So I know Japan (and to a much lesser extent, South Korea) take up a lot of the acquisition discussion and Microsoft already has a pretty heavy first party presence in North America (aside from Central America). So with that said, what teams would you like to see Xbox/Microsoft acquire or invest in that are not from the above regions?
For my list, I’m going to try just including independent studios that cover a variety of titles in multiple regions. I’m going to avoid publishers. I’m basing these purely on their HQ, as I don’t want to spend too much time on this list.
For me some easy picks are:
A44 - New Zealand
Asobo Studio - France
Bombservice - Brazil
Colossal Order - Finland
Crytek - Germany
Ebb Software - Serbia
Evil Empire - France
Frictional Games - Sweden
GSC Gameworld - Ukraine
Halfbrick Studios - Australia
IO Interactive - Denmark
Motion Twin - France
Mundfish - Russia
Neon Giant - Sweden
Playdead - Denmark
Plot Twist - Poland
Team Cherry - Australia
I’d also like to see further investment into African territories and India.
I’m sure there are plenty more I could list off if I gave it some more time.
I thought it was Free To Play but that doesn’t change the fact that World of Warcraft is still and by far the King of MMOs while being only available on PC currently (hope it will come in Gamepass and will be adaptable in XBOX console version)
“Not really [I don’t worry about being acquired.] We’re a public company and all public companies are potentially available and if someone shows up with up with a meaningful cash offer at a meaningful premium, every public company has to engage,” Zelnick said in a recent interview with TheWrap.
To be fair, I’d argue TakeTwo are the king of 3rd Person Action/Adventure games, I’d even go as far as suggesting they surpass Sony in terms of ‘qUaLiTy’. It would be a fantastic hole to fill on the MS side.
Needs no argument. Rockstar do what Naughty Dog (best Sony studio) do but on an open-world scope and multiplatform level. Problem is they release one game a generation
It’s absolutely that they are the only ones to be above Sony in this kind of game
it would also be comical if Microsoft swallowed the important partners that Playstation has been privatizing for years, They wanted temporary exclusives on Bethesda games so Microsoft bought Bethesda, they wanted exclusives on Call of Duty so Microsoft bought Activision and the first thing what Jim Ryan announced at the launch of the Playstation 5 was that Playstation was going to extend the partnership with Rockstar it was literally the most important opening announcement for Sony.
Very different games to Sony, very different games to pretty much everyone out there tbh
Although I guess they fall into the same sort of thing BGS do, there’s plenty of 3rd person open world games, there’s plenty of open world RPGs but there’s no studios out there making GTA/RDR/Elder Scrolls etc other than R* or BGS
But yes, from a quality level it’s an easy argument to make although lets be real, with the budget and amount of devs R* games get it’s to be expected
I don’t see them acquiring Take Two after ABK, but I think CDPR could be a great alternative (much cheaper, no issues with authorities, and games could become exclusive). It is for me one of the rare studios able to compete with Rockstar. The Witcher 3 sold as well as RDR2 (over 40 million). Cyberpunk had very good sales (over 20 million) despite its difficult launch. It’s a studio that has enormous potential to exploit and that could bring a lot to Microsoft.
I do think that is perhaps leaving out that while Witcher 3 sold as well as RDR2, GTAV sold 160 million odd copies putting Rockstar well above CDPR if we were judging by sales. Still, I don’t disagree largely - they have a relatively slow output but when they do release games they hit BIG. As is that would be a solid enough acquisition but with CDPR scaling up to have multiple projects in the works, more consistent releases and externally made spin offs they could be HUGE in a few years time - assuming they can pull it all off that is. If there was ever a time to buy in it’s now.
Yeah I could definitely see that happening, it reminds me of Bungie in a few ways for them. CDPR fits well with the “premium” brand they aim for and would give them solid footing in a genre Microsoft otherwise has a dominant position in.
j/k
