Phil Spencer is the Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Game Studios at Microsoft Corp., responsible for building all of Microsoft’s first-class games. Microsoft Game Studios is responsible for building such blockbuster franchises such as “Halo,” “Gears of War,” “Fable” “Age of Empires” and “Forza Motorsport.” Spencer’s mission is to ensure top-quality development of blockbuster first-party franchises and exclusives, as well as nurturing new intellectual properties such as “Alan Wake” and “Joy Ride.” With his deep experience in game development with Microsoft Game Studios, Spencer partners closely with Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE, to bring unique gaming experiences to life leveraging the features and interactivity of Xbox LIVE.
Spencer joined Microsoft in 1988 as an intern in the CD-ROM Group. He spent the first five years of his career in the CD-ROM/Multimedia Group as a development lead building Microsoft’s first CD-ROM-based titles, including Microsoft Bookshelf and Encarta. After working on a series of titles, he created a centralized development team chartered with building a shared authoring and runtime system for all Microsoft’s multimedia titles.
In 1994 Spencer moved to the Desktop Finance Division as the development manager for Microsoft Money and Microsoft’s early work in online banking transactions. In 1999 he moved to a product unit manager role in Consumer Productivity, and eventually became general manager of Microsoft’s online and offline consumer productivity products including Microsoft Works, Microsoft Picture It! and Microsoft’s consumer publishing products.
Before being named general manager of Microsoft Game Studios worldwide in 2008, Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft’s European developers as well as partnering with major studios such as Lionhead Studios and Rare Ltd.