The gap between Halo Infinite and Xbox's next AAA game in 2022 was a "disaster situation" says Phil Spencer

Xbox boss Phil Spencer says the gap between AAA releases back in 2022 was a "disaster situation" for the team.

As revealed via the Xbox FTC leaks, Phil Spencer called 2022 a "disaster situation" for the company due to the huge 16-month gap between Halo Infinite and the next AAA release. The email, which was sent on May 7, 2022, included other Xbox executives such as Matt Booty, Tim Stuart, Sarah Bond, Jerret West, and more.

"With the news that Starfield is going to miss Holiday [...], still not a ton of clarity on the launch date of Redfall and Stalker 2 [...], I feel we are in a huge hole with our games lineup both for platform marketing/differentiation and our Gamepass content," Spencer's email reads. "We keep talking about a bit AAA a quarter in the service and it feels like we are likely to go through a gap of almost 16 months between big exclusive launches on our platform. Halo Infinite being our last on December 8, 2021."

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Phil Spencer called the 16 month gap between Halo and the next AAA game a "disaster" back in May 2022. I like his note about learning. pic.twitter.com/KYrdChHGHDSeptember 19, 2023

The email continues: "This is really a disaster situation for us given all we've invested in content across studios at our [Gamepass] content fund. We need to learn from this and build a plan forward." Below this, Spencer then suggests ways to prevent this kind of thing from happening again, including "better" portfolio planning on Xbox's games, "with real honesty on dates," and potentially delaying launches if needed. "We have to all understand that the situation we are in now is a failure of our planning and production execution," the email ends.

This is just one of the things we've learned recently about the inner workings of Xbox. Some of the other interesting things we've found out so far are that Phil Spencer wanted to buy Nintendo and Valve, what the Xbox boss really thinks of the PS5, and that a new Xbox Series X console, codenamed 'Brooklin,' is currently in development.

Take a look at our upcoming Xbox Series X games list to find out what else is on the horizon.

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training. My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.