i wish but highly unlikely
p.s. its Playful Studios now
Did they rebrand? That sounds much better lol. I don’t think it’s too unlikely, though. And by that I mean maybe not Banjo, but something.
I dont know that sounds like influencing to me
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SLT didn’t sell too hot and idk how the business aspect went behind the scenes, and idk if the working relationship was super hot. That was back in 2016-2017 though. They seem to have some decent relationship now-ish though because NSLT released on game pass and they worked with the Xbox team to FPS boost NSLT to 120 FPS as the first batch of games.
Paul seems to be interested in stuff like Roblox/shared world/creator economy/“just add multiplayer” stuff. Maybe that’s something Xbox would also be in to, but it’s super unclear what they’re doing if it’s another Lucky game or something brand brand new.
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Clearly the sentence said other than. Everyone here is saying make lego games or Banjo or Viva. I’m anticipating Xbox will just say our resources and IP are at your disposal, we’ll support any forray you want to make into the E rated market.
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Grubb said there’s a good chance NR + TT could happen, just now on Xbox chaturdays.
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You absolutely do buy staff. It’s called workforce in place and depending on the acquisition it can be a significant value component of a company.
Look at Insomniac. They didn’t own anything of real value. But when Sony bought them they were buying the people.
Teams are important. They are what gets things done. And the shared history and institutional knowledge of successful teams is what makes them effective.
Yes people can leave. But you lock up the key ones with retention bonuses, and with the other ones you rely on the idea that if they didn’t quit yesterday there’s no special reason to think they’ll leave tomorrow.
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I believe that’s just his sentiment, from what I understand he doesn’t have concrete info (correct me if I’m wrong)
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Nah you’re right he isn’t confirming it or have documents.
Look at how long it takes to build up a new studio from scratch with a functioning work culture like The Initiative. Of course you buy staff.
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Finally catching up after two days away, lol. More than 200 messages! haha Has MS acquire the world yet?
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Nobody does. If you asked anybody who the 2 most likely candidates to be sold from WB studios were you most likely get Netherealm and TT as the answer 95% of the time.
I believe Jez has concrete documentation that they at one point intended to sell TT and NR. The thing is he doesn’t have documentation that MS was a prospective buyer, it’s just a safe assumption.
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They wrote an LoI
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Sega & Koei Tecmo are my dreams but I’m just along for the ride this thread is amazing all the speculation and seeing others points of view keep me running back!
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I am very confident MS is getting TT games, though still speculating. We know they are for sale. I trust Jez/Squirrel on this and we know MS wants family-friendly games. I don’t see other publishers (EA/T2/Sony/etc.) going after TT games. It should be a pretty easy get for MS.
The competition will be focused around NRS. They are unique, at the top of their genre and have guaranteed sales. I could see quite a few pubs going after them.
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I agree about the competition around NRS. At the same time, like Grubb said, the competition will just drive the price up but no one is going to outbid MS if they really want it.
Addendum:
One thing I am curious about is if the old Midway IP is also on the table. There is nothing megaton worthy in those IPs, but you could bring back some of them as smaller AA titles.
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I think that is right and wrong. Yep the talent can leave but I find it unlikely that all the talent would leave and all leave at the same time. Even if some talent leaves you bought a studio that doesn’t have to start from 0. Most people though don’t want to uproot their entire lives to switch studios. For instance Todd Howard has worked at BGS for decades and is likely friends with his coworkers at this point. He probably has a family. Would he leave? I doubt it unless he was mistreated.
Also, as Xbox gets larger I think that is less of a concern because devs will be more wary of leaving Xbox on bad terms as they get larger and are the biggest player throwing around money. It will be more important to maintain good relationships with Xbox as they get larger.
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Microsoft has also treated their studios very well and Microsoft offers great financial and health benefits. They also said they don’t want to disrupt culture so that’s not a concern.
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