After a lengthy career at Microsoft and Xbox, Phil Spencer is being recognised and awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in the games industry. Known for being the Xbox boss, Spencer has championed and pushed for many services that have become ingrained into the identity of Xbox, including Xbox Game Pass, which took some serious effort to get off the ground.
As revealed in a lengthy article about Spencer by The Wall Street Journal, former Xbox staffer Richard Irving stated that Spencer "was at the centre of pushing this strategy [Game Pass] forward", and that "in meetings, Mr. Spencer's staff would present arguments for why Game Pass wouldn't work".
Still with this in mind, Spencer "wouldn't relent" and "wouldn't take no for an answer" when it came to supporting and launching Xbox Game Pass. "He was always trying to find a way to make it work," Irving concluded.
The full article about Spencer also touches on how he presented game streaming and cloud gaming to Microsoft leaders, and how with the Activision Blizzard acquisition, he is working to see Xbox become the "Netflix for gaming."