Interview: Phil Spencer is big on Indiana Jones, but is wary of overdoing it with licensed games

Plus: The challenged of selling modern games. "Launching a game in today's world is as challenging and big an effort as it's ever been."

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Screenshot: MachineGames, Bethesda, Microsoft

I tried to keep my recent conversation with Microsoft gaming CEO Phil Spencer narrow, but it still went places.

We talked games—my focus this time—but in the course of it, we covered a lot more. In part 1 of the chat, we covered World of Warcraft’s resurgence, the promise of South of Midnight and STALKER 2, the delay of Avowed, and the goals of Xbox as a “play anywhere” platform.

That was just the half of it.

Below, you can read the rest of our conversation, covering:

• The complications of doing licensed games in Microsoft’s current subscription-focused gaming model (not that he’s disowning Indiana Jones and Blade, of course; it’s a rights thing)

• How the Call of Duty team is working with Microsoft

• The unheralded games that are doing well for Microsoft, even if they don’t make the headlines

• Why it’s harder to launch new games these days. It used to involve a predictable formula. Not any more. This spun out of my question about the extent to which critics’ reviews, user reviews and a game’s social media popularity do or don’t matter.

Enjoy…