All hail Microsoft Studios corporate vice-president Phil Spencer, dream-maker. And dream-breaker, if all the hints he's dropped about possible Xbox reboots amount to nothing.

It's been a busy few days for the Spencer Twitter feed, AKA the Rainbow of Hope and Wistfulness. For starters, Spencer has added a new profile shot - a picture of the classic Xbox game Phantom Dust, created by Yukio Futatsugi, the man behind Xbox One game Crimson Dragon. "Changing the profile pic again, Phantom Dust this time," he disarmingly Tweeted. "Love the nostalgia of the old franchises."

Predictably, this caused a fair bit of hysteria, prompting Spencer to add "that's not how we'll announce games". A Phantom Dust reboot for Xbox One isn't impossible, however. "I do listen to the XB Community, hopefully 2014 will show some of that." One respondent sneeringly suggested that the game would take the form of a free-to-play microtransaction-driven affair. "Cynicism at it's best," Spencer commented.

Microsoft has already broached the idea of a new Phantom Dust to Futatsugi. "I've been a big fan of our partnerships in Japan," Spencer observed in November. "Futatsugi just finished Crimson Dragon, and I'm proud of what he was able to do. We're talking to him about what we might want to do next with him.

"There's some interest out there in some older [intellectual property]. Phantom Dust has come up around whether we would want to reboot that franchise. It's a discussion right now; there's nothing signed. But we're talking. It does seem like there's a lot of interest around that. And we have a good long relationship with him and I think that would be good."

Less tangibly, Spencer has also Tweeted about his enthusiasm for console real-time strategy games. "I'm a fan of console RTS StarCraft64 (go @RealKLobb)," he wrote. "Halo Wars... Control works, [has] been proven. Smartglass could help as well." Somebody's been reading our list of ways SmartGlass could "rock the world of videogames", haven't they, Spencer?

There was a very brief aside about Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy's bizarre but rather successful dalliance with the world of Disney. Somebody's started a Change.org petition to bring Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 Remix and 2.5 Remix to Xbox 360. Spencer has signed it. "Obviously Square's to decide but I agree bringing them to XBOX would be great." In case you'd forgotten, Kingdom Hearts 3 will release on Xbox One in 2015.

Last but not least, Spencer reassured his followers that "having great internal studios is absolutely part of the plan, it's critical to long term success". He noted that Uncharted developer "[Naughty Dog] is a special studio with an amazing track record," adding that "I believe they are unique in our industry". However: "Great studios have unique culture. Creating a studio to be 'like' another isn't a goal for us."

http://www.oxm.co.uk/69858/xbox-one-daydreams-phil-spencer-talks-phantom-dust-halo-wars-kingdom-hearts/

ANOTHER mention of Naughty Dog. Lol.

Spencer (and Microsoft) are envious of Sony for having Naughty Dog. I remember how they congratulated Naughty Dog after the release of The Last Of Us. Everyone knew that they were attempting to "bribe" them through praise.

Wasn't it Jaywood2010 who put up a thread about Naughty Dog going third party?

Oops. I did it again. :D

Something better happen to Phantom Dust, even if it's just an HD remake or something, that fanbase has their hopes up so high right now lol

Why wouldn't they be envious? ND is probably Sonys most important studio, one could argue that maybe PD is more important because of Gran Turismo, but I think since Naughty Dog has managed to make so many different IPs and have all of them become multimillion selling franchises they are more important.

MS really doesn't have a first party studio of the same quality as ND, MS most important gaming studio is probably 343i which, like PD, has only worked on one extremely popular IP (in this case it's not even their own IP) and thus it's still kinda unknown how well this studio would do with an own IP, especially since I've heard so often that Halo 4 is supposed to be the worst of the bunch.

Swoon the devs... Good job M$! It's almost like Shane Kim is back!

Well said. Naughty Dog are the "best" at making games. Plain and simple. I think if they REALLY wanted to they could do an open world that would put all others in the genre to shame. They're THAT good. But, Uncharted and The Last Of Us are what Sony want them to focus on. That's fine. Both incredibly successful IPS and widely regarded as the two best ones to come out of last gen.

To make it worse for Microsoft. Corinne Yu left 343 to join Naughty Dog. She even left a partying shot at Windows 8. Ouchies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0cfZROUrOc&list=PLaBQRaSgI5flbESUUFZRHgBo5FOmEs8iO

How you live after betrayal can make or break you. Rise to become a legend.

While I might agree on uncharted and tlou being graphically ONE of the best game last gen... I completely disagree about them being the best game all things considered last Gen maybe among first parties... But certainly not as whole...

and on a personal taste I have not much interest in those games... I'd get them if they were on my consoles, but they wouldn't be a purchase factor...

ND is still a great dev studio though no doubt

Let me get this straight: Major Nelson beated The Last of Us and found it so great he went and congratulated Naughty Dog via twitter. And you're telling me that was a "bribe"? A bribe for what, for leaving Sony? Sony owns Naughty Dog.

If they aren't your kind of games how can you make a judgment as to if they were overall the best or not? :p 

Are you for real?? For starters somebody else brought up Naughty Dog in the convo, secondly ND is first party, how the fuck could MS bribe them to do anything? Thirdly if MS were jealous they wouldn't be saying "we're not looking to make a studio like ND".