Well this thread has gone pretty much as expected, lol. Some people on this board have an unhealthy loathing for Spencer, and it's always fascinating to see how it expresses itself. As to the award itself - I don't really think it's weird to award a top level exec in this way (to the people calling him a "PR guy" -- what? He's the top decision maker for the entire division).
I'm not really clear what he did in 2020 specifically to deserve an award like this, though it seems like VGC are essentially awarding him now for the cumulative work of turning Xbox around from the Xbox One disaster over the past several years which... fair enough I guess? I'd prefer they gave an award like this to people on the creative side of the industry, but I'm not familiar with VGC at all. Perhaps they are more industry focused?
In terms of accomplishments, he's basically the reason Xbox is even still around, let alone seeing the huge investment it currently is from Microsoft. He's publicly championed accessibility and put the company's money where it's mouth was on that (the XAC, greatly enhanced accessibility options in games, etc.). He's instituted pro-consumer policies like Play Anywhere and bringing their games back to Steam. He seems to be doing a pretty good job of rebuilding their relationship with Japan, getting more than one major Japanese series on Xbox for the first time - Kingdom Hearts, Yakuza, Dragon Quest, etc. He helped their hardware team get their mojo back (the One S, One X, Series consoles are all great pieces of engineering). And of course he created Game Pass, that has already exceeded 15 million subscribers during a bad generation for Xbox.
My only real major point of opposition would be that I don't think the job is done yet. The actual games are going to be the keystone that support all of this infrastructure, and I think Microsoft's grade there is still "Incomplete" for the time being. Their multiple new game pipelines aren't fully established yet, and while I have hope and confidence that a lot of their new studios are going to put out some fantastic games - hope and confidence are a precursor to actual results.
They had a couple of genuine GOTY candidates this year with Flight Sim and Ori, and that's a good sign. They showed a willingness to bite a massive financial bullet in delaying Halo for a year, which is also a pretty good sign. But it still feels like we are in the calm before the storm, when all of these new names under their wing start contributing to the brand.
