Xbox Passed On Destiny & Guitar Hero According To Phil Spencer

destiny, guitar hero, xbox

Between Gamescom and PAX West, Phil Spencer has been making the rounds with interviews and chats to discuss a bunch of different topics. During one of those chats at PAX it was revealed that Xbox passed on both Destiny and Guitar Hero, adding to the list of games Xbox has passed on over the years.

During a segment of Story Time With Phil Spencer, Spencer was speaking about his time in the industry and as leader of Xbox when he brought up a bit of a juicy nugget. Xbox had the chance to publish both Destiny and Guitar Hero but decided to pass on them. Both games went on to be published by Activision, which sure enough Xbox’s parent company Microsoft now owns.

Destiny could have been an Xbox exclusive according to Phil Spencer

Specifically on Guitar Hero Spencer didn’t believe that people would be interested in purchasing a plastic guitar to plug into their console. As for Destiny, they had a solid relationship with creators Bungie, who up until that point had been working on Xbox’s iconic Halo series so a partnership could have made a lot of sense. Perhaps Phil and co thought it would be too similar to Halo and didn’t want to have competing properties.

Spencer would go on to say: “I’ve passed on some of the worst, made some of the worst game-choice decisions… I’m not a regrets-type person”. Indeed Spencer has talked quite openly about many games they have passed on in the past including some of the biggest projects in gaming such as Genshin Impact, Spider-Man and more.

It should be noted that this type of thing likely happens on a frequent basis, we just never hear about it as companies are likely scared to admit they said no to popular projects. In that sense it’s refreshing to hear from Spencer, even if it does sound bad for Xbox. Xbox for the longest time was in need of big exclusives and Destiny and Guitar Hero certainly would have fit the bill.

However since then Xbox’s strategy has continued to shift, with many Xbox published games moving over to PlayStation and the recent news that Xbox helped fund Kunitsu-Gami: Path Of The Goddess from Capcom in exchange for game pass support rather than exclusivity.