Xbox Acquisition |OT7| Come on down for your chance to win on “Who will Xbox buy next?!”

Double 11 makes perfect sense. I also like Behavior Interactive whos done lots of work with them.

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Maybe Armature will be good, they worked on RECORE which if well-funded could use a reboot.

Armature was acquired by Meta Platforms in October 2022, but Meta got hit with mass layoffs after reporting declining profits recently so who knows

It’s unlikely but Armature and Ready at Dawn would be nice little additions if Meta wanted to unload some studios down the line.

I just hope that they will get other studios like playful(luckys tale) before meta acquires them

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Playful and Playtonic would be great additions for their family friendly market. I’m not sure how likely the latter would be due to their relationship with Xbox but it would be good to see Xbox pick up these types of studios.

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Thanks for the info. A pity though I think their work on RECORE was solid.

Playful I could see but Playtonic I don’t see. They haven’t even tried to partner with them once. I’d imagine if they are still going for Sega they would be looking for a team that could redefine the SONIC franchise.

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Yep I think Playtonic’s relationship with Xbox is still quite sour after Rare. Unfortunately there aren’t many studios like Playful on the market. Sumo would have been the other one but they were acquired by Tencent. Alternatively maybe Ubisoft would be willing to let go of Rayman and that studio.

Xbox could also partner with someone like Thunderful Games.

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There is a part of me that thinks/hopes that there’s a slew of unannounced acquisition deals simply sitting there, waiting for ABK to close.

I really hope MS didn’t; simply pause all acquisition talks until ABK is done.

I know ABK got so big a complicated that just in terms of staffing capacity they had to dedicate massive amounts of manpower to it, but surely they didn’t just stop all other talks.

I can see thunderful as family friendly but their is still that need for a developer that can do kiddie games like Nintendo. I think Playful could fit that role and may be the Crash team, perhaps they can even come up with a platformer that is relevant to the times. Would love to see more of the Plucky knight developer and I think Dlala has potential. The battle toads game wasn’t bad.

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Absolutely, I think Sony already own part of Digital Devolver (Plucky Squire) but Human Fall Flat is great fun too. They would be a fantastic addition.

Dlala is a good shout, they also worked on Sea of Thieves too so there must be a good relationship there.

Yeah, Plucky Squire. Devolver Digital certainly has an eye for really good indies. Would just like to see studios that can produce games like Ori, Cuphead and so on. So far Xbox has been able to deliver some of the best indies like Ori and Cuphead and the games they showed at E3 like Tower borne and 33 immortals look like they will set the standards again.

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I think that the next big Microsoft acquisition should be embracer group.

No thank you. However, they can poach some of the studios like crystal dynamic and eidos

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Why not? I mean, it would boost very significantly the game pass.

Too much bloat and I don’t think Microsoft wants the headache in handling that many studios that wouldn’t bring a significant return

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Eh I wouldnt say the studio as a whole has a sourness with MS. And even if it was money and letting them have free rain solves a lot of issues. (see other studios that were scorned by MS but have since been purchased (doublefine, obsidian, etc). I think the big issue for Playtonic being an option is Tencent owns a 40ish % stake in the company.

Id also argue that gears for breakfast would be a good addition instead of them. AS much as I enjoyed yooka-laylee. I think playful and gears have a much better handle on making a platformer whos movement feels fantastic. Something imho both yooka laylee games had some trouble with.

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I mean Obsidian almost closed down when Xbox cancelled Stormlands and this situation is not that bad in comparison.

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I haven’t actually played any of the gears for breakfast games, I’ll have to give them ago.

a hat in time is quite a treat. especially if you love mario 64.

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You know, after playing the rayman dlc of mario + rabbids is such a shame xbox isnt going to be able to buy ubisoft for a decade or more, ubisoft milan was perfect to bring back rayman and possibly other ips aswell

So far I think playful would be a good option, they lost many developers some years ago and they are very cheap so xbox has nothing to lose with them, also gears fir breakfast, a hat in time made what yooka laylee werent able to do, I have never experienced a platformer that gives you a good challenge like mario sunshine in a long time

There is also other studios like ludosity which doesnt make platformers but who knows, is clear they care a lot about their games and how seeing how much they respect nickelodeon ips is great

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