Game Pass has done a lot of great things, like providing millions of people with a cheap subscription that provides them with access to hundreds of games. And now that Game Pass has so many people playing on it, Xbox can use that data to see what older games might be ripe for a reboot.
In an interview with Kinda Funny Gamescast (via VGC), Xbox head Phil Spencer said that player data can go a long way to rebooting a franchise. “Absolutely it does," replied Spencer when asked that very question. "Take Prey, which I think was an amazing game when it came out but a lot of people missed…
“Seeing more people playing something like Prey, or Dishonored, or going back to Fable, and you can talk about those games, for us as we sit back as a creative organization and watch what people are interested in. 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."
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Spencer added that Game Pass is a "great source" for gathering data and that data can be used to pitch the next big reboot–whether that be Fable or maybe something even older.
Mention Rare Replay as "a really interesting thing" to make "people go and experience some of the old Rare IP," Spencer specifically mentioned doing a similar thing with games from the now-defunct FASA Interactive.
“This is not a preview of something that we’re getting ready to announce but when I think of the work that Jordan Weisman did when I think of Shadowrun, Crimson [Skies], Mech [Warrior]… there are some fantastic, deep stories and worlds there,” he said. “There are some rights issues with some of those things, but if you ask me flat out if there was a studio in our past that I would love us to be able to open up the catalog and allow more people play, FASA is definitely at the top of the list for me.”
The last time we saw a Shadowrun game was from Harebrained’s Shadowrun Trilogy, and while Microsoft owns the IP to MechWarrior, they’re currently licensing it to PGI for MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. Crimson Skies, though, is ripe for a remake, so be sure to play that classic on Game Pass to let Spencer know which franchise they should dust off.
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