With the quantity and quality of IPs Microsoft own and will be owning soon they have to invest in more work force
We may see more collaboration like Initiative X Crystal
I would say MS should open a game development academy or something similar
They need the creatives and talents in boat loads
I think this would be a great opportunity to expand in other territories where xbox doesnt exist at all
After this closes, while I don’t mind them looking for specific talent like IOI or Asobo, I’d like to see more focus on trying to expand studios with more resources to continue to experiment with new things like Obsidian is doing with Pentiment and Grounded. They don’t have to be huge things, but they’re way more interesting to me than a lot of bigger games are, more unique. I didn’t even really care for Grounded that much, but I still loved the freedom that they were given to try something new without having to worry that much about failing to sell copies.
Wrong thread sorry
Expanding existing studios seems like it’s probably not going to happen much in the near future. The XGS managed studios in particular have dramatically reduced job openings - in some cases down to 0 open positions for studios like 343. Others like Playground went from 130 open jobs to only 30 in a span of days coinciding with the Microsoft hiring freezes and their last fiscal reports. Zenimax studio job listings went through a less dramatic pruning, dropping from 300+ open jobs to ~200 across all studios and non-studio entities collectively, also in the same time period. Zenimax had been steadily growing in job openings since the acquisition, this represents the first sustained decline in that number and it highly quite rapid. Hiring rates have been down across the whole gaming industry, so there will be some reduction in job attrition from people constantly job hopping, but studios are likely still not going to meet their ideal resourcing needs in the mid term and shift to an increased reliance on partner or external studios in the meantime when they need more labour.
I would also assume this means that it would be tricky to justify buying additional studios (especially support studios) in the current economic climate versus just contracting/publishing them, unless they are studios of such strategic importance that Spencer can effectively argue that for it while the rest of the company is trying to cut fat everywhere.
I do think what you describe, focussing on more smaller experimental teams is a great idea, and I’ve called for that as far back as 2018 as a way to cheaply produce higher quantities of 1p stuff for the gamepass model. We’ll see if it happens beyond just Obsidian and Double Fine who are both known to have been doing this.
I think it would be cool if they made all of their IP available to any in house devs. For example say someone at the Coalition had an idea to make a new idk let’s say Banjo. They could recruit other devs that want to make a new Banjo from 343, Double Fine, Ninja Theory, Toys for Bob, and Bethesda. If Xbox would let them form their own teams I could see some new studios start to form and grow organically within the existing environment. That Team lead by the Coalition Dev could all break off and become Banjo Studios. Another Dev from Playground games could have a dream to make a new Fusion Frenzy they could recruit other like minded devs from across the company make one game and either form their own internal studio (Xbox Party Studios) or go back to working on what they were working on and let another team work on the sequel down the road. There are tons of possibilities by letting the devs work freely and move to projects they want to be on.
Obsidian and Xbox is such a good match. Creative freedom and financial muscle and security. This is what acquisitions of good studios can do and why I keep pushing for more good ones.
They could get what, 200 Obsidians for one ABK? Jfc
Id love to see them add more studios like Obsidian. Who wouldn’t!?
Give me a dozen Obsidians 
Yeah, there are still some incredibly talented and efficient studios out there, and while I would love for another publisher or two on my dream list, I would love to see a bit of split-focus for M&A to look back to its 2018 acquisition patterns. Pick up some of those studios that are super talented but financially constrained.
As my avatar indicates we are fully agreed on this haha.
Preach!! Would love more independent studio purchases.
MS invent a time machine to go back in time and get Respawn before EA
That studio would literally be PERFECT for current Xbox
A 2018 style lineup for long term Xbox partners and studios where Xbox can improve their hubs in (or start one) would be wonderful!
They could fix their mistake by getting gravity well
Time to make more lists
Give me a dozen Ninja Theory’s.
If we focus on studios that work or have worked with Xbox, Bethesda, or Activision:
Tell me if I missed anyone (I voluntarily removed Moon Studio for reasons we all know). That already gives us a very good list of studios, and on the publisher side, I would say that the most organic are Ubisoft and SEGA.
Playful
well seen ! I add it
Thats gotta be one of my favorite things from this place, even if I dont share the same interest for studios like people can fly or crytek, I am always open to hear different opinions and their potential on xbox
Int./night, dont nod and asobo fits perfectly on the narrative driven games, especially asobo after seeing plague tale requiem on the goty list
Skybox labs,double eleven,certain affinity,black bird interactive, behaviour, eidos and crystal dynamics will bring a ton of support for existing xbox games aswell they can make their own things, like for example blackbird helping mojang with minecraft legends but also be able to make their own title, let them experiment meanwhile they support
Seeing the positive reviews of pentiment makes me see the full potential that cdpr has, helping smaller games is something that xbox has been doing lately, and surely we could see one or two original games from them under microsoft, the same goes for stoic that seems like their xbox game will be the biggest project in their history
I think paradox would be a good acquisition, afterall xbox wants to be giant on pc and sure, they already have age of empires aswell soon they will own blizzard, but there is always a possibility seeing that their titles are coming to gamepass(also add oxide)
Dlala, frontier and playful should be on xbox list, afterall they still need family friendly content, I wasnt convinced of dlala because battletoads but seeing their new game with disney(aswell that they dont take to much to make it) really change my mind, frontier could easily make a new viva piñata, roller coaster, zoo tycoon or even a revival of kinectimals(without the kinect), and playful, xbox really should publish their next game atleast to try them, new super lucky tale is a great platformer and lucky could easily become a new xbox mascot
Avalanche, what can I say about this guys? I am excited about contraband mostly because their madmax game is phenomenal
I havent tried zombie army but I dont have any problem with rebellion joining the family, they could easily make a sequel to conker live and reloaded
Even if they already said that they arent looking to sell the studio, xbox should try to make a deal with iron galaxy, something tells me that they just make this fortnite melee combat thing to have resources for their next game, we will need to wait and see
Hitman fits perfectly under gamepass, and who knows what else they could make with creative freedom, I am still waiting for their dragon mmo
I cant comment about brass lion right now, the only thing that I know is that they are a new team formed by talent from the industry(I have heard they got some people from bioware or something), but yea, just like stoic I think they will be great for experimental titles
And to finish this very long message, I think I have said several times about my opinion on platinum, as much as I love them, I will not blame xbox for not being interested after what happened with scalebound
Btw sorry for my english