Microsoft Flight Simulator Was Green-Lit Because Of Xbox Game Pass

If you've been enjoying Microsoft Flight Simulator on PC this year or you're eagerly anticipating its release on console, you probably have Xbox Game Pass (and developer Asobo Studios) to thank!

That's according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who recently told The Guardian that Microsoft Flight Sim - along with Dontnod's Tell Me Why and Rare / Dlala Studios' Battletoads, probably wouldn't have been green-lit without Game Pass.

“I honestly don’t think we’d greenlight Tell Me Why if not for Game Pass. It’s an episodic, story-driven game – you don’t see a lot of them getting made. We knew with the 15 million subscribers we have now, that it would get played, and that people would engage in it more than they would if there was a $30 price point in front of it.

Even Flight Simulator is a game we would not have green-lit if we did not see Game Pass growing. We had a million players of Battletoads! These are all examples of games that in an exclusively retail model would be more challenged.”

Spencer also recently touched on this in an interview with Dropped Frames, telling the podcast that Xbox Game Pass allows Microsoft to take more creative risks than a pure retail model allows, and he believes the portfolio has already begun to show that and will continue to do so in the future.

Are you surprised about this? Give us your thoughts in the comments section below.

[source theguardian.com]