Phil Spencer Says Seeing Older Games Succeed On Game Pass Could Help Greenlight Reboots

Banjo-Kazooie fans may have just been given the avenue they need to make Banjo-Threeie a reality. Xbox head Phil Spencer has revealed that seeing legacy Xbox games succeeding as part of the company's Game Pass service could help justify future reboots.

Speaking on the Kinda Funny Gamescast, when asked if Game Pass data helps justify potential reboots Spencer said "absolutely it does," naming games like Prey and Fable as recent examples.

"Seeing more people playing something like Prey, or Dishonored or going back to Fable and [that] you can talk about those games, for us as we sit back as a creative organisation and watch what people are interested in," Spencer said. "It gives us more data to think about things that we might pick up and take forward with new ideas and new teams that might want to go do that."

Reboots are not uncommon in Xbox's strategy, as series like Flight Simulator and Battletoads have seen new entries as of late while Perfect Dark's reboot has been revealed. Game Pass could be the doorway to more in the future, whether it be standalone or a compilation like Rare Replay. "Rare Replay was a really interesting thing for us to go do and letting people go and experience some of the old Rare IP," he said. "We’ll stay on that, because Game Pass gives us a business model where that makes sense."

For more news from this interview, check out Spencer's comments on the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller potentially inspiring a Xbox controller redesign. For Xbox Game Pass, take a look at our list of all 42 games announced for the service during the Xbox and Bethesda E3 Showcase last month.