I don’t think it will happen, but would really love to see Bungie under Microsoft’s wings.
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I see Techland at around the same level as Playground Games in terms of what I believe the cost would be but we’ll see. I’m hoping!!!
As for The Astronauts, im very interested in Witchfire and think they could be a good acquisition at a decent price for Microsoft. Witchfire also seems to be loot based but without the grinding. You’ll get better weapons and whatnot as you progress but the difficulty will also increase.
I know a lot of people would like to see Microsoft acquire Bungie but also remember that NetEase owns a minority stake in Bungie and invested $100m into the company. I don’t know how that would affect anything but just wanted to mention it because I don’t remember seeing anyone talk about it.
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I think there’s a lot of smoke around Bungie because Phil and the CEO are close. Microsoft also owns a minority share and now is releasing Destiny DLC into Game Pass which is by far the biggest 3rd party day 1 content they’ve ever received. Hard to know whether the smoke is a result of educated guesses or something more. I believe Microsoft wants at least one more big studio. The only big studios left are CDPR, Techland and Bungie. CDPR is unlikely. I still don’t believe they’ll buy any publisher including WB. If they don’t have a shot at Bungie or Techland, the next option would be to build a big studio in Poland off the backs of a mid sized one.
In addition to acquiring studios, I would also like to see them invest in creating new studios. Cities like Toronto (UbiSoft and Rockstar), San Francisco (Capcom, Crystal Dynamics, and EA), and Austin (Arkane, Retro, BioWare, Blizzard) have a lot of talent for them to recruit from in order to start another Initiative type of studio.
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If they set up a location in Toronto, I will chain myself outside their offices till they hire me.
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I don’t think Arkane Studios is owned by anyone, unless I missed something, they could make an interesting target for acquisition especially since prey was a really good game but commercially disappointing, could mean they are tighter for funding. Thoughts?
Bethesda owns them.
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Okay thanks, somehow I missed that!
A different shooter? I mean if Sony can produce several third person games why can’t we have several first person games?
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I think Microsoft should look at Mortal Shell’s developpers. It’s a team of veterans and the game looks dope
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Wait, people are talking about rumours of MS buying Bungie. Has there been something new about that ?
If they open a studio in Toronto, I’ll use that as the catalyst I need to move to Canada. I’ve loved Toronto since my first and only visit, and with how things are looking where I live I’d definitely love a change of culture.
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Same, loved Toronto when I visited
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A lot of people want Microsoft to buy a studio in Japan, and I agree that Xbox needs to have more of a presence in Japan. However, I believe instead of acquiring a studio (what studios can Xbox even buy in Japan?) from Japan, Xbox should found a completely new studio located in Japan instead.
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I know lots of people want Xbox to make some great graphical third person action masterpieces and I do too, but I’d also be thrilled if the picked up a studio focused on making old school style rpgs like Golden Sun, Final Fantasy, Octopath etc. That would probably excite me as much as the WB acquisition.
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I’m with you there; Sony’s “masterpieces” aren’t games that keep me playing more than once and I often feel a bit off because I find they have great coats of paint that hide lacking/unoriginal fundamentals. I’m sure plenty of people are fine with that but I love Xbox for what it’s vision is gearing towards: an RPG powerhouse with some great franchises and diversity.
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I agree, I enjoy Sony’s first party games, they’re great, but they don’t tend to innovate or push mechanics forward. They do focus on cinematic story telling however, and have nailed that.
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I think that is what Microsoft needs to do if they want to get more Japanese games. They just need to find a veteran who knows the market to head the studio. However if they were to create a studio from scratch you wouldn’t see results until near end of gen since there’s a lot of moving parts, and it takes time to create a brand new studio.
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They need 2-3 more AAA studios though. Although some developers can be built up to bigger devs, getting Techland would take pressure off Coalition, Obsidian, Playground etc to rush something out.
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Idk about needing 2-3 more AAA studios. I think if they went to from softwares parent company a gave them 750 million$ or so that would be the last studio they would ever need to buy.
But even if they get zero more their smaller studios will become AAA.
343- 1 aaa team(Could become 2 with 1 just doing content updates for infinite) Playground- 2 aaa team Turn 10- 1 Rare- 2 Obsidian- 1 or 2 Inexile- 1(could become 2) Initiative- 1 Undead labs- 1 Ninja theory- 1 Coalition- 1(room for another) Compulsion-1 maybe So that’s 12-with room to grow to 17. That’s plenty.