Phil Spencer Passed On Making Destiny And Guitar Hero Xbox Exclusives

Summary

• Phil Spencer recently appeared at Pax West as part of a Storytime panel.
• While talking about his time in the industry, Spencer reveals a few games that he passed on making Xbox exclusives.
• The biggest and most surprising is Destiny, which Xbox chose not to sign on as a first-party game.

Phil Spencer has revealed in a recent interview that Xbox passed on making the first Destiny game a first-party exclusive, which he said while noting that he's made "some of the worst game choice decisions".

It's undeniable that Xbox has some great exclusives under its belt, from Halo and Gears of War to Forza and Fable, none of which have crossed over to PlayStation and Nintendo just yet. That being said, Xbox's lineup of first-party games is certainly a lot weaker than its competition, especially now that Hi-Fi Rush and Indiana Jones show that it seems to moving away from caring about exclusives.

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While you might think that it's just the luck of the draw that Xbox doesn't have as many big first-party games under its belt, it turns out that the Big X has actually passed on signing quite a lot of exclusive games over the past few generations, something which Phil Spencer himself pointed out in a recent interview.

Phil Spencer Passed On Making Destiny, Guitar Hero, And Genshin Xbox Exclusives

Phil Spencer recently took part in a panel at Pax West 2024 called Storytime, where he chatted about his experience in the gaming industry up to that point. At one point during the panel, Spencer opens up about some of the games that he has passed on while at Xbox, revealing that Bungie originally pitched Destiny to Microsoft. As we all know, it eventually went to Activision while Bungie eventually ended up with PlayStation.

Xbox purposefully chose not to make Destiny an Xbox exclusive, which is a little strange considering how well the Halo series did for them. That's not all, though, as Spencer also reveals that Guitar Hero was originally pitched to Xbox, who didn't believe that it was going to work as well as it did. Funnily enough, Guitar Hero is now back in Xbox's stable, so it might be time to change history a bit.

I've passed on some of the worst, made some of the worst game-choice decisions... I'm not a regrets-type person. - Phil Spencer

After bringing up Guitar Hero, Spencer notes that he's made lots of wrong choices when it comes to signing games, some of which have been pointed out by Twitter user nib95_, who shared a video reminding us all that Xbox could have made Genshin Impact, an unnamed Marvel game, and, most infamously, Grand Theft Auto 3.

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