Phil Spencer Is Getting A Lifetime Achievement Award From D.I.C.E. This Month

Microsoft Gam­ing CEO Phil Spencer is receiv­ing a life­time achieve­ment award at the upcom­ing D.I.C.E. Awards lat­er this month in Las Vegas. The Acad­e­my of Inter­ac­tive Arts & Sci­ences has announced that the Microsoft vet­er­an will be pre­sent­ed with the hon­or at the awards show on Feb­ru­ary 24th. Bethes­da’s Todd Howard–2017’s recip­i­ent of the reward that Phil is get­ting this year–will be pre­sent­ing the award to him.

Spencer joined Microsoft way back in 1988, start­ing off as a mea­ger intern. He’s held sev­er­al posi­tions through­out the years, ris­ing to the top of the Xbox divi­sion. He’s cur­rent­ly the CEO of Microsoft Gam­ing, a new branch with­in Microsoft that was estab­lished as part the com­pa­ny’s pro­posed buy­out of Activi­sion Bliz­zard.

With Spencer at the helm, Microsoft launched mul­ti­ple Xbox plat­forms and led the com­pa­ny into an ambi­tious future. This includ­ed acquir­ing a num­ber of stu­dios to cre­ate Xbox Game Stu­dios, as well as launch­ing Xbox Game Pass.

“Phil Spencer has demon­strat­ed both pas­sion and lead­er­ship through­out his entire career at Microsoft. He’s respon­si­ble for count­less impact­ful and piv­otal ini­tia­tives that have rever­ber­at­ed through­out the entire gam­ing indus­try,” AIAS pres­i­dent Meg­gan Scav­io said in a state­ment.

Spencer tweet­ed in response to the announce­ment, thank­ing his col­leagues at Xbox, the fans (of course), and oth­er com­pa­nies for assist­ing him along the way.

“The peo­ple we work with are the most impor­tant part of any progress. This is so true for me. Not only mem­bers of Team Xbox but also play­ers, part­ners, oth­er plat­form hold­ers have all helped me learn, grow and real­ize the oppor­tu­ni­ty we have. Thank you,” Spencer wrote.

The peo­ple we work with are the most impor­tant part of any progress. This is so true for me. Not only mem­bers of #TeamXbox but also play­ers, part­ners, oth­er plat­form hold­ers have all helped me learn, grow and real­ize the oppor­tu­ni­ty we have. Thank you.

— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) Feb­ru­ary 3, 2022

Pre­vi­ous recip­i­ents of the award have includ­ed Shigeru Miyamo­to, Sid Meier, John Car­ma­ck, Tim Swee­ny, Bon­nie Ross, Hideo Koji­ma, and Gabe Newell.

As for the game awards them­selves, Sony’s Ratch­et & Clank: Rift Apart takes the lead with nine total nom­i­na­tions, includ­ing Game of the Year. You can check out the full nom­i­na­tion list for the DICE Awards, here.