Phil Spencer

On Monday, the day after the Xbox E3 briefing where Game Pass for PC was revealed in full, I had the chance to sit down with Microsoft’s Executive Vice President of Gaming Phil Spencer. We talked about the company’s approach to selling PC games, its relationship with Steam, and many other things. It’s a long read, but hopefully it’ll give you a comprehensive overview of where Microsoft sees itself within PC gaming as it stands.

You’re very candid about your history with PC.

You think I should hide it? You think you guys won’t find it? [laughing]

I feel like you’re paying close attention to how you’re perceived. How much do you pay attention to the granular feedback of Microsoft’s recent past on PC?

Being honest with you, I’m probably reflecting more on how I feel as a gamer about our own performance as I am looking at feedback. Games for Windows Live, yeah, I’ve seen the articles, I’ve seen the comments, but also I play our games, I play our games on PC. I learned to game on PC. It’s not hard to look at actions we’ve taken over the years through the lens of me as a PC gamer and say ‘these are the things that are going to make me question your commitment or motivation to PC gaming’, and that’s just from my heart more than from a message board or something. I get both, obviously.

So what does