"I passed on so many games" - Xbox's Phil Spencer doesn't regret not grabbing Destiny or Guitar Hero as exclusives, even if he now gets their appeal

Sometimes you just can’t predict whether a game will be the next big thing, so it’s not worth kicking yourself if you get that call wrong. Or at least that seems to be the philosophy of Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who says that he doesn’t regret not making the original Destiny and Guitar Hero platform exclusives, even if those calls look a bit questionable in hindsight.

Speaking as part of an interview at PAX West called Story Time with Phil Spencer – seems like that name should maybe have been saved in case Xbox ever made its own children’s TV show, but I digress – the exec discussed some of the ones that got away because he didn’t quite get them right away.

“There are so many mixed emotions and stories for me around Destiny,” Spencer said, going on to talk about his interactions with the studio and its staff while it was still part of Microsoft, before moving on to discussing receiving the pitch for the original Destiny, I’d assume as part of the two parties’ ongoing relations after Bungie span out to become independent. “‘Do we want to sign this?’ We ended up not signing Destiny. It obviously went with Activision, and to seeing what it grew into, like from a business kind of Xbox standpoint, I can look at it [as] it’s just a really interesting journey in terms of what [Bungie] built.”