Microsoft’s Phil Spencer Says It’s Rare’s Decision To Develop A New Banjo-Kazooie Or Conker Game

For years, fans have been begging for a new Banjo-Kazooie or Conker game to grace modern consoles – to seemingly no avail so far. Well, it looks like the wait may stretch on for quite awhile more, depending on how Rare (the IP holder of both series) is feeling.

In a recent interview with Kotaku, Microsoft’s head of Xbox Phil Spencer spoke at length about the company’s future plans moving forward. With Microsoft also owning Rare, Spencer was eventually asked if the studio had plans for Banjo-Kazooie or Conker moving forward – to which he replied:

“I leave it up to the studios in terms of the things that they want to go work on,” he said. “I have a lot of respect for Rare and the work that they do. They do like building new things, and they’ve seen success with Sea of Thieves. I think they’re really excited about Everwild. But also the response to Battletoads was nice. And I think [partner studio] Dlala did a good job with the game. And so I think it’s just always a balance. My inbox is full of: ‘Let every studio do new [intellectual property].’

As things stand, it looks like Microsoft isn’t the one holding back Rare from giving Banjo-Kazooie and Conker a modern revival. We’ll just have to keep waiting until the developer is ready to work on such games again.