Technically there were 7 since The Initiative was an acquisition of talent to compose the new studio. Playground, Compulsion, InXile, Obsidian, Ninja Theory, and Undead Labs.
With the eight studios at Bethesda, and the aggressive stance Satya has taken for Xbox, I don’t see why 4 studios would be unrealistic at all given two years precedence of more than 4 acquisitions (especially if they’re smaller devs).
Yeah agreed. The other thing I’ll point to is that it’s been both Phil and Satya saying they will be acquiring more. Satya wasn’t commenting on that stuff before. Satya doesn’t get involved in the small scale stuff. There’s some major additions coming over the next several years. Xbox Games Studios is going to be into an absolute juggernaut.
This is a very good point. Satya Nadella is not Phil Spencer. He does not oversee Xbox or the gaming division. He oversees all of Microsoft, one of only a few trillion dollar companies in the world. If he takes time to mention something like gaming acquisitions publically, it’s because it’s gong to be serious. I wouldn’t expect small potatoes from MS, they’re going to be planning on a big acquisition or series of acquisitions in the near future, otherwise he wouldn’t have mentioned it to begin with.
I didnt include TI cause they are build from the ground up and I agree 4 isnt unrealistic I just think its going to be 2-3 studios
It will take them this year to assimilate Zenimax and to plan out each studio. I doubt we see any acquisitions this year
They aren’t rolling up like the other studios. They’re doing this to keep staff in place and make the transition seamless and quick.
This, plus its not like the people who make the deals are also the people who are responsible for integrating them.
Do you really think this size of acquisition doesn’t require any logistical planning, mapping, organising? Seamless and quick is the majority of this year lol
Bethesda will put any big acquisition like Sega or WB off the table for a year or so as XGS integrates the new studios and other staff, but I think a couple smaller independent studios could still join the party this year
Although I agree this is what will mostly likely happen, a lot also depends on availability i.e. publishers and studios looking for potential buyers. Then potential plans go out of the window.
Yeah I think people get too caught up in the “A’s”. They’ll have a consistent stream of content. Monthly even. I’m hoping for a lot of high quality, smaller in scope content personally. Not everything needs to be an epic giant game on a monthly basis. Even the average enthusiast would struggle with a big game monthly. If Psychonauts is the bar for AAA, then yeah I could see something on that level launching day 1 into the service on a monthly basis by 2023. If it’s Halo, Doom and big western RPGs…no I think those will be quarterly.
It’s going to be hard to pigeon hole AA vs AAA in a few years and I think that’s a good thing. Just looking for a constant stream of diversified, high quality, polished content.
I see MS copying the big Hollywood studios way. They’ll have a summer blockbuster, and a winter blockbuster. In Feb- March they release something experimental, August -Sept will be the same
IP like Halo, Elder Scrolls, Fallout fit the summer and winter blockbuster role. Games from Arkane, Machine will launch in Feb-March and Aug-Sept
50 million by 2023 is incredibly realistic when you factor in PC gamers. You can also now roll consoles into the subscription service. Once these are able to sit on store shelves, All Access will pick up steam.
In general, consumers over-estimate the short term impact of technology changes and under-estimate it’s long term impact. What people play today is largely impacted by accessibility. Accessibility to today’s high quality PC and console games is limited by cost and lifestyle all around the world. Subscriptions, 5G, Starlink, shrinking high end hardware, increased scalability, better accessories, applications and form factors to better accommodate gaming on standard devices and slowing down of Moore’s Law will make high end gaming exponentially more accessible and will change markets. Don’t take my word for it. All the richest companies with access to the most data are betting on it.
10% of 2 billion gamers is 200 million. Not a far fetched goal in 7 to 10 years once real 5G is standard and these apps exist on nearly every TV, phone and tablet. Until then, I expect they’ll steadily expand their reach by making consoles more accessible bundling through subs while improving their PC store.
Halo Infinite, Starfield will sell like 10m subs each, probs more actually
This actually got me thinking about a possible release timing from them.
The way I see it, the following genres/examples of games best fit these releases:
Multiplayer Favorite Games (Gears, Forza, Sea of Thieves, State of Decay, Bleeding Edge, etc.): March-September. They don’t want to step on the toes of CoD and the Sports Games. I think it’s time to move Forza to spring as well. It doesn’t need to be an autumn-holiday release anymore and could arguably do better there. There is also a pretty notable exception you’ll see later in the list.
More Niche Titles: January-April, August-October. Pretty much for reasons you mentioned above. These titles can really shine in these months and create fans of genres they didn’t know they liked, but can get slaughtered in the rat race otherwise.
Single Player Showstoppers: (Halo, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Avowed, Starfield, Perfect Dark, Hellblade, Fable, etc.) March, June, July, September-December. Put these at the end of FY quarters if there aren’t any big multiplayer titles or a notable niche title (i.e. Dishonored). Halo is the only one of these with a confirmed Multiplayer component but it is also the only Multiplayer-oriented game I’d argue could go toe to toe with CoD, Battlefield, etc.
People need to remember Google Amazon and Tencent are looking for studios so I dont see MS stopping for a year cause if they do a studio they like could be bought out by one of these companies
Google is in a weird position. They launched Stadia, acquired Typhoon and hired Phil Harrison/ Jade Raymond and after that it’s just stopped. Like no major rumour or news. Maybe Stadia will be soon on killedbygoogle.com
Looking at the Tencent acquisition their focus is on studios with F2P and MTX. Maybe it change in the future.
And Amazon poached a lot of industry people, cancelled their MP game and launched Luna. I think they will make a major acquisition of deal. Twitch X Luna X major acquisition is a good way to step up in the competition.
I think MS targets, (Bungie, CDPR, Roblox, Valve) wont be of interest to them
I dont think CDPR or Roblox are a target at all haha