Phil Spencer Finds Activision Blizzard’s Library ‘Daunting’ And Hopes To Be Its Great Custodian

gameranx.com:

Phil Spencer has explained how he will be handling Activision Blizzard’s extensive library of games.

While few games were being actively developed by Activision Blizzard at the time they were managed by Microsoft, their history goes back to the very beginnings of both PC and console gaming, and they have some popular games from pretty much every gaming generation.

There’s two aspects to this library; taken together, they represent a significant portion of the history of video games. However, they also represent a big part of the video game industry, which is to say, many of the most successful, best-selling games fall under Activision Blizzard King’s umbrella.

So what this means for the IP holders is they would want to make games that would tap into the nostalgia of older gamers. At the same time, however, they would also be thinking about ways to make these older games successful again, reliving their older glories, one could say.

This is why Bobby Kotick’s enthusiasm for bringing back Guitar Hero was so interesting. Nobody thinks that Bobby picked up guitar because of the game, but when he talks about using new technology like AI on the franchise, he’s thinking about how disruptive Guitar Hero was in its time, and how to do that sort of thing all over again.

And so, we go to the new boss in charge of that library, Phil Spencer. In his latest interview in the Official Xbox Podcast, Phil talked at great length about what he thought about those games. As reported by Video Games Chronicle, here’s the main gist of his message:

“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. These are memories from