Seeing old games performing well on Game Pass ‘absolutely’ spurs reboots, says Spencer

The Xbox Game Pass gave Microsoft more ammo to justify restarting old game franchises, the company’s head of games said.

Xbox’s subscription service currently gives its roughly 20 million subscribers on-demand access to a vast library of legacy games such as Rare, Bethesda, Double Fine and more.

Speaking on the latest Kinda Funny Gamescast (currently only for subscribers), Xbox boss Phil Spencer said being able to keep up with the popularity of old franchises made it easier to justify the green light for new installments. , such as the upcoming Fable reboot by Playground.

When asked if player data for legacy games on Game Pass was prompting franchises to restart, Spencer said, “Absolutely, it does… take Prey, which I think was an amazing game to watch. its release, but a lot of people missed it …

“See more people play something like Prey, or Dishonored or go back to Fable and [that] you can talk about these games, for us as we sit down as a creative organization and look at what people care about, it gives us more data to think about things that we could pick up and move forward with new ideas and new teams that might want to go do that.

“So yeah, Game Pass has definitely been a great source… It was amazing when Bethesda came along and we were able to put so many old new games into Game Pass and come back with the legacy we have with some of the IP. … Even thinking about Rare Replay was a really interesting thing for us to go do and let people go and experience the old IP Rare.

He added, “We’ll stick with that because Game Pass gives us a business model where it makes sense. It should not be a [game as a service] version of a game, it can just be “this game is here” and people like it on the service. “

Spencer has already given the green light to a number of franchise reboots during his tenure as head of games at Microsoft, including Battletoads, Flight Simulator, and upcoming new installments of Fable and Perfect Dark.

The executive was also asked about the 2015 Rare Replay collection, and whether he wanted to create a similar compilation for another Microsoft studio, and quickly expressed a desire to re-release the games from now-closed FASA Interactive.

“This isn’t a preview of something we’re about to announce but when I think of the work Jordan Weisman has done, when I think of Shadowrun, Crimson [Skies], Mecha [Warrior]… There are fantastic and deep worlds and stories out there, ”he said.

“We didn’t do a good job as the company handling the FASA acquisition, how did it go and the studio ended… it wasn’t our best time as Xbox. But the team there and the creative work they did with some of these franchises was so strong.

“There are rights issues with some of these things, but if you’re asking me bluntly if there was a studio in our past that I wish we could open the catalog and allow more people to play, FASA is definitely at the top of the list for me.