Xbox boss Phil Spencer claims he made the "worst decisions" when it comes to choosing games, letting exclusives such as Destiny slip his fingers

CEOs are faced with some difficult decisions. It's not just a question of 'What will I spend my seven-figure monthly salary on?' How many employees should be laid off because of decisions that had nothing whatsoever to do with them, for example? Sometimes you have to make executive decisions that can have a major impact on the fortunes of your company.

Take, for example, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. He revealed at a PAX Panel, (via GamesRadar), that he has made more than a few bad decisions when it comes signing games for Xbox. Spencer claims he has made some of "the worst game choice decisions" in his tenure with the company. Spencer, for example, passed on Guitar Hero and Destiny because they were Xbox exclusives.

Spencer recalled: "This team came to Redmond... [Harmonix cofounder Alex Rigopulos] pitched a game in which they were going to make plastic instruments and plug them into consoles, and then sell tracks that you could play Simon on the guitar."

It's a clear case of a failed venture. "I'm like, 'Really? "Do we really think this will work? Spencer recalls his thoughts before he signed the game for Xbox. It was the first entry in the hugely successful Guitar Hero series. Whoops.

Destiny had a similar experience. The Xbox preview builds of the game "didn't click with me," said Spencer. "I'm a PvP player... but I was worried that I would be thrown into a PvP environment, and it turns that that's not at all what it was."

This makes you realize how arbitrary and bizarre these seemingly important business decisions can be. Destiny 1 was released in 2014 on multiple platforms, as it wasn't bound to Microsoft. Spencer isn't a big fan of PvP and thought that the game would be a PvP game. Spencer only became a fan of the game after the release of House of Wolves.

You'd expect these choices to have a little more science behind them, wouldn't you? It turns out, however, that if I were to become CEO of a major console publishing company by some bizarre miracle then every developer would be out of luck in terms of getting exclusive deals for anything other than a weird CRPG. Would it be a better place? Yes. It would be unfair.

Spencer is clear that he regrets those decisions, but he does not beat himself up about them. Spencer said, "I don't have regrets. I passed on so many games. I could look back at them and say "Argh!" But, no, I always try to be positive and look forward.