Phil Spencer says turnover at the studio behind Halo is “healthy”

Halo is a series that has faced several controversies, among them the problems with the Master Chief Collection, the recent delay of Halo Infinite after the disappointing trailer, and so on. As if that weren’t enough, there are also rumors about the studio’s management, which according to several reports doesn’t value an experienced team, since few employees stay at the company for more than a year and a half. Until now that rumor was quite strong, but nobody on the Microsoft or 343i side had ever spoken about it… until recently.

In an interview with GameSpot, Phil Spencer, the head of the Xbox division, said he thinks turnover is something healthy. He also said:

“Sometimes what hits the press, or when certain things are announced internally, really happened months earlier. It’s not always accurate when those things line up – we take the feedback that came out of the July showcase seriously, both on the date and on what people expected from the game.”

“It was a miss on our part, on my part, to open our July showcase with Halo Infinite and then, a few weeks later, have to change the date. I don’t take the sentiment and emotion of our fans and our customers lightly. We set an expectation that here, this is something you’re going to have at launch, and then we have to change that expectation not long after our showcase – that’s a mistake.”

Spencer ends this part of the interview by saying he has “a lot of faith in Bonnie [Ross] and the team there, with Joe [Staten] and Pierre [Hintze] joining, what they did at the end of the summer – I feel good about where we are with that team. I have no specific concern about 343. I really think that, in the long term, turnover is a healthy thing, because we want people who are really motivated by the things they’re working on.”

Well, I quite like Phil’s considerations and admire him a lot for fighting so hard for the Xbox brand! But honestly, having faith in Bonnie Ross after so many screw-ups makes me wary. The Master Chief Collection had terrible multiplayer for years under her supervision, Halo 5 fell well short of what was expected (and Bonnie Ross herself acknowledges that Halo 5’s campaign disappointed), and Halo Infinite I don’t even need to mention… I think even faith has its limits! But I hope they’ve learned the lesson (because the other times they screwed up and didn’t learn). Halo deserves a dedicated, good team that truly takes the franchise back to its rightful place!

Source: GamingBolt