I know some people think 3 Person Story driven game is the weaks point but I think its Platformers they need to get a studio for that IMO
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I agree, MS already have 3rd person story driven game covered, but man, they don’t have game like mario or zelda
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I wouldnt say they have 3rd person story drivne game covered but I think Platformers Fighers and JRPG they lack more in
If I was a betting man, I would think the next acquisition is one we haven’t seen coming, and I think Phil already hinted at it.
Phil has talked previously about needing “family friendly” games on GamePass to appeal to all age group.
I bet it’s Playful. Reasoning:
- Super Lucky’s Tale was a HUGE HIT on Gamepass. Like I think 90%+ of all Super Lucky Tales activity was on GamePass.
- Klobrille has hinted that Playful was making playing around with a Rare IP at one point.
- They’re nearly dead. Like they just had a huge round of layoffs not that long ago (I think 2019/2020) and it seems like this is the type of studio Microsoft would swoop in to save.
A “diamond-in-the-rough” studio that with enough money and support thrown behind them can do something great. They’re name is already out there with Super Lucky’s Tale, which was fine. But I bet we see them and PlayTonic both join XGS as the two premire “Family Friendly” studios.
We know that DF wants to make a bunch of different style of games, and not everyone one of them is going to be family friendly. I mean there is already rumors of Brutal Legend II, so that’s not a family friendly game.
But Yooka-Laylee and Super Lucky’s Tale are popular enough on GamePass, you acquire those two studios, you get both IPS, the chance to revive Banjo, Grabbed by The Ghoulies and other more “Family Friendly” IPs that Phil has repeatedly talked about.
I think Playful and or Playtonic is next.
Also, I remember hearing rumors that it’s Playful who are doing KI II.
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I would love this to be honest. I really enjoyed Super Lucky’s Tale and New Super Lucky’s Tale. It wasn’t on the level of a Mario, but it was a fun and relaxing platformer and if MS could get them to pump out a game like that every 2 years, I think that would be great.
Asobo should be their top priority right now.
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Yeah, Playful fired a very significant portion of their staff this year, they are in a bad financial situation. It would make sense for Microsoft to acquire them, especially since Super Lucky was very popular on Game Pass.
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Yeah knowing that now, I could see an acquisition happening. It matches up with what we’ve heard before.
I don’t think it’s Playful because of your third point, why should MS buy a studio who have only 20-30 employees ? I think MS would have already buy them if they wanted to, why would they wait Playful layoff 80% of their staff before buying them ?
Playtonic would be a great get but it’s strange to buy a studio who “escape” from them. They also denies they’re working on Banjo and they state they’re still independant.
Man, imagine Microsoft buying Bungie and Playtonic, former Microsoft employees who wanted to leave Microsoft now are back, what a twist
I have been thinking about this a lot now. I think Microsoft biggest play now would be to go very hard after Moon Studios, Supergiant Games and Playdead. These companies put out beloved games on console but they also translate phenomenally well to mobile, which would fit Xcloud like a glove. The companies all put out family friendly games, make games fairly quickly and would bring a ton of value to gamepass going forward.
I’d be fine with either of these honestly as long as it’s not in lieu of one of the other more sensible acquisitions (Asobo, especially since they’ve made all the types of games that are a gap in the portfolio); add them to my list 
Absolutely yes
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Maybe MS isn’t that worried about Asobo being acquired by someone else because that 10-year Flight Sim contract makes them unpalateable for other publishers. So they can take their time
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isn’t that exacly what happened with undead labs?
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and Compulsion games as well
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With Asobo I wouldnt be surpirsed if the flight sim contract gives them rights of first refusal to any acquisition bid that another company might make on Asobo, so you wouldn’t have to worry about them ‘getting away’
I think that buying things like japanses pubs honestly doesn’t make sense. I think the smarter play would just be to partner with one and offer game streaming in Japan for the publisher with the publishers own branding, in return, all the publishers games would be on xbox (not gamepass, just the platform). So for example, Capcom could partner with Microsoft and have a Capcom game streaming app that uses xCloud as a backend, that makes more sense for everyone.
Also I think smilegate, who make pubg, is the studio in Asia that makes the most sense, its a company that Microsoft is already associated with. The coalition even did the xbox port of pubg! I know tencent owns a 10% minority stake but I don’t see any reason that MS couldn’t buy it out, especially with everyone being a bit leery of china/chinese companies at the moment.
Pubg would be a way in to the xbox ecosystem for so many people, pubg was the most popular mobile app in India for instance, there’s a lot of opportunity there. Plus Tencent is likely getting less bullish on it because pubgs value is in being an international brand, and as we have seen with India, with them banning pubg because of its association with china, that’s not a good place for tencent to be right now. So right now smilegates value to tencent is lower than it is to MS, if they bought them tomorrow smilegates value would instantly increase, just because it would lose its association with a Chinese owned company.
EDIT: Change smilegate for bluehole / Krafton Holdings I got them mixed up lol
Smilegate is Crossfire. Did you mean Bluehole?
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Yes I did, I managed to mangle that haha! Thanks!
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I personally would love Techland. They’re a great development studio that most likely just needs more money, time and resources.
As for the “camera” argument, the camera perspective is actually very important and usually one of the very first things when designing a game because games play different based on the camera perspective of your character. Game design, animations and more are all designed around the camera perspective. Also, game assets that are being streamed into the game itself is also connected to the camera via the direction that the player is facing. So while people may make fun of the “camera” perspective in games, it’s actually far more important than you think.
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