728: Closing out 2020 with Phil Spencer

Larry Hryb:
All right. 2020 is coming to an end, so I figured let's do a show.

Jeffrey:
Whew. Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Are you ready Jeffrey?

Jeffrey:
It's over. Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Well, it's funny, because you're excited that it's over, but that doesn't mean all this stuff we've been dealing with is over. That still continues the same.

Jeffrey:
No. As soon as that calendar flips, everything, everyone, it's a hard reset. That's how it works, right?

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. The masks come off and all of a sudden-

Jeffrey:
It's where you get it to turn it off and turn it back on again.

Larry Hryb:
Hilarity ensues.

Jeffrey:
That fixes every ... or not. I don't know.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway-

Jeffrey:
Let us have something.

Larry Hryb:
Good to see you. We didn't get a chance to do a show before the holiday because we were just too busy, but now we've got a little bit of time. In fact, we have, as you can probably tell if you read the metadata, we've got a very special show later on.

Jeffrey:
Very special show.

Larry Hryb:
Phil Spencer is going to join us. We've done it for two or three years. We're going to continue that tradition, a little end-of-year fireside chat with Phil, without the fire.

Jeffrey:
I'm just glad I get to be on the show at all. After hearing the last show, which is a couple weeks ago at this point, where Jason Ronald was introduced as the cohost and did a fantastic job, I was like-

Larry Hryb:
You noticed that?

Jeffrey:
I may have noticed that as I very quickly looked at my LinkedIn and made sure my badge let me into the office still.

Larry Hryb:
Your email was active.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. All that stuff still works, so-

Larry Hryb:
Stop it.

Jeffrey:
Look, you got to show up. This is how it works. You could be the starting quarter back one day and your butt's on the bench forever after that. So you got to play to win, not that we're competing. I would probably lose in many fields of competition to Jason Ronald.

Larry Hryb:
Most importantly, the facial hair.

Jeffrey:
This is all I got. This is six months' growth right here.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, good to see you. We haven't had a chance to really ... You and I haven't played games together pretty much at all in all the month of December, I think.

Jeffrey:
That's not true, Larry. That's not true. We played, remember?

Larry Hryb:
We did Gears. We did Gears.

Jeffrey:
Gears 5.

Larry Hryb:
That's right.

Jeffrey:
Yes. I really enjoyed the Hivebusters DLC, which pretty phenomenal. Starting to hear it getting its due, I think this one. With other things going on in December, holidays and pandemics and everything else, I think that this is spreading by maybe word of mouth. I was listening earlier today. I was at the dentist, which was ... The only way I got through is by listening to the year-end special for, kind of funny, Xcast KFX. Good folks there.

Larry Hryb:
Oh yeah.

Jeffrey:
They were talking about how they had played through. It's a great one to two-session co-op game for up to three folks.

Larry Hryb:
I think we did ours in two sessions, didn't we?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Yeah. Probably about 90 minutes each, give or take. Great challenge. I think it may be the best-looking thing of the generation. I'll just say that. I mean it's easy to say that. Just like that-

Larry Hryb:
I recorded the interview with Phil before you and I are doing this, so he talks about that. So you'll hear a little bit about that later on. It's pretty-

Jeffrey:
We had a lot of fun.

Larry Hryb:
It's pretty delicious.

Jeffrey:
Here's the thing. When your Xbox goes into standby mode or you've been away, you go up to get a cup of coffee or something and it goes into low power mode. You start to see what your friends are doing. It also lets you know what achievements sometimes you're really close to. I was using the character who re-ammos you. I'm a giver, Larry. I'm a giver.

Larry Hryb:
Yes, you are. I was doing the shield and the electric fence.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. You were using Graham before he went on annual leave and you were using Lonnie. I remember Lonnie's name. Apparently, I had refueled us 24 times and there's an achievement for doing it 25. So ...

Larry Hryb:
We got to go back?

Jeffrey:
Got to go back and play it again.

Larry Hryb:
All right.

Jeffrey:
You know what? I would do that again because it was really fun.

Larry Hryb:
We had a lot of fun.

Jeffrey:
It was just the right size. It was almost like a best of Gears. You got to do it all. You got to fight big monsters.

Larry Hryb:
Highlight reel.

Jeffrey:
Highlight reel. You got to use all the different weapons at different times.

Larry Hryb:
You got to get in that shovel loader and just mow things over. You were mowing things down like a maniac.

Jeffrey:
At first, I was like, "My loader doesn't have any guns. I can just step on everybody." I'm just crushing, one-hitting everybody.

Larry Hryb:
Who needs a gun?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. No, we're beyond that. So anyway, that was a lot of fun. What have you been playing these past couple of weeks?

Larry Hryb:
Well, it's funny. I don't know if you can see this. Let me see if I can bring this-

Jeffrey:
I can. Wait. What is that in the ... Sparkle 2.

Larry Hryb:
Sparkle 2. I just loaded it up. I don't even know why I started playing this.

Jeffrey:
It'll get the stains out of your shirt. It sounds like a detergent, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
Sparkle 2, Apex. Doing some Sea of Thieves-

Jeffrey:
Sea of Thieves.

Larry Hryb:
... which is always a lot of fun.

Jeffrey:
Yeah, yeah.

Larry Hryb:
I was getting ready to set Twitch up because I was going to stream some Jackbox.

Jeffrey:
Oh yeah. That's good.

Larry Hryb:
So I've been doing that. Let's take a look what else I have loaded here. Still playing Cyberpunk, Call of the Sea.

Jeffrey:
How is Call of the Sea?

Larry Hryb:
It's fun.

Jeffrey:
I saved it. That's what I use my pins for is games that either I'm playing or I need to keep reminding myself, "Hey, I need to play this when I get the chance." Call of the Sea's on there.

Larry Hryb:
Right. Call of the Sea, I did that one. Well, I did the interview with the developers. You remember?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I do remember that.

Larry Hryb:
Lovely young lady from Spain. Really fun game. Nice, relaxing story game. I believe that one also, more importantly, or also supports Quick Resume which, as you know, we are big fans of.

Jeffrey:
I mean I am. I love it. I love it. Did you ever beat Fenyx Rising Immortals?

Larry Hryb:
I did. I sure did. That game was my surprise hit of the year. Did you finish that?

Jeffrey:
No. Where I'm at right now, I would imagine somewhere around halfway. I've completed the storylines of two of the gods. [crosstalk 00:06:04]-

Larry Hryb:
Are you going to recontinue? Because-

Jeffrey:
Oh yeah. Yeah. That game is a slow burn for me. But go on. Go on.

Larry Hryb:
I got to tell you, I keep thinking you're going to play. Every time I open up the console ... Let's take a look now.

Jeffrey:
What?

Larry Hryb:
Shall we?

Jeffrey:
What's going to be here?

Larry Hryb:
Let's hold on a minute. Where are you? Where are you?

Jeffrey:
I'm down there somewhere.

Larry Hryb:
Oh, stop it. Every time I open it up you're playing Yakuza.

Jeffrey:
Can you blame me? We're going to talk about our games of the year.

Larry Hryb:
Look at all these achievements. Look at all these achievements. Look at you.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Because I'm killing it, man. I may 1K that game, which is no small feat.

Larry Hryb:
Four days ago you played Fenyx Rising. It's all inside.

Jeffrey:
I did play four days ago. Well, I go back and forth. I played nothing but Fenyx Rising for a week and now I'm only ... When you're playing two games at once and you're as fickle or you sway with the wind as I do, you got to drill down into something because I want to finish them both.

Larry Hryb:
Right, right. Well, I can-

Jeffrey:
Two of my favorites.

Larry Hryb:
I can appreciate that. Anyway, so yeah, that's kind of what I'm playing. I mean it's been a crazy month with the holiday in the middle. You've been busy. I've been busy. We got to get back to some multiplayer after ... We'll go back to Gear, so we get you that achievement. And then maybe we should continue-

Jeffrey:
That would be great.

Larry Hryb:
... playing where I can switch as the re-ammo guy and I can get the achievement.

Jeffrey:
We could do that. I've been hearing a lot of stuff about this new map in Call of Duty: Warzone. So I'd be down to check that out.

Larry Hryb:
Do I have that downloaded?

Jeffrey:
You should.

Larry Hryb:
I don't know-

Jeffrey:
If you sort by file size you'll find it pretty quickly.

Larry Hryb:
I think I've got it on this Xbox One S over here that's on my desk.

Jeffrey:
Okay. Yeah. Well, there's a new update with the map and it was a svelte 22-gig update, I want to say. But be that as it may, I've heard really good things about it. It's smaller. It runs trios, like we're familiar with from Apex. So one of the things that was sometimes a bit of a blocker for us, I think, in Warzone on the Verdansk map is that could last 40 minutes, more than 40 minutes sometimes.

Larry Hryb:
It's an hour, yeah.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Didn't always have that kind of time that we can commit, especially you with a baby and me with, I don't know, just bad excuses. So this is a short game.

Larry Hryb:
Poor time management.

Jeffrey:
Sure. We could put it that way. So I think we owe it to ourselves and our SSDs to give that a go because it's there. It's taking up that space.

Larry Hryb:
I'm going to download it. After the show, I'm going to start getting it downloaded. Maybe we can check that out. Yeah, it's been a crazy few days with ... How was your Christmas, by the way? Did you celebrate it? Did you have fun? Did you exchange gifts? Did you get a new hat? I mean what happened?

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I got a belt, because I've left the house wearing something that wasn't drawstring. Would it be inappropriate to stand up and show that I'm wearing sweatpants for the ... I think this is the 300th day in a row that I'm wearing sweatpants.

Larry Hryb:
Day 300, sweatpants still on.

Jeffrey:
They have been washed. They're clean. I now have quite a few pairs of sweatpants. But I have a belt now.

Larry Hryb:
You're moments away from retirement.

Jeffrey:
I may dress up just for the novelty of it at that point. But yeah, we exchanged some gifts. I played a lot of games. I'm a big soccer fan and so there's a lot of those games happening this time of year. Actually, we just started recording after an Arsenal win, which that was the real Christmas present for me, to be honest, is that we won twice this week. That means nothing to you or almost all of your audience, but it means something to me.

Larry Hryb:
That's not true. We have a very large international contingency that watches the show. Football/soccer, it's one of the largest-

Jeffrey:
It's life, Larry. It's life.

Larry Hryb:
It's life. It's life for a lot of people.

Jeffrey:
Ball is life.

Larry Hryb:
It's life. Anyway ...

Jeffrey:
It's the end of the year. I would love to know, it's funny. Maybe I'm a little introspective having sat there getting my teeth drilled today for-

Larry Hryb:
Two hours.

Jeffrey:
Two hours. It was two hours. That was pretty much the length of that final kind of funny Xcast. They went through month by month of everything that happened this year in the Xbox world. There were things that I couldn't believe that it was this year. Do you remember that Ori and the Will of the Wisps was this year?

Larry Hryb:
That's right.

Jeffrey:
The year of our Lord, 2020.

Larry Hryb:
This March. This March.

Jeffrey:
It seems like decades ago. What else? Minecraft Dungeons.

Larry Hryb:
Also.

Jeffrey:
Resident Evil 3. These are some of my favorite games of the year that I feel like, surely, I've been playing those for at least a year.

Larry Hryb:
Surely.

Jeffrey:
Dungeons I go back to every other month or so when they put new content out. Gears Tactics, I mean yes, we know Gears Tactics debuted on Xbox Series S and X when the console launched, but I beat it on PC in April, I want to say, maybe May.

Larry Hryb:
I think it was more May, yeah.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. It's just amazing. How many games, by the way, came out this year? But then also just there's a bit of a recency bias, I feel like-

Larry Hryb:
Of course there is.

Jeffrey:
It definitely got me thinking about just, wow, how many things happened this year. Better times to come, surely, but I think when we look back on our calendar and the games that came out and remember the good times, it was a lot.

Larry Hryb:
I just remember my last public event was PAX East in Boston and being there with the guys from Obsidian and talking about Grounded. Of course, now it's-

Jeffrey:
Oh yeah.

Larry Hryb:
Playing a lot of that. But that feels like 50 years ago at this point.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. That was July that that came out. I want to say end of July. It wasn't even that long ago.

Larry Hryb:
Oh my Lord.

Jeffrey:
What was your favorite? Do you have a favorite? Do you have a top three for the year? Any game you really want to recognize? Again, I'm acknowledging that it's super hard to even contextualize this year. So it's hard to-

Larry Hryb:
I did take some notes here, so let me pull them up for a second.

Jeffrey:
I would like to know. Also, what do you think was your most played game this year?

Larry Hryb:
Hold on a minute. DOOM Eternal.

Jeffrey:
Okay.

Larry Hryb:
Ori, Watch Dogs, these are some of my top games that I played. Let's see what else here. We talked about Resident Evil. I played-

Jeffrey:
Did you play Resident Evil 3?

Larry Hryb:
No. I played Mafia: Definitive Edition.

Jeffrey:
That's right. You did get very into that.

Larry Hryb:
I finished it actually. Let's see. I played a little bit of DIRT 5. There's two more that I wanted to talk about. Journey to the Savage Planet.

Jeffrey:
That's right. Wait, that was this year?

Larry Hryb:
That was this year. In fact, let me just fact check that.

Jeffrey:
No. Was it really?

Larry Hryb:
January 29th is when it dropped.

Jeffrey:
Wow. I thought sure that was fall or summer 2019.

Larry Hryb:
Nope. No, no. That was one of my big ones. Hold on a second. Let me just double check to see. Apex, of course, we continue to play that. I have not got into Assassins. I know I need to do that.

Jeffrey:
If you start it now you might finish by the end of next year.

Larry Hryb:
I'm trying to remember. Those are kind of my big ones. I mean I played a lot of other ones. What about you? Tell me about you. I want to hear about you.

Jeffrey:
I'll acknowledge recency bias because I'm looking at my favorite games and they're all very recent games. Like you, Watch Dogs: Legion was great. I immediately segued into Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which I played for I think 96 hours to beat that.

Larry Hryb:
My word.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. Which I loved. It was twice as long as the next longest Assassin's Creed game. I did do a stream for Immortals Fenyx Rising. At some point-

Larry Hryb:
Didn't even wait.

Jeffrey:
I told you this.

Larry Hryb:
Didn't even wait.

Jeffrey:
It's not a multiplayer game, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
I know. But I mean I could have been ... I figure we could have gone meta like the game, and I could have been the old guy talking over the game.

Jeffrey:
Oh. Actually, that would be pretty funny. They should do a voice pack, put Larry in. Again, with the jumping.

Larry Hryb:
Again, with the jumping please.

Jeffrey:
After I played those three games, I had told you before, I actually had a recurring dream that I was working at Ubisoft, that I started working there.

Larry Hryb:
That's really funny.

Jeffrey:
Because I was playing nothing but Ubisoft games for 90 days straight. I didn't know what I was doing. I don't know what my job was.

Larry Hryb:
You were just working there.

Jeffrey:
Everyone was very nice. I was just walking around and potentially-

Larry Hryb:
Well, that's because it's Canadian.

Jeffrey:
They were Canadian. Well, they're French-Canadian. They were very accepting of my high school levels of French, which is [French 00:15:11]. I would say in my top three, Immortals Fenyx Rising in the last week nudged its way in. It's just a lovely game to play. The games that I was really into the most this year, the ones that sort of took me away and took me to a place that I really wanted to be, with the exception of Wasteland 3, which just shows how bad things could be possibly be. But that game was phenomenal.

Jeffrey:
I spent easily 50 hours in that game and got the ending that I really ... a really fitting ending. That was the first inXile game that I really played. Bring them on, because that game, it was really good. It was just really phenomenal.

Larry Hryb:
More to come.

Jeffrey:
But I would say, here's my favorite. This is a bit of a cop-out, by which I mean a huge cop-out. My favorite game of the year is the Yakuza franchise, the Yakuza franchise.

Larry Hryb:
Yes. Those are awesome.

Jeffrey:
A year ago sitting here, I had never played a Yakuza game. I didn't know anything about it. This year I played Yakuza 0, Yakuza Kiwami 1 and 2 through the magic of Xbox Game Pass. Love them. And then I've been playing, I don't know, 40 hours-ish into Yakuza: Like a Dragon and I love it. I love it. So my favorite news of the year, which we saw out of the game awards which is, at this point, close to a month ago, was that Yakuza 3, 4, 5, and 6: The Song of Life, are all coming to Xbox Game Pass in this coming year. So 2021 already has to be better.

Larry Hryb:
A year ago you were a gaijin?

Jeffrey:
I was a gaijin.

Larry Hryb:
And now you're not.

Jeffrey:
I still am actually. But maybe one who's a little bit more savvy and knows one, maybe two more words of Japanese than I knew before but I couldn't really use them in context. So anyway, Yakuza: Like a Dragon is just phenomenal and I absolutely love it. So I will caveat by saying I didn't have a chance to play Dragon Quest XI yet. That'll be next.

Larry Hryb:
I have to show you something.

Jeffrey:
Go, go, go, go.

Larry Hryb:
I'm sorry. When you're done, I want to show you a Christmas-

Jeffrey:
No, no. I'm done.

Larry Hryb:
... present that my wife got for me for Christmas.

Jeffrey:
You go. Let's see. Let's see it.

Larry Hryb:
I got to unplug and go over here.

Jeffrey:
Well, then I'll keep my caveats going. Did not play Ghost of Tsushima, which I know that I would love as well. Hades, I haven't played a lot of that. I did play a little bit of it.

Larry Hryb:
Let me put my headphones back on here, clicked in.

Jeffrey:
It's a good one. All right.

Larry Hryb:
This is fun because this goes into one of the conversations we've been having with ... Well, let's just show what it is. As you know, I'm a little bit of a fan of Disneyland. My wife got me these original tickets.

Jeffrey:
Whoa.

Larry Hryb:
My ring light's screwing things up.

Jeffrey:
No. It looks like it's a rainbow over the castle. Wow, look at that.

Larry Hryb:
These are limited edition. They did a test in '55.

Jeffrey:
Yeah, limited to 1956.

Larry Hryb:
Right.

Jeffrey:
How much was it to get into Disneyland back then?

Larry Hryb:
I don't know. They were jumbo guest tickets. She bought it at this crazy Disney auction.

Jeffrey:
Right. They graded the guests by their size?

Larry Hryb:
No. You don't know what these are? Here let me show you. Back then, you paid to get into the park-

Jeffrey:
10 cents? 10 cents?

Larry Hryb:
You paid to get into the park, but the rides were not like you could ride anything you want as much as you want. Each ride was an A, B, C, or D. So you'd rip off your ticket book. I think you had a few As, a few Bs, and then you can choose from one of those rides. You could see them there.

Jeffrey:
Interesting. What-

Larry Hryb:
Go ahead.

Jeffrey:
I was just saying, what was the big ride? Was Space Mountain there?

Larry Hryb:
Well, no. Space Mountain was in the '70s and that's why you hear things referred to as E ticket rides because that was the E ticket. Because if you notice, this-

Jeffrey:
I've never heard of that.

Larry Hryb:
You've never heard an E ticket? This is in the '50s.

Jeffrey:
I lived in Orlando and I never heard of it.

Larry Hryb:
A, B, C, D, E. They stopped doing ticket books in I want to say the mid '70s.

Jeffrey:
Oh okay.

Larry Hryb:
This is for Disneyland. There was A, B, C, D, E. And then when those big thrill rides came along, those are E tickets. You had, I think, two E tickets so you could go on two of the three E ticket-

Jeffrey:
Got it.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, so I got to hang that up. She just got me a few little things like that.

Jeffrey:
That is very good. That is a nice gift.

Larry Hryb:
I got to hang it up somewhere in here, but we got to find a place for that. But I just thought you'd get a kick out of that. Sorry.

Jeffrey:
Whoa. A little fuzzy. Little fuzzy here.

Larry Hryb:
There we go. Sorry about that.

Jeffrey:
Which is why you should listen to the show on audio.

Larry Hryb:
Anyway, I brought it to my office and I wanted to show that off. I think it's pretty cool, but I think the guys from Rooster Teeth would get a kick out of that.

Jeffrey:
You should go back on the show. You and Gus could talk about that. That was a good time. It was a good listen.

Larry Hryb:
I would love to do that. Anyway, but yeah, my wife got a bunch of stuff for me. And then we got a bunch of stuff for her. It was lovely. So it was lovely. There's some other stuff as well that I will not bore you with.

Jeffrey:
I'm not bored, Larry.

Larry Hryb:
I assume your wife got you 10 pair of sweatpants?

Jeffrey:
No. She didn't. Here's the thing. From time to time, we'll get each other gifts. But we don't really surprise each other with Christmas gifts. We're both hard to shop for and so if we see something, it's like we just agree to get it.

Larry Hryb:
That's kind of the way we are too.

Jeffrey:
Okay, good. Because it's very lame. We get gifts for the kid because she gets great reactions.

Larry Hryb:
Actually, let me tell you something. My wife is probably one of the best gift givers ever. She got me something that I will not show you, but it's very, very touching. She commissioned an artist to write me a song.

Jeffrey:
Okay.

Larry Hryb:
I have a recording of this artist singing the song. He wrote the melody. She told him all about me. It's a very beautiful, very-

Jeffrey:
What's the name of the song? Can we at least get that?

Larry Hryb:
I'll have to-

Jeffrey:
Does it refer to you as Larry or Major Nelson? That's what I really want to know.

Larry Hryb:
Larry. Hold on. Let me check.

Jeffrey:
It should be Major Nelson. I swear to you, the audience, we will get the song on there. We will find a way.

Larry Hryb:
I can't believe I'm going to show this. I can't believe this.

Jeffrey:
Is there an album? Is it a cover?

Larry Hryb:
It's called Larry's Beloved Christmas.

Jeffrey:
So it's a Christmas song.

Larry Hryb:
It's a Christmas-

Jeffrey:
That's where the money's at. It's going to be like Santa's Super Sleigh in About a Boy. You're going to be living off the royalties for that. I mean that's the money-

Larry Hryb:
I don't know where she found this musical artist, but he wrote a song. He gave her some details and he wrote a song. I'm not going to show it because I don't want it to get screen-capped or anything. Anyway, so that was very emotional about me, my wife, and my daughter. So it's a lot of fun.

Jeffrey:
You got to do a recording now. You got to do a family recording.

Larry Hryb:
I have the recording. He did the recording of the whole song.

Jeffrey:
He did it, okay. Wow.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, the whole thing.

Jeffrey:
I must find a way to hear this. I must. I simply must.

Larry Hryb:
I will not. I will not. I will not. Anyway, so it was a very emotional, meaningful Christmas for us here in our house.

Jeffrey:
Well, that's nice. That's incredibly nice. We made pancakes. That was it.

Larry Hryb:
What kind of pancakes?

Jeffrey:
We get the Power Cakes. They got high protein. They're pretty good.

Larry Hryb:
Okay.

Jeffrey:
Pretty good. No one's going to write a song about them, to my knowledge. But they're pretty good.

Larry Hryb:
Power Cakes. (singing)

Jeffrey:
You could write a good song. It could be a good nickname. I would lie and say that was my nickname in high school, but clearly it was not.

Larry Hryb:
Oh boy.

Jeffrey:
They've got a lot of protein in them.

Larry Hryb:
Are you looking forward to 2021? I know I am. We're going to talk to Phil about that.

Jeffrey:
Yeah. I would love to hear what Phil's looking forward to because that's where the news is. It's not what I think. We made the best of it. We did this. This has been good-ish.

Larry Hryb:
Here's what we're going to do. This is-

Jeffrey:
You're just going to get rid of me.

Larry Hryb:
... no reflection on you.

Jeffrey:
Can you play me off? Can you play me off to a song?

Larry Hryb:
I have a song.

Jeffrey:
Maybe Larry's Special Christmas?

Larry Hryb:
This is great. We're going to chat with Phil now, but we'll be back in a couple weeks, maybe next week, maybe the week after, after the new year for our first show. Will you join us then, Jeff?

Jeffrey:
I would love to. I would love to. Maybe it'll be Larry's Special New Year's.

Larry Hryb:
You're making fun of me, aren't you?

Jeffrey:
No. Oh my God. There's someone at the door and they scared me. Yeah, this is a good time for me to go.

Larry Hryb:
All right. Let's talk to Phil Spencer and we'll see you guys in 2021. Bye-bye everybody.

Jeffrey:
Okay.

Larry Hryb:
It's the end of 2020 and as I've done for the past few years, I'm really excited, bringing him in. It's the man himself, the head of Xbox, Phil Spencer. Hi Phil.

Phil Spencer:
Hey Larry. How are you? It's good to see you. I think we're ready for the end of 2020. I'm ready for the end of 2020.

Larry Hryb:
I know a lot of people are. Now, you and I have done this. This is, I think, the third or fourth year since you've been the head of Xbox where we do this end-of-year podcast where we just kind of get together. Usually I come down to your office in Redmond and we sit in one of your conference rooms. Obviously, we're not doing that this year. But it's kind of become this interesting annual tradition where we talk about the year.

Phil Spencer:
It's fun.

Larry Hryb:
What a year we had. From all the announcements that we had, we'll talk about Bethesda. We'll talk about shipping not one, but two consoles in the middle of a pandemic and, like I said, and then the pandemic. But it's great to see you. How are you doing? Did you have a good holiday?

Phil Spencer:
I did. My daughters came home, got tested, then they came home. So it's my wife, my two daughters. It's been the first time that all of my daughters are in college, for people who don't know. So it's been the first time in a while that everybody's been home. Everybody's safe. Santa was good. How about you? I know you got a young one in the house, so it must have been a fun time around the Hryb household.

Larry Hryb:
It was a blast. I mean there's nothing like Christmas with a little one, right? I mean those days are a little bit behind you, but still it's great to be around family. We brought our family in. We did a nice group Skype call with all my family on the East Coast. We did it virtually as best we could, as a lot of people are doing. It was a lot of fun. I mean it's just kind of an interesting year because normally you're out shopping and doing all these things. Again, you're home clicking and buying some things. So it just feels slightly different.

Larry Hryb:
As you said at the beginning, I'm glad that 2020 is ... The sun is setting on it finally. This is going to be the one that goes down in infamy, I believe.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah, I think so. I think so.

Larry Hryb:
But I want to talk to you about, I mean what a year we've had. People forget, a year ago we announced Xbox Series X with the console at the Video Game Awards in December. What a year it's been. Then of course, we just shipped it. So that's an amazing year. I mean right, Phil?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I was thinking about that when we were getting ready for this call, like what was my frame of mind this time last year? Having come out of the game awards, Series X was announced. [inaudible 00:26:15] 2, we showed that. Looked great. But just no idea what was in store for us. But I mean the great thing is, you're part of this, the way the teams really rallied and executed and got a lot of things done in the year while they had a lot of things going on outside of work obviously and caring for their health and their family and just the social and racial things going on around us, just a lot for people that was weighing on people this year.

Phil Spencer:
I'm incredibly proud of how the teams did. We got the consoles launched and wish we had more of them. It's selling out too quickly. But all in all, really proud of what the teams have been able to do.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I know that you and I are getting hit up on Twitter as a lot of the members of Team Xbox are that are on Twitter, "Hey, I want to buy a console. I want to do this." Yeah. We know you do. We're making them. I know, Phil, you've said this in other interviews about how we're making them as fast as we can and getting them to the retailers. So we know you want them. We're doing the best we can. Right?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I get some people of, "Why didn't you build more? Why didn't you start earlier? Why didn't you ship them earlier?" I mean all of those things. It is really just down to physics and engineering. We're not holding them back. We're building them as fast as we can. We have all of the assembly lines going. I was on the phone last week with Lisa Su at AMD, "How do we get more? How do we get more?" So it's something that we're constantly working on, but it's not just us. I think gaming has really come into its own in 2020.

Phil Spencer:
Obviously, PlayStation 5's in very tight supply. When you look at the graphics cards from AMD and NVIDIA, I mean there's just a lot of interesting gaming right now. Console sales are just a sign of that. Game sales are a sign of that. Hardware is in short supply, but we're working as hard as we can. The teams are incredibly dedicated. I appreciate people's patience as we work to build more.

Larry Hryb:
Well said. You put this out on Twitter a few days ago and I followed up and retweeted you with a comment, which is ... So that's one part is, yeah, we're getting them in there. But I also want to thank, and I think you share my sentiment here, all the men and women around the world, not just at Xbox, but everybody in the operation centers and support who's working through the holidays to make sure that Xbox is working great. You talked about PlayStation or Steam, or whatever. All the different online services are kind of humming along. It's been working pretty well, hasn't it?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I mean people don't realize that, maybe they do, but through the holidays every morning there's a call with all of the operation center. We call it the XOC, the Xbox Operation Center. People jump on the call because we've got the commerce system. We've obviously got Xbox Live. We've got the communications platforms. We have all of the games that are running. I mean there's just policy and enforcement. There's a bunch of different systems. So every day I get a full report that shows how everything's going.

Phil Spencer:
But all those teams are fully engaged every morning jumping on the call. I think I got my last end-of-holiday report and it was a good year. Teams did really good work preparing for the year. I think the big swell that we had in May with all the COVID, people staying at home and seeing this huge spikes, we really had to build out our systems to be very robust. And then we paid dividends this holiday. But yeah, those people that are working, the members of the team, the XOC team and all the operation support teams, shout out to them because they are on 24/7 literally.

Phil Spencer:
It was a good year. You and I remember some years that weren't the best years in terms of up times and other things. We're always learning, always working hard to build the robust systems and try to allow people to have a great holiday.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I mean you're absolutely right. The availability is something that people just take for granted. I mean the way I always describe it, I remember when I was working with the XOC team when it was much smaller. They would always get frustrated because nobody ever said, "Hey, thanks for making sure it works great." They only complain when things aren't working great. It's like your phone or any other utility. When you open up the faucet and there's no water, that's when you get upset.

Phil Spencer:
That's right. That's right.

Larry Hryb:
But yeah, that's good to point out. I want to talk a little bit about what you're playing because I've seen you play a ton of crazy stuff. I mean I remember I think that you and I were talking about it before we were recording. Two years ago, you were talking about xCloud before it became available, widely playing Destiny on it. You're still playing Destiny.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I'm still playing Destiny, yeah. This has been a good year. I've been playing a ton of games. Recently though, a lot of Tetris Effect: Connected, Mizoguchi, great game, having fun. I love co-op games, so games I can play together. A friend and I, we just-

Larry Hryb:
I was trying to join you the other night. You're on my friends list and I saw you playing Tetris and there was something else. I tried to join, but it wasn't available.

Phil Spencer:
Well, we finished Reach finally, Halo: Reach on Legendary. So I've been back through the MCC games and playing on Legendary. So we got through Reach-

Larry Hryb:
Game Pass folks, download it. Check it out. It's amazing.

Phil Spencer:
Reach, for me, it was funny because I remember after 3 when Reach came out. It was a little bit of where's Master Chief? How is the story? Is this the game I really want? Going back and playing Reach on Legendary and finishing it, fantastic game, just really holds up if people haven't played it in a while. Great game to play with friends and go through and finish. Storytelling is awesome. Obviously, we know how it ends. So we finished that. Finally went back. I've been holding off on finishing Gears 5 because I wanted to finish on Series X, the retail build.

Larry Hryb:
Listen to me, listen to me. You have to play it. I played it the other night with some folks from the office, Ryan and a few others. This new mode is phenomenal. It just looks amazing.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. The Hivebusters DLC, I'm going through that now with some friends. Just the coalition does such great jobs, Mike Rayner, Mike Crump, the teams up there. When we start working on new platforms, they roll up their sleeves and do some just amazing work with our platform team. It shows with that game. I am playing a ton of Valhalla. That's another one, AC. I played a lot of Origins. Didn't play as much Odyssey. I played some, but didn't finish it. But Valhalla's got me. I'm deep into that one.

Phil Spencer:
I don't want to look at the hours. But just I love the AC games, the abilities to pick the things I want to go do and go play. Again, looks great. Quick Resume game, so I'm back in so fast.

Larry Hryb:
Let's talk about that for a second because, in fact, I was just looking at Reddit the other day and a few people on Twitter were talking about that. I tweeted this. You and I have been playing with Quick Resume when we had our consoles at home over the summer. Remember when they lit it up like, "What's going on here?" We knew what it was, but until you really experience it. But of course, people started getting their consoles over the holiday and since launch. It's one of those things that I mean I don't use this lightly, Phil. It's a game changer, right?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. It totally is. You and I know this. This started with our Quick Resume work that we did on Xbox One. Like a lot of things that we're doing, we kind of test it where it's variable refresh rate or some of the different Hertz that our screens will run at. This was one that with the Resume that we had on Xbox One, we said, "Okay, how many games, now that we have fast SSD, let's see how many games we can put into a Quick Resume rotation and try it out." We've been working on this for a while.

Phil Spencer:
We're not at 100% yet. We know we still have work to go do there. But I think even more than just the individual load time, the ability for me to have multiple games in my carousel, so to speak, and I know we have some requests on, "I want to know what games are in my Quick Resume carousel and be able to boot-"

Larry Hryb:
How will I be able to kill it and do these other things?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah, exactly. All that makes sense and it's on our list. But just really has changed the way I play. I mean Valhalla's such a perfect example. It's literally a game I can drop back into. If I've got five, 10 seconds, I'm back in. It makes console gaming for me just a lot more accessible. I'm more likely to pick up something, even if I have 10 or 20 minutes because the load time is such an insignificant time that I have to spend waiting.

Larry Hryb:
I'm trying to figure out what I had here. I was playing this game called Sparkle 2, which is, I don't know.

Phil Spencer:
I haven't played that.

Larry Hryb:
I ended up there just mindlessly. All of a sudden, I'm an hour later. But there's so many games. In fact, if you go back and listen to the latest podcast before this one, Jason Ronald and I, of course, Jason is great. He kind of talked through they're tweaking it and making it better. He said a lot of folks have a lot of requests on how to make this feature better. But you're right. It's about the velocity architecture that we have on the console that the engineers built.

Larry Hryb:
Things load up. I mean it's 10 seconds. It's so fast. People are forgetting that, hey, the console's waiting for you. This little A button is blinking. Press A to continue because people are just reading and waiting.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah.

Larry Hryb:
It's phenomenal.

Phil Spencer:
That's right. Yeah. No, it's great.

Larry Hryb:
As a beautiful part, it's the same exact feature on Xbox Series S, our little smaller one which I believe you have over your left shoulder there.

Phil Spencer:
No, this one, this way. Yeah, yeah, right there, right there.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, that one right there. For series X, I mean it works great. It's a feature, like I say, that I kind of thought I would like, but it has quickly risen to the top of all the features for me. I mean we talked about 120 Hertz. Gears has a 120 Hertz option in it now for multiplayer, so I got to check that out. Destiny does too.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. It's fantastic.

Larry Hryb:
Destiny does too. I don't know what, if you're playing ... You're probably playing on a 300-inch screen or what have you. Do you have a movie theater there? I don't know how it works.

Phil Spencer:
I'll tell you. This isn't an ad. The thing I've been playing on a ton, it's literally on this PC is I have a Series S, not the debug one that was sitting over here, but a retail one. It's literally right here plugged into my computer monitor on the other HDMI. When I'm working, don't tell Satya, but there are many times where I'll just flip over and I'll be sitting in a Teams call and I'm playing with my Series S. Yeah. Obviously, I get all the Quick Resume features and all the VRR and high refresh rates for games. Yeah. I have the X downstairs that I will go play.

Phil Spencer:
But this S right here is getting a ton of time and really, really proud of the way that console came about. Price point's important. It's always important, especially this year and something that it's really performed well. Even when I've seen some of the comparisons with some of the new games coming out and I think S has really stood its own for a 1080p or 1440p game, wanting to hit 60. The thing is just it's doing work. I'm proud of the team that put that together.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I was talking to Jeff, who's usually on the show with us. He works a lot with our influencers. He says they love this machine because it's affordable. It lines right into their streams well. It has all the next gen features. It's almost pocket-sized. It's ridiculous.

Phil Spencer:
That's right. Yeah, it's easy to take. Some of the games that they'll actually load faster on S because they're not loading the 4K asset, just smaller asset base, same speed SSD, a little bit smaller. I mean it's definitely very, very responsive. I love the size of the thing. I'm glad we have both of them. But yeah, playing a ton of games right now, as is the world. I mean I was looking at our numbers over the holidays. Christmas Day was a massive, massive day for us. This year has just been so big because gaming really playing a role for so many people who are feeling isolated in their homes.

Phil Spencer:
It's a great way to stay connected with people. Definitely, what I'm doing. Gaming is just, the whole business, not just Xbox, everybody's doing well. We see it in the market. I think it's fantastic that the art form I love is playing such an important role at a time of need.

Larry Hryb:
I also read something over the past week or so where it's like video games are now ahead of I think it's music and sports combined. Did you see that stat?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I think it was TV, movies, and sports or something.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, it was sports.

Phil Spencer:
I mean I know it's important. I'm not a big, how do we compare to ... I have no envy of other businesses. I am very focused and committed to making gaming as accessible as it can be to more and more people. I just think there's something about interactive that is a unique way of telling a story and building empathy between both people who are playing together, but also stories and characters. I mean some of the most moving story moments I've had have been playing video games because you have agency. You can impact what happens with the character.

Phil Spencer:
There's so many people on this planet that today aren't playing the great games that creators on our platform are building. That's a mission we're on, as you know. Definitely that's important.

Larry Hryb:
One of the, I don't want to say it's a surprise because you and the team look down the pipeline and plan for this. But one of the things is I felt like Game Pass really just kind of took it to the next level in 2020, don't you agree? I mean certainly people were playing from home. But just the catalog of games that are going in there. All our first-party games are in there. I mean it's really come into its own. I mean it is the undisputed best deal in gaming. @ me on that one, folks.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I think it's easy to be impatient. It's one of the things I think a lot about when I'm talking to the teams. I went back and I was looking at the Netflix numbers on when Netflix launched and how long it took them to get to one million subscribers in there. Now, they were the first to really do an online streaming subscription at scale, so they're obviously going to move-

Larry Hryb:
A lot of people don't remember, but it was discs before showing up in your post box.

Phil Spencer:
That's right. That's right. But it was years before they got to one million subscribers. I think we look at Game Pass today and it's, what, three years old. The numbers that we're hitting, the engagement, the way that creators are now targeting Game Pass. We get people from their original idea of a game. They haven't even started building the game, coming to us and saying, "Hey, we'd like this to be a Game Pass game. Can you work with us on that?" It's just fantastic. So many different kinds of games getting found and people trying them out. I love it.

Phil Spencer:
People playing on PC, people playing on console, people playing on their phones and other devices. 2020 was an important year for the Game Pass team, the portfolio getting EA Play inside. But I think 2021 is just going to be an incredible year when I look at the lineup of games coming and continued work to bring it to more and more people.

Larry Hryb:
One of the things that was real exciting, we talk about Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate on PC, of course, is fantastic. Among Us, which is the sleeper hit of the year is now on Game Pass. You should check that out. We should play that sometime. I'd love to play that with you, Phil. We could get some of the community together and we can play it.

Phil Spencer:
That'd be fun. Yeah. Local team too, they don't get enough credit, but local Redmond-based team that did that game. Kudos to them. Great game that's really found its place. I won't say just during the COVID time, because the game fundamentally has a cool structure to it. I just think it needed discovery. Once it found that in some of the ... Twitch, it started to get a real following. But I love those kind of stories where smaller teams just staying at their craft, staying at building and supporting the game and seeing it go big. Very happy for them. It was cool to see them at the game awards getting some awards and stuff. It was some recognition, just fantastic.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I mean people forget this game came out, I'm looking right here, in June of 2018 and it just kind of-

Phil Spencer:
That's right.

Larry Hryb:
The team was working on it, working on it. All of a sudden, with everyone working at home and whatnot it just kind of, boom, took off. So we should totally play that sometime. It's been on my list of things to do.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I've never played it. I see a bunch of people playing. It is on Game Pass PC now, so obviously easy for us to go play. I have it installed. I got a new gaming PC over the holidays, so it's one of the games I installed. I'm sure I'll get schooled in the beginning. But actually, it seems like a game I would like, kind of a game of intrigue and-

Larry Hryb:
Do you want me to set up a game with you and maybe AOC and some of the squad because apparently they play quite a bit? I'm sure I could probably-

Phil Spencer:
I would like to play with people who don't know how to play so that I have a chance. No, I'm not sure AOC would fall in ... It sounds like she plays a lot.

Larry Hryb:
That's what it looks like too. We talked about Game Pass. This wasn't a surprise because you have been around this franchise for a long time. Flight Simulator, I mean let's talk about that was one I mean we all kind of knew. That's a very interesting, I'm not going to call it a game, simulation because it has such incredible history. Somebody mentioned this and I fact-checked this. It actually predates Windows at Microsoft. A lot of people don't know that.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah, it does.

Larry Hryb:
Have you worked on that franchise before?

Phil Spencer:
No. You know what? I haven't. I've been around that studio. The studio reported to me back before we rebooted the thing. So I've known a lot of members of the team for a long time. I knew there was a strong community out there. The thing that we've really been able to reach now, and this is a testament to Game Pass, is the fact that we can build something that has a very dedicated core. There are just millions of people who love that game. But there aren't tens of millions of people who are going to go out and give it a try because it can seem kind of daunting, especially with retail being your only option.

Phil Spencer:
But in Game Pass, and we're going to be able to bring it to console in 2021, which will be fantastic. It's just been great to see. I was playing today. I got my new gaming PC. It's like rewind 20, 30 years, the thing you do to test out your new gaming PC.

Larry Hryb:
I'm looking around. Are you doing the whole yoke thing and the foot pedals and the ...

Phil Spencer:
If my yoke is my Xbox controller.

Larry Hryb:
Okay. All right.

Phil Spencer:
That's what I'm doing. But yeah. It was so cool, just to test out my new rig and fly around. I was flying over my house today.

Larry Hryb:
Everybody does that. Yeah, yeah.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. But already to see the creator community, it has a community marketplace. We've learned a lot from the work that we've done on Minecraft. I think that should be an important part of any kind of game where it makes sense and Flight Sim is clearly one of those. How do we take that same capability and unlock the creative potential of the community to go and build content that they can sell to the people who are playing? We'll obviously vet it that it's solid and legitimate and it's not breaking IP rules or anything.

Phil Spencer:
But I loved going on today. I was looking through the marketplace of content in Flight Sim and there's a ton of stuff up there to go buy. It's just cool to see people building their business around creating content for video games.

Larry Hryb:
It's interesting because I think back and we're going to get to this in a moment. But I think back to 2004 when before the 360 came out and we were talking about, if you remember Jay and the team, they were talking about that peer-to-peer transaction. I mean it's been happening for many years now. But I think we go back and that's kind of the first time people started talking about that, right?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. That's right. I think we've watched Steam has had a good mod community and creator, Garry's Mod, and those kind of things that have been created. We're always trying to learn. It's very much hopefully part of our culture as a team. We don't have to invent everything. The world is a dynamic place, so we can kind of watch what's going on around us. The fact that we have so many people who are creators now, not just people who know how to write code, but you can have people ... even some of the livery stuff we were doing back in Forza.

Phil Spencer:
I mean I can kind of look at the building learning that we have of how do we bring creators into Xbox? Minecraft was just a massive unlock there. But I think you're going to see us doing more and more in this space where we unlock creative communities where they can bring their content and extend the life of video games, because it should. I mean you look at Skyrim right now and the mods on Skyrim and the cool stuff. That's coming to console or has been there. But people have been going back and playing that. It's just fantastic to see how the community can extend the life of so many of these games. It doesn't just have to fall to the studio to do that work.

Larry Hryb:
You mentioned Skyrim. Bethesda was a big story that we had in September of this year. That was an amazing story. I mean I was fortunate to have you and Pete and Todd in that amazing, amazing 30 minutes we had together. I mean let's talk about the journey there and what happens in 2021, if you would.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I mean the first thing for me was just the relationship that we have with Robert Altman, Todd Howard, Pete Hines, the team there, which has been built over years, people like Kelly Tofte and George Peckham and James Miller, people that were really important in building the foundation of the-

Larry Hryb:
These names don't mean anything to most gamers, but you and I know them. These are people that were doing deals and solving problems and helping make these creators of games-

Phil Spencer:
That's right, that's right. We were fortunate enough to be one of the first consoles that obviously Bethesda and Todd were bringing their games to back with Morrowind. There's a learning curve there and the teams jumped in and helped. We've just built a real trust relationship. Todd was always one of the first people I would take the hardware out to and go show him our new hardware, whether it was Xbox One S or One X or the new consoles and get his point of view and Robert's point of view on what we were doing.

Phil Spencer:
So when it came time when they were looking at potentially becoming part of a bigger company and getting sold, I was glad that we were part of the conversation that they were willing to have. It really means something to me that they would sign up to becoming part of Xbox. I've had a lot of good conversations. Todd and Robert and I, we talk all the time. 2021 is when we'll get final approval. I feel really good about that. Everything's on track. We'll start then really getting to some of the planning that we can do with them. Right now we're really hands off with them as they continue to do the work that they're doing because we don't own them yet.

Phil Spencer:
But the other thing I'll just say, and this is more probably for me than anybody will care about. The commitment of the company, Microsoft, has given us when we rolled into Sarah Bond and Matt Booty and I roll in to Satya Nadella, the CEO, and Amy Hood, the CFO, and say, "We have this idea-"

Larry Hryb:
We need seven billion dollars.

Phil Spencer:
Some people might know this. Our CFO for Xbox is somebody named Tim Stuart. He's there. Amy has a ton of trust in him. Our business is doing well. We're running a profitable, growing business. They have a lot of belief. But I mean just the fact that we would go through an acquisition of this size for the gaming business at Microsoft. That Monday we were announcing, I couldn't sleep that Sunday night. I was just-

Larry Hryb:
I remember.

Phil Spencer:
I was nervous. I was anxious. I was excited, all the emotions. It just was so cool. Well, when we kept it quiet and to see the reaction from Xbox fans. Probably more important to me right now is the Bethesda teams because those teams are going to be very, very critical to our progress going forward. So exciting, exciting news. I can't wait to get it closed and so we can start working like one company. Incredibly excited about Starfield and a lot of the other things, some of those things announced, some of them not announced that they're working on.

Phil Spencer:
I just think they're going to be an incredible addition to our studio because when I think about our RPG capability with Obsidian, with inXile, with the work that Playground is doing, which is now out there with Fable obviously and with what Bethesda can do. It's massive capability. I think about our FPS capability with ID and obviously 343 and the work that we can do. Just it doubles the size of our first-party studios when Bethesda joins, which is pretty amazing to think about.

Larry Hryb:
It doubles the numbers, but the other parts of it, it almost quadruples it just in footprint, in catalog, right?

Phil Spencer:
And geography. I think about where they are, which is important thing because I want to have teams in different places in the world because people just-

Larry Hryb:
Well, that's so nowadays because we're all over the place.

Phil Spencer:
That's right. But we always tell stories through our own lived experience and I'm excited about getting to know some of those ... I know some of the teams. I don't know other parts of the team, but that'll be a fun part of it. But yeah, I'm excited about 2021 and Bethesda's an incredibly important part of that.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I mean I'm excited to be working with them. If you get a chance, go back and watch the podcast I had Phil and Todd and Pete on because it's just a great moment. I think you'll really enjoy it. You'll learn more about the rebooting console. That story made its way around the internet pretty quickly, didn't it? That was a great story, true story.

Larry Hryb:
As we look back at 2020, certainly we've got the backdrop of all these world-changing events and we're all working remotely. It's very different now. Gaming I don't want to say came into its own because I think you and I feel like it was always there. But it bumped up another level in this past year, hasn't it?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. The way I think about it is I think we accelerated the trajectory that gaming was on. It might be by a year or two. When you just look at the growth that gaming was on from a user and from a business standpoint, number of creators, and you look at what this really concentrated now, what, nine months of so many people isolated. I think we accelerated probably two years, the adoption that was happening in gaming. So I don't think we're going to go backwards. This isn't one of those things where I think we found engagement that's going to go away.

Phil Spencer:
I mean there's always some ebb and flow. Summertime is a little bit lighter as people go outside and do things. But yeah, I think we've really seen a pull forward of engagement and our jobs is to make gaming the best place for people to find entertainment with their friends and with their family and just what they want to escape on their own and play something single player. I think the industry's really stepped up. There's been some amazing games that were created this year. Sorry, I'm getting knock. Can you hear that?

Larry Hryb:
I can hear that. I don't know what it is. Do you have someone under your table? All right. Phil's back. We got a little bit interrupted there. But you were talking about gaming and the growth and the acceleration in 2020. In your mind, it's kind of leapt ahead a couple years.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. I think what we did, gaming has been growing by double digits in terms of number of people playing, the business side. Gaming's just been a very, very healthy business for many years now. But I think what we saw during COVID and stay-at-home is a pull forward of a year or two of engagement. The growth we would have normally gotten to a couple years from now has been pulled forward with just such a demand for gaming. I don't think we're going backwards. When I look at where gaming is and how many people, how many families and other people, it's just become part of their daily or weekly routine of how they entertain themselves, their escape, their ability to stay connected with people.

Phil Spencer:
I think it's just a fantastic thing for the industry. But yeah, that's where we are. That's the trends that we're seeing. Our job is to continue to build this platform so more people can create and more people can play.

Larry Hryb:
One of the things, and I know we got to wrap it up because you're going to have other people banging on your door. But one of the other areas that was kind of big this year and we've been testing it for quite some time is xCloud. xCloud kind of came into its own this year. Tell us a little bit about that because next year's going to be big for xCloud, isn't it?

Phil Spencer:
It is. We obviously included it in Game Pass Ultimate. Kareem and Catherine and the team that's working on it, I always go to the team. But at the end of the year I really reflect on all the people that have such a commitment to what we're trying to do here, you included. I want to talk about you for a second.

Larry Hryb:
No.

Phil Spencer:
I think a lot of people, don't you cut this either, I think a lot of people see you doing PR, doing the podcast. But you, especially this year I've noticed just how much work you're doing behind the scenes to make sure that we're thoughtful about how we're talking about our products, how we're talking to our customers, and really leading inside of our teams, the voice that we have. I'm proud of the way our social has continued to grow and change and not always take itself so seriously.

Phil Spencer:
Kudos to you and the team for just doing a lot of really good work to represent both Xbox, but also just be connected to the fans in a very special way. So there's that. Now I'll go to xCloud so you can't cut it out.

Larry Hryb:
Okay.

Phil Spencer:
On the xCloud side, we put it in Game Pass Ultimate. We've been investing in this for a couple years. People have known with our Project xCloud. We've got some work. We're going to get to iOS. We're going to get to PC. We're going to get to different devices in 2021, continue to expand the regions that we're in. We're getting so much learning from just people using the products, using the games, and telling us what they like, areas that we need to improve.

Phil Spencer:
But the mix of xCloud and Game Pass I think really creates a unique opportunity for us. It's an easy way for people to try gaming, try high-end console gaming for the first time. That's what we're seeing more and more of. It's very exciting of people trying xCloud for the ... More and more people we see on xCloud now who don't own a console and don't own a gaming PC. Our long-term aspiration is to make xCloud a great way for new gamers to come into the ecosystem.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. I mean it's one of those things where people have tried it out and they like it and they enjoy it. But you're right. They probably don't have a console. A lot of people I know nowadays, they don't even have a TV. They have a computer monitor or maybe they have a large tablet or something like that. So being able to bring xCloud to them and get this amazing, amazing selection of well over 100 games on Game Pass is pretty compelling, isn't it?

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. Now, we want to give people the ability to buy. We've talked about that. We don't want to make it just about the subscription because we know certain people want to be able to buy their games and still play them via the cloud. So they get that convenience feature of being connected to their library. There's so much opportunity as we're looking at new screens that we can bring xCloud to. It opens up massive device categories that we don't even really think about today in terms of where these games can show up.

Phil Spencer:
We're thinking a lot about control. I say one of the things I think about with Game Pass and xCloud, two of the things we've touched on, you know this. Both of those experiments were started four or five years ago with a number of other things. One of the things as the close of the year, I was sitting down with our leadership team and we were saying, "What are our xClouds and Game Passes of two or three years from now?"

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, 2022, '3, '4, yeah.

Phil Spencer:
You've always got to be thinking in all horizons. What are the things that are coming in the next year? I like to think about that as horizon zero. And then I think of a horizon one of being this two to three years out. We kind of know what those things are and what's on the roadmap. But then you have those things that are three to 10 years out. Most of those won't work. Those are investments that you're putting in. Back compat was one of those things of, "Hey, let's go try something that probably won't work, but we want to give it a try."

Phil Spencer:
There's some things I'm incredibly excited about that hopefully over the next year or two we'll get to talk about. What are those horizon two type investments that we're making that will come in the three to 10 years that'll get people as excited as xCloud is and Game Pass was making people today? Because that's our jobs. Our jobs at running Xbox is to be in the moment and be thinking about the roadmap in the head, but also be experimenting with some things that have the potential to be real changers, but also are risk-filled and technology-filled. Some cool things on the horizon there as well. It's just an incredibly exciting time on the teams right now.

Larry Hryb:
It's interesting you say that because I reflect back on the past few years. A lot of people when we would go out, I'd be at events. People like, "You're at Xbox. Don't you want to do something else?" I'm like, "No," because the reason I'm here is I look to your point, the horizons zero, one, two, three." I know some of the stuff and you know way more than I do. I know some of the stuff coming down. I'm like, "This is cool. I want to be here for this." So that's the stuff that keeps me going.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah, me too. You can kind of move between those. Sometimes the future stuff you're like, "It takes so long to get things done."

Larry Hryb:
I want it now.

Phil Spencer:
You're like, "I'm an impatient person." And then you can go and look at what's shipping and you can go play games and stuff that's coming out in the next six months and you're like, "Okay, that's the reality of today." But sometimes the reality of today can be kind of overwhelming and you want to be able to dream about longer term things. That ability to move between the horizons on when things are coming and hopefully be clear with our fans and our customers when we're talking because sometimes I'm the worst at this where I will talk ahead of where our products are.

Phil Spencer:
I still remember being at that game showcase where I was talking about upgrading consoles and confused a bunch of people because I just wasn't very articulate with my words. But I think what I see in the community today is more belief in the team especially, more belief in the team's capability to take some longer term bets that can really make a difference. I'm proud of the track record the team's been able to build. I love that the company's getting behind us to invest in those longer term things as well.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah. We got a bunch of cool stuff. I mean next year, 2021, actually a big year next year because 20 years old, right? Xbox is going to be 20 years old in 2021. That's amazing because you were here. You started before I did, so you've been here longer than I have at Xbox, right?

Phil Spencer:
It is crazy to think about that. We have been thinking a lot about the 20-year anniversary. One, just kind of how fast time flies because it doesn't seem like it's been 20 years since we launched that original Xbox. But how many people getting an Xbox Series X today for the holidays, they weren't even born when the original Xbox was out. But also, that's a great example of one of those teams, actually two teams that were kind of pitted against each other in one of the typical Microsoft things.

Larry Hryb:
Old Microsoft things.

Phil Spencer:
Yeah. We don't that as much anymore, which is good. But a team going off on a crazy, "Let's dream what if." Here we are a couple decades later. When I think about Robbie and Jay and Seamus, Ed Fries and the people back then, Laura Fryer-

Larry Hryb:
Laura Fryer, yeah.

Phil Spencer:
... the teams that were around that really helped us get to this point where you and I and the team now, we're kind of shepherding this community. Years on, it'll be somebody else coming in and doing the same.

Larry Hryb:
Yeah, it's going to be really exciting to see what happens in 2021. I mean that's such a milestone for any product. 20 years old is old, but it's also 20 years young. So much has changed in the past when you look back in the consoles. It's going to be great. But I know you got to go, Phil. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to the community. Any final words before I let you go play some more Destiny?

Phil Spencer:
I want to thank everybody. It's been a trying year for many people. I love the way that the community has come together to support each other. Through the summer when we always like our FanFest and E3 and getting people together, we weren't able to do that. We tried some things. We learned. We took some feedback. We evolved. Just as the game industry all up, I think it was nice, as I said earlier about the role that gaming could play, but more than that, the way the community has just continued to kind of rally around each other.

Phil Spencer:
The game awards I thought was a nice example of that. When I'm online and I'm hearing people play and what they're thinking about, people are they're loving playing games right now. I know it's giving the team a ton of energy going forward and I want to thank people for all their commitment to the products that we build. So thank you for that.

Larry Hryb:
All right, my friend. Well, listen, I'll let you go. Have a great New Year and we'll see you in 2021. Thanks Phil.

Phil Spencer:
Thank you, Larry.