Phil Spencer Comments On The Future Of Games With Gold

The Games With Gold scheme on Xbox 360 has been met with a fair amount of skepticism and disappointment so far by a large portion of gamers – and this is largely due to the fact that PlayStation+ allows gamers access to a lot more games and many more recent releases. Microsoft Game Studios corporate vice president Phil Spencer held a Q&A after his SXSW Gaming panel, and during this he spoke about about the scheme.

Polygon have reported that Spencer points to the main difference between the two free game schemes being that “with Games with Gold, you get to keep that game, regardless of whether you continue to subscribe.” This of course refers to the fact that the titles gamers are offered via PlayStation+ are only accessible whilst your subscription is kept open, and if a form of rental rather than outright ownership.

Spencer also began to address the issue that the titles on offer aren’t particularly impressive. He spoke about how he has been working with the Games With Gold team and helping them decide on what titles to add to the scheme:

“I have been sitting down, monthly now, with that team — some of the earlier months were already programmed — and playing a more active role in picking franchises that show up in Games with Gold, and I think you’ll see at least something that feels, at least, more true to what I think Games with Gold should look like with the constraints that are there”

The most recent games offered for free are Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution and co-op tower defence title Dungeon Defenders – both of which are fairly old games. Perhaps this situation is set to improve on future through the input of Phil Spencer, but he did not speak about upcoming titles. Neither did he address the issue of if and when the scheme would be coming to Xbox One – despite Tweeting recently that news would be coming soon regarding the new platform.