Out of interest have you tried playing Immortals Fenyx Rising or the Stranger Things tie in to FarCry 6?
I think there is still plenty of creativity there it’s just being stifled by management in favour of chasing ‘trends’.
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This is more something that would take at least 5-10 years to happen anyways since I don’t expect to see Microsoft go after WB/Discovery as soon as the ABK deal closes. And by then I’m sure Bethesda and Obsidian will be much bigger studios than they are today with more developers and teams that could tackle on more projects.
WB Games could make one as well but it would probably be more like the Shadow of Mordor games than a full fledged open world LOTR RPG.
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Beside the hype of the brand name, which I guess is the reason why it would be a big deal to some people, I really don’t know what LOTR would bring to the table that already existing IP don’t. In a video game I don’t see how their Elves, Dwarfs, Orcs, etc., are anything special.
Ubisoft was industry gold standard once, they can be again, they absolutely have talented and creative developers on all fronts they’ve just been kept in a comfort zone by their corporate overlords (and they still make good games as is mind you).
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And LOTR will probably not be bigger in games than Elder Scrolls already is.
God the Stranger Things tie in for Far Cry 6 is great, it’s nuts that Ubisoft doesn’t get more credit for just adding these big free additions to their games. Honestly, I won’t dwell on this point for too long since this is an Xbox acquisition thread but if there’s anyone looking at acquiring Ubisoft it should be Netflix. Gaming would be an ideal avenue for them to expand to, and Ubisoft is the ideal publisher to take advantage of Netflix’s IPs and equally has a solid range of IPs for Netflix to adapt into television or movies. Not to mention Guillemot seems to want to remain in charge should the company sells which I think Netflix would want too since they don’t have experience in gaming.
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There’s so much more than just the hype of the brand name. With the rights to the Lord of the Rings they would have access to the characters, the lore, as well as the ability to use iconic locations from Tolkien’s world come to life.
Also here’s more of an explanation on why Bethesda would be a great fit for a LOTR game.
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Bethesda has Fallout, Elder Scrolls, and now Starfield. Even staffing up significantly they’ll struggle to get those out at a decent pace. Let the dream die.
Also, the boost that the LOTR name provides isn’t big enough to warrant the negatives that comes with a licensed property when compared to a similar IP like Elder Scrolls.
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Not only that but they also can expand fable, pillars of eternity, game of thrones, etc
Also that maybe is just me but I dont see to much hype around the gollum game
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I could never imagine these games coming out in the interval of less then 5 years… Even the typical 7 year gen cycle seems hard to target
If only some kind of technological break through could happen to speed up game development across industry
It doesn’t need to be Bethesda specifically it could be any of Bethesda’s other game studios. I don’t think anyone expected Todd Howard to create an Indiana Jones game but it’s happening.
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Doesn’t it kind of defeat the purpose if it’s not a team that is well known for creating RPGs? And it’s be like Todd Howard making Indiana Jones when he had already made Tomb Raider.
Either way, it isn’t on topic so I’ll stfu.
Now that I think about, another benefit of Capcom - is unlike Square Enix - they don’t release that many Switch games (aside Monster Hunter)
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Is that so much a benefit? Most of what Square Enix releases on Nintendo Switch is their smaller titles of which they have quite a lot of well reviewed releases such as Live a Live, Triangle Strategy and Bravely Default 2. I would argue this sort of thing would be great for game pass, as it’d mean more regular first party content at a relatively low production cost.
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Making an RPG is already a mad complex task. Adapting Tolkien/LOTR is another huge layer of complexity on its own. You make it sound like it’s an easy and straightforward thing even assuming the logistics line up.
Great for Game Pass, but the point is not to have a lot of IPs and games that go to Switch in the first place. All these acquisitions are all about exclusive content. And thus with Capcom, it won’t be hit by losing Switch as a platform.
The very reason why Microsoft did not acquire Bungie was them not wanting to release multiplatform games, which makes me kinda surprised that so many people think that Microsoft wants to release multiplatform games…Microsoft made Starfield - a game so close to release - Xbox exclusive, yet people think that Microsoft is all about multiplatform games. I am more than sure that if Diablo 4 did not have the announced platforms it would be Xbox/PC only.
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Well, not exactly that. Bungie basically wanted to be in control of decisions like that , and even self-publish. MS could be fine releasing some games multiplatform but they want that to be their decision based on what they see fits, not Bungie’s case where they want that control to be on their end.
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why is that a plus?
There’s few IP and teams out there that just sell massive amounts of copies and are huge money makers but are not live service. I think they will look to add CDPR because they got that category and those IP are huge. They’d be an attraction for gamepass and their platform in general.
Other than that, I expect live service to continue to be a main investment point. I also believe that whatever publisher they buy next will be huge on mobile. I could even see them buying a mobile only publisher like Rovio.
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I disagree there. Microsoft showed time and time again that they make exclusive whatever is possible, where the have the control.
It is hilarious that Mojang was the best and worst Microsoft acquisition at the same time 
It is also makes me sad that Moon Studios asked Microsoft to release Ori on Switch (another blow that led to discussion about Microsoft releasing the games multiplatform), Microsoft allowed it and then CEO started to accuse Microsoft of not being multiplatform. Talking about good will…
Bungie essentially wanted the same thing as they offered to Sony (to which Sony agreed), but the whole point was about exclusivity. I still don’t understand why folks believe that Microsoft wants to release multiplatform games. They haven’t released Halo F2P and Sea of Thieves, why would they do that with other titles? Because they have the huge following? TES, Fallout, Doom certainly have, but nobody is expecting them to be multiplatform 
Rovio is too small to be considered even a point of interest at this point.
I think the potential acquisition is Take 2 (it has GTA and Zynga), but I doubt that is happen any time soon as I believe that the next acquisition will come from Japan (Microsoft has been very annoyed by the whole Japan situation so they have to gain legitimacy there with some big splash move). We also have to see what’s gonna happen with NRS.