Microsoft Won’t Revive Activision Blizzard Games For Game Pass If It’s A Cash Grab
Now that Microsoft owns Activision Blizzard, the Xbox company gains a big group of franchises, including a number of dormant ones–like Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk–that some might want to see revived. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has commented on the possibility of older games getting a new lease on life through Game Pass some day.
Appearing on the Xbox podcast, Spencer said he would not dictate that a team needs to go and make a particular game. Instead, the passion and enthusiasm would have to come from the developer, he said. “I just don’t think a team working on something that isn’t their passion leads to the best result,” he said.
Spencer said he has his own personal list of games from ABK he would like to see remade, and other people do too, and he feels a level of responsibility to do right by fans.
“The amount of franchises that we now have in our portfolio is kind of inspiring; it’s daunting. I feel that we have to be a great custodian for the content that we touch,” he said. “These are memories for people on different platforms, different decades. I want to make sure that when we’re going back and visiting something that we do it with our complete ability: a motivated team that wants to go work on something and make a difference. Not just create something for financial gain or create something for a PR announcement.”
Spencer is going on a tour of sorts this month to visit ABK’s studios around the globe to see what they are working on and discuss the future. He said Microsoft has done an “OK job” but not an “A+ job” over the years when it comes to the tradeoff of making new games and bringing back older ones, from both Xbox’s own library and those of ZeniMax.
In the future, Spencer said Microsoft might select “a couple of franchises” each year and offer some kind of “revisited” package on Game Pass (though he cautioned that he made up the term “revisited” right on the spot during the interview).
“When you look across all of the franchises that are part of our teams, there is an opportunity for us to go back–even if it’s just to recognize the moment and what those things meant in gaming’s history and do something right with it. Make it available to people through Game Pass,” he said.
Spencer cautioned that he sees this as simply an opportunity for Microsoft as something it could do as opposed to being a solid plan for what Microsoft will do. He added that, when speaking with development teams, if bringing back older games for Game Pass is something they want to do, then he would be “all in” for this.
In other Game Pass news, Spencer recently confirmed that ABK games will not begin to appear on Game Pass until 2024.
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