time Spencer has spoken out against toxicity in the games industry. During his keynote address at DICE 2018, Spencer called toxicity in gaming a “threat to our entire industry.”

Instead, Spencer says we should focus on how gaming is bringing people closer together thanks to features like crossplay, which tears down barriers between consoles in online play.

Xbox pushed heavily for cross-platform play early on with games like Minecraft. Since then, the feature has become far more commonplace with new games touting the feature regularly.

Matt T.M. Kim is a reporter for IGN.