Xbox CEO Phil Spencer has admitted that he made some of his worst decisions by refusing to acquire Bungie’s Destiny and Harmonix’s Guitar Hero franchises. This was reported by Eurogamer.

Spencer said this in an interview at PAX West. He spoke about the games that have meant the most to him over the years.

“There’s so many mixed emotions and stories for me around Destiny,” Spencer explained.

Phil Spencer added that when he started working at Xbox, Bungie was still part of Microsoft. He shared a floor with Bungie founders Alex Seropian and Jason Jones and learned a lot from them.

Despite his closeness to Bungie, Spencer admitted that he didn’t really like the first Destiny when he first played it. He only got into the game after the first expansion, House of Wolves.

Destiny was subsequently published by Activision, as was Guitar Hero, another series that Spencer “passed on” believing it “wouldn’t work.”

“An interesting one is when this team came down to Redmond and Alex Rigopulos, he pitches a game where they’re actually going to make plastic guitars, and they’re going to plug into consoles, and then they’re going to sell tracks where you’re going to play Simon on this guitar and I’m like, really? I hear that turned into a pretty good game”, Spencer laughs.

Nevertheless, the Xbox CEO says that he does not regret the decisions he made and is sincerely rooting for Bungie, even though the studio is now owned by PlayStation, Xbox’s main competitor.

Spencer also commented on the release of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PS5 in the spring of 2025, just a few months after the release on Xbox. He says that Xbox is a “business” and that the game is expected to do very well. A lot of money has been allocated for the development of the game, which needs to be returned, Spencer says.