I think Microsoft is pretty much hands off regarding what engine the developers should use. Certain engines - like IdTech or Creation Engine - have become the part of the studio identity.
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That’s gonna be the developers’ choice. Enforcing Engine use is not a great thing. Proprietary engines are mostly designed for specific games and when they’re shared across different genres/studios you don’t always get the best results, maybe unless you work more and longer to configure the engine. Unreal Engine just skips many steps for most studios; it’s universal, easier to hire for, and flexible across different genres and pipelines.
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I think the only real concern is that we haven’t seen much to any fruits from acquisitions either but at the same time the acquistions happened at most 5 years ago and they were smaller teams like Ninja theory so their is some ground to have a level of scepticism until we see the fruits bared by these acquisitions but if what we have seen from hellblade 2 is anything to go off…there isn’t much to worry about
I think it depends, I personally think they will allow their other studios to use the engines Microsoft owns or allow them to go for unreal, I think they will leave it to the studios as we have heard MS respects their freedom but we will need to wait and see but I see Microsoft being open with this rather than gating them off e.g. not allowing obsidian to use creation engine or forcing them to use it for a hypothetical fallout new vegas 2
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Sorry but the notion that a multi trillion company won’t do anything for profit when given the chance, is naive at best. The fact that they’re making all the right moves these past 2 to 3 years doesn’t mean that will continue forever, the xbox one was just 3 years ago and it was arguably the most irrelevant console since the ps1 era. And the fact that they really are making all the right moves these past 3 years, doesn’t mean they are making them for the sake of the consumer, they are making them because if they didn’t the xbox would be 100% dead with no hope of coming back.
Satya and phil, even if they really do care most about the consumer, won’t be in charge till the end of time, the idea of microsoft buying anything and everything with nobody batting an eye isn’t smart.
Could Xbox end up acquiring Certain Affinity and Sky Box Studios? Asking this because I just realized that they are both studios that did work on numerous Xbox titles over the years(Do not recal any other that did the same). So the possibility is big of this to occur. More so than the likes of say Avalanche in my personal take on this matter.
In addition to this, am kinda happy with the amount of games Xbox from Spike Chunsoft as of late, so here is a question: Which other Spike Chunsoft titles do you think this particular studio could try to release over on this particular platform for the first time?
Lastly, what other Japanese(Or any other Asian studio) studios would most likely try something like this? I kinda hope either Level 5 Concept, Nippon Ichi Software(I know for a fact that they released one of their games on PC Game Pass,although i do not know the whole story), or the likes of Type-Moon.
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they will but they will also look at the long term which is why I doubt we will see a price increase for game pass for a long while as Microsoft probably wants to grow the subscription count by a lot more before trying to increase the amount of money they are making from them. But you are not wrong, publicy traded companies have a legally obligated task to increase shareholder wealth but trillion or multi hundred billion dollar companies are more likely to think of the long term rather than just the next 5 years
they won’t by everything though, their are restrictions in place and some companies like EA or Sony are not necessary good buys as with EA you need to deal with a ton of licenses which unless you could strike a special deal would remain multiplat (escpecially the sports games) and for Sony you would likely have to by the entire company and besides their gaming, music and movie division the rest of their division are mostly losing and even then movies aside from spiderman can be borderline at times. We also need to dismiss the possibility that companies like amazon will start getting competitive with this stuff and start buying up major publishers themselves which would mostly dismiss the possibilty of concern since Microsoft would still have heavy compotition
Please point to me where I said anything related to Microsoft’s profit-motivations, for good or ill. Maybe as a new member you should chill out, because this is reading as concern trolling with no evidence to support your claims.
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The earliest acquisition was less than four years ago, not five, and we’ve seen the fruits of many of the acquisitions thus far (Obsidian, Ninja Theory, InXile, Playground, etc.), but that was not the OP’s point of concern.
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there is no reason Microsoft couldn’t buy them, if I am not mistaken Certain Affinity works on CoD maps as well so I could totally see Microsoft acquiring them and I think Nippon Ichi Software is probably the most likely studio from asia now to start releasing on xbox (level 5 has sort of given up on the west in general so I doubt them)
sorry I was counting 2018 by mistaken, almost 4 years, by bad lol
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Welcome to the community! Certain Affinity is minority-owned by Leyou, but I assume there’s a first-refusal in that stake; so it’s possible that Microsoft could pick them up, but there’s been no indication that is the case. Skybox Labs would definitely be a good pickup as well, and they’re fully-independent last time I checked. Ideally, due to both studios’ proximity to Halo development, it would make sense but Xbox acquisitions as of late have been on the larger scale.
As for Japanese studios (not publishers since we’ve discussed them to death), securing Tabata’s studio (JP Games) would be a massive boon and CyberConnect2 could do wonders as well.
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Technically it wouldn’t be for the first time since they’re all on Xbox in JP region only, but they should get all the Science;Adventure visual novels up. Steins;Gate is one of the most legendary VNs (and again the 360 version is backcompat but it’s Japanese only)
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I do believe Skybox Labs and MS have a partnership going on of sorts.
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Indeed, they become easy to use for studios as they have been handling them for more than a decade
Yes, as I’ve said “it ain’t broken, don’t fix it” because they are engine the developers are used to it, developers should be able to choose, but I wonder if by their free will they get on XGS engines, like to develop on it and UE for example ends up being unused, at this point Microsoft would no longer buy a bulk license, but only a single studio or two license if asked by the devs.
Enforcing an engine is a bad idea, i’m thinking about if these engines get the curiosity of the studios and turn into a big deal that goes well, something that takes years to be done instead of forcing a night to day change.
It is possible though, I am in favor of CE for example, but just like with Sumo Digital - Microsoft just might not be interested in the asking price for example.
Does CC2 have their own IPs?
Not currently though they’re trying out self publishing with both some licensed and original IPs.
Really I think the only options for IPs with Japan are the A) publishers or B) The “A” level Otaku focused companies I previously talked about (they’re the only independent JP studios I can think of who do own their IPs. But again MS is not gonna be interested in this and those IPs are irrelevant anyway). The AA guys like Platinum, Media.Vision, CC2, etc pretty much just do contract work for other companies. And obviously the startups like JP Games and Bokeh don’t have IPs yet.
Nothing wrong with no IPs… Especially if they can attach a big name like Tabata from JP Games to a new IP (former Final Fantasy director).
I do believe that Microsoft will grab a japanese publisher sooner or later.
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I wouldn’t be shocked if they grab a few Japanese studios in the mean time though, escpecially in the case of platinum which could potenitally die if not acquired. I do agree a Japanese publisher acquisition feels inevitable but when I am not sure. If I had to make a guess, I would say except take two the likely publishers to be acquired are from Japan now granted I could be mistaken as companies like EA and Ubisoft have an argument, I just don’t think they are likely at least when compared to other
Yes, CA is supposed to be making their Monster Hunter Clone for Xbox Game Publishing, so its as likely as any other.