I find it really weird to see people discounting Xbox buying some publishers for a variety of reasons, but then throwing out WB and Square West as high priority options…
I’m going to stick with independent studios and mention what I think their likelihood will be.
Remedy Entertainment - Highly unlikely as they have gone public and are getting pretty buddy, buddy with Epic Games through their current publishing deal. If anyone goes for them, I think it will be EPIC. They’ve made several mixed to high quality single player games that really parody what Sony’s major games do at times. For the longest time, I was of the opinion that they had troubles making their games feel fun, they fixed that with Control.
Asobo Studio - I think they are a likely target down the road only if they run into issues with a publishing partner, funding, or something else. I would not be surprised to see Xbox/Microsoft try going for them when their Flight Sim deal is nearing completion or if they are signed onto another project. Asobo might be holding out to get a better price too, but we’ll see.
IO Interactive - While IO isn’t while known for making highly loved single player stories, Hitman is a huge 3rd person single player hit that has added a bit more story relevance in each game. With 007 being their next project, I could see it being a test bed for a lot of things IO Interactive has been meaning to try. I think its likely they will be acquired by someone within the next few years.
Kojima Productions - I have no F**&^& idea how likely it is for anyone to acquire this team, but they definitely revel in single player, story driven (albeit usually convoluted) games that often have a mechanical twist to them. Kojima Productions will probably continue to partner up with multiple parties, but I would not be surprised to see someone acquire the team within the next 5-7 years (assuming Kojima doesn’t retire or move on to movies).
Quantic Dream - with all the sexual harassment allegations? HAHAHAHA no.
Ember Lab - If Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a hit, I bet they’ll be grabbed sooner rather than later by someone. They’re giving me a lot of Moon Studios vibes right now with the early growth and talent we’ve been seeing.
There was a rumour last year that Microsoft are close or already secured two studios. One of them was a studio from europe. What happend to that rumour ?
Crystal and Eidos are not coming without the rest of Square, I feel. Right now, they are easy soft targets to blame within Square, and that will continue for some time - sadly.
I love Crystal Dyn and Eidos, but can’t see Square letting them go like IOI.
I had no idea about Quantic having issues like that. Thanks - I learnt something new today.
Asobo has an amazing history and franchises associated with it, and they are geniuses. The PE investment that they went in for is the weirdest I have seen in some time. Generally, Private Equity firms don’t care about the company and are interested only in optimizations.
Although, Remedy is the best at tech in this group, they don’t really have a relationship with Xbox. CrossfireX relationship is probably more due to Smilegate than Remedy.
Kojima - yeah, no idea about where this goes.
IOI - also no idea. They are enjoying success after separating from Square. So,I doubt they would want to be acquired now.
I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Turn 10 (and they kinda do this a little bit already) have a team that works like former Sony Japan to help other studios with games.
Now, maybe this would be more so for internal studio assistance since Global Publishing already exists, but we’ve already seen teams like Coalition (and Obsidian?) cross pollinate with other teams.
Someone like Panic Button (with Alpha Dog) might be a good set of teams to make sure games are well equipped for XCloud support and potentially more polishing support for a games initial launch, which could be really important with the Series S in the picture.
I want all the established and old studios at Microsoft to have a second team.
Spin-offs of the games from the main teams will be great for Gamepass model. Turn 10 B team could look out for simulators like, truck, Dirt, boats, bikes etc. Start small as AA and grow it on Gamepass and name of the studio.
*I am once again asking you to acquire a Japanese game developer or publisher to make exclusive JRPGS for the Xbox ecosystem. Preferably the type where we can argue about which female character is best anime waifu. *
Discord acquisition and deep integration is what Xbox needs right now.
They don’t need to acquire studios anymore, I actually would want them to keep paying third party publishers for day one releases. It makes Xbox value prop even stronger when multiplatform games are day one game pass.
Acquiring more helps with the sustainability and attraction to Gamepass. It keeps people interested and drives down future expenditure on 3rd parties. Exclusives are a key part of attraction to Gamepass and huge 3rd party titles are hard to lock down exclusively.
It’s all about the size of the population they desire to win over and serve. They’re saying a billion people so that’s a population 4 times the size of the Netflix base. It would make sense that they need to somewhat emulate the diversity they have but you can’t know for certain looking at it objectively. I’m sure they’ve done market research though to figure out what diversity of content that prospective billion users would need and it very well could be more than the amount of studios that Netflix has which is about 40. It could also be less, hard to know for sure. Either way they’ve certainly let on several areas they say they need to expand with E rated content, Japanese content and fighting games. So I’d expect those were the largest current needs but that’s also likely not inclusive.
I think MS looks alot at Netflix and Disney+. Right now around 80% of netflix’s cost is going to licensed content. Disney+ has 0% licensed. Netflix is trying to reduce license content by making more original content. I think MS will grow first party even bigger to reduce dependency on 3rd party.
Exactly. IPs are the crucial thing. Third parties are good but the same third parties can appear on PS Now for example, so what value would Game Pass have? Exclusive content is the most important block.
