Xbox boss Phil Spencer has admitted that he has made “the worst” decisions over the years by “rejecting” some of the biggest franchises in gaming, including Bungie’s “Destiny” and Harmonix’s “Guitar Hero.”

In an interview titled “Story Time with Phil Spencer” at PAX West over the weekend, Spencer talked about the games that have been most important to him over the years. Bungie’s 2014 sci-fi shooter Destiny was also on his list.

“For me, there are so many mixed emotions and stories surrounding Destiny,” Spencer explained.

“When I started at Xbox, Bungie was of course part of Microsoft and I shared a floor in the building in Redmond with Alex Seropian (and) Jason Jones. I learned a lot just from being at Bungie.”

Despite his natural affinity with Bungie, Spencer admitted that Destiny “didn’t really click” for him when he first played it and that it took him until the game’s first expansion, House of Wolves, to “come to terms with it.”

Consequently, Destiny was later published by Activision, as was Guitar Hero, another series that Spencer “rejected” because he thought it “wouldn’t work.”

“I passed on some of the worst decisions… I mean, made some of the worst game decisions,” he said.

“One interesting thing is, when this team came to Redmond and Alex Rigopulos, he proposed a game where they would actually make plastic guitars and plug them into consoles, and then they would sell pieces where you would play Simon on that guitar, and I was like, seriously? Do we really think this is going to work?

“I heard it turned out to be a pretty good game…” he added with a laugh.

“I’m not a person who regrets anything,” Spencer explained. “Maybe it’s a mistake on my part, but I missed so many games. I could look back and say-” he clenches his fist, “-but no, I try to look forward and be positive about the things we do.

“I just want to celebrate what the team (at Bungie) has done. I mean, it’s incredible.”

Spencer also recently addressed the surprise revelation that exclusive first-party game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will launch on PS5 in Spring/Q2 2025, just months after its Xbox debut, stating that Xbox is “a company” and that “the bar is set high in terms of the performance we have to deliver to parent company Microsoft.”