Phil Spencer Talks Working With Activision Blizzard and Reviving IPs

Regarding Phil Spencer, he’s been saying quite a bit about Xbox recently and what Microsoft plans to do with it and some of its programs. For example, he noted that he’s looking for some developers to help with Microsoft’s mobile store. That’s something that many developers have been looking at recently, including SEGA and Atlus. Another thing he talked about was the Xbox Game Pass and whether it may come to other consoles in the future. At present, it’s not. But in a special interview with Windows Central, he also talked about the big acquisition of Activision Blizzard and what it could mean going forward.

One of the biggest things he was asked about was whether the team-up with them could lead to certain IPs being brought back to life under their banner. Phil Spencer noted that this was possible so long as they had the right team:

“There has to be passion in the team behind the projects. That doesn’t mean that the team has to be the original team, every time. I’m not one — and maybe this is just my approach — I’m not one to come in and take a franchise from a team and remove them from the discussion or development process on how something new gets built. I think the original creators, the culture — frankly, some of the lessons we’ve learned from past experiences here are very important. You’ve seen from our history that we haven’t touched every franchise that people would love us to touch — Banjo fans, I hear you. But it is true that, when we find the right team, and the right opportunity, I love going back to revisit stories and characters that we’ve seen previously.”

He noted that he’s had chats with Activision Blizzard to see what franchises they could bring back and that some of their teams have the “passion” to bring some back. Spencer also hinted that there could be teases of what’s to come from that side of things in the future.

Undoubtedly, this is a big thing that Xbox and Microsoft as a whole will want to move on due to their current standing in the console industry. They bought Activision Blizzard to try to shake things up for them and give them more IPs to work with. But until they start cranking out meaningful titles, they’ll forever be in last to Sony and Nintendo.

Only time will tell if they pull this off.