Besides South Korea as a target market is definitely worth looking at. Japan from a creator perspective, and Korea from a consumer perspective makes sense for Xbox.
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Also there’s China, their studios have been working great and the 1300 million people can give to Microsoft a lot of subscribers. Specially in tech cities like shenzhen
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There are challenges for China. You will need a curated store and gamepass experience that is certified by the CCP.
But definitely do-able.
Edit: Plus localization into Mandarin and Cantonese for store/gamepass and all games.
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what about funding or just partnership with Chinese studio ?
you might need to create a proxy for Xbox to invest/buy in China. Xbox China or some such thing.
But it is a consumer market for Xbox, rather than a source for creators.
Tencent would have a stake in most of the gaming companies there, btw.
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True but depends more on Sony’s expectations. Game could be say an 85 and sell 2m copies in April/May and they could see that as a failure. I mean who knows.
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they only got studio. No metro IP.
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I was disappointed they didn’t go for 4A. Can’t believe the deal was so cheap too.
Oh right. Makes sense then.
Out of curiosity, how much do we think Valve’s game division is? Just the game division, no Steam due to possible antitrust concerns.
So this includes the Valve Studios, Source Engine, GAAS titles TF2, Dota 2 and Counterstrike and the Half Life, Portal, LFD, Counterstrike, Team Fortress and DOTA IP. 3 billion?
I don’t think that the two things could go separate ways, anyway, at least as much as Bethesda, Dota 2 and CS:GO are among the most played games on pc since 10 years.
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I’ve been playing Dota 2 for like 8 years now and every time they have their big yearly tournament, the prize pool funded by the fans get bigger and bigger each time, with the last prize pool being 40 million which is 25% of the actual funds they got from players buying through the compendium, meaning every year from one compendium in one of their games, they make like 120 Million dollars in revenue. This is just one game of the many managed by valve, so I would like to assume that these would be closer to 4-5 Billion dollars
I was sure 4A would be one of the studios Ms would acquire given how closeish they were.
Crazy talented studio as well, would be a magnificent get
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Nobody gonna buy all of Nordisk Film just for Avalanche and Im sure Microsoft arent interested in a film division.
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Besides, I think that Just Cause, Avalanche major IP, is owned by Square Enix, so they’ll get “only” the devs, the Apex Engine (not bad at all, it’s one of the best open world engines, expecially for physics and destruction) and some minor ip (the hunting game). I think it is smarter to cut deals with them (like Second Extinction and the other rumored project) instead of acquiring them, not to mention Nordisk Film which owns Avalanche.
I think right now MS is looking only for a huge splash, they have more than enough single studios and they have a solid partner network (at least in the west), they should buy something huge in Asia above all if their aim is truly global, that is the glaring hole in their studio assembly, it is a fact.
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So they dont need Avalanche cause you have to deal with Nordisk and they bring nothing of value in IP’s. Who knew.
It’s clear as day that MS is looking for major IPs to bolster their exclusive offering and to shut down forever the known stupid narrative, they already bough 7-8 single small to medium sized studios in order to grow them and with little IPs attached, then they bought the biggest private owned publisher on Earth (or close) with huge IPs attached, so it’s clear their strategy has shifted. Moreover, several credible Xbox insiders have said many times that Matt Boory is at his operational limit with 15 studios to oversee, is more than Sony and Nintendo first parties already so without considering Bethesda.
EDIT: I double checked on Steam for confirmation and Just Cause is owned by Square Enix as I said.
So, what you are saying is that we need Square and WB to get the best out of Avalanche. Hope Phil is listening.
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Ideally speaking, yes. 
Jokes aside, Avalanche on its own did make sense 2-3 years ago, but now, I don’t think so, all the signs are pointing to other directions.
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yeah this is get over my head lol because koch media also got the metro IP after they bought deep sliver