Totally don’t even see the point in Microsoft chasing Nintendo perhaps that made sense in 2019 but not today. You’re definitely right. I just think the future is always murky. Was listening to some Nintendo guys talking about what could happen once some of the Nintendo original fathers like Miyamoto and the Zelda guy leave it could put Nintendo in a similar place like RareWare or Sega also I think in one of the emails Phil Spencer mentioned studios get shut down when passion disappears not for lack of profit. I do think the NextGen for Nintendo could truly test their mettle especially when you have iPhones that sell over 200 million yearly now being capable of playing triple A console games.
I agree, I dove down the Embracer rabbit hole and came out with 13 legitimate studios that I think Xbox should consider. Keep in mind most of these studios would come with the most recent IP they have worked on and still wouldn’t cross that dredded FTC or CMA review purchase threshold with the exception of Crystal D, Gearbox and Eidos. Ghostrunner (505) little nightmares (Bandai Namco) IP would have to be purchased separately
Crystal Dynamics- Tomb raider & Perfect Dark
Eidos -Deus Ex & Fable
Gearbox - Borderlands
Gunfire Games- Remnant & Darksiders
4A- metro
Tripwire- Man-eater
Flying Wild Hog- Trek to Yomi & Evil West
Milestone- Hot wheels unleashed (Xbox cart racer please)
Black Forest Games- Destroy all humans remake
Dambuster- Dead island
Split gate Ironworks - Assisted with Ghostrunner
Tarsier Studios- Little Nightmares
Purple Lamp- SpongeBob cosmic shake (thanks MAD)
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Nah embracer is tra-
SEND SEGA TO THE PITS OF HELL!
Does someone know what IPs from Square did Embracer buy apart from Deus Ex, Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain?
Smartphones have been more powerful than the switch for years and still it didnt affect its sales, it will take a very long time for mobiles to be comfortable because not everybody likes playing with touch controls or carrying a controller, the same goes for the cloud having lag, nintendo knows very well that they will need to replace shigeru and others at some point in the future, isnt like they will let all their talent go away, people needs to understand that nintendo doesnt depend on the cloud, mobiles, pc or anything else besides their own consoles and games, they dont need to updgrade to the new standards of the industry and most people should accept that, time will tell if consoles are going to die in the future and everything will be trapped in a cloud, I dont think so but if that happens then the gaming industry will be dead for me
Anyways the abk acquisition will be complete soon and xbox is going to be able to buy more studios again so lets hope they will go for eidos y cd
What about Saber Interactive? That new Space Marine game looks great.
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Damn, how did I miss that 
, great catch
My personal wishlist: Eidos (on sale) Crystal Dynamics (on sale) Saber Interactive (on sale) Asobo IOI 4A (on sale) Publishers: WB or SEGA
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I expect Xbox to acquire some studios from Embracer, with Cystal Dynamic, Eidos, Wild Flying Hog, 4A Games and Gunfire Games being the most prominent that i think they would consider acquiring as soon as possible after the ABK acquisition is done.
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Ah I didn’t realise Embracer owned Milestone too. MotoGP would also be a fantastic addition, Turn 10 could help them up the quality.
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So Embracer is willing to sell & shut down studios, why shut down when you could sell? who knows.
List of studios I’d like from Embracer.
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Black Forest Games (Destroy All Humans, TMNT Ronin)
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Gunfire (Remanent)
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Purple Lamp (SpongeBob platform (if these games are good))
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Dambuster (Dead Island)
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Flying Hog (Evil West)
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Tasriser (Little Nightmares)
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4A (Metro)
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Tripwire (Killing Floor/Maneater)
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Zen studios (Pinball, side rant why do we not have the original old school windows pinball game in game pass!)
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Crystal Dynamic (Tomb Raider)
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Eidos (GotG)
Studios I think business wise make sense ,
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Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider)
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Eidos (GotG)
Why, well from the leaks we saw Xbox feels comfortable in many spaces, shooters, RPGs & racing being some of them. Then would Embracer want to sell these teams, possibly but as a bundle under their subsidiary group otherwise they risk selling the better studios and being left with nothing. Maybe they throw in a extra studio or two to up the price a little kind of Go Fund Me style.
Alot of Embracer games have been in Game Pass so Xbox may look to the engagement each game generated on GP as an incentive to buy the studio/IP.
Either way let’s get CD & Eidos asap 
Edit - Sorry for the spelling errors.
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Haven’t been in here for awhile, I am cancelling my SEGA prediction. I think Microsoft will pick up Square now and for a few reasons.
- They’re shedding so much value right now (Hello ABK 2.0)
- They have content that skips Xbox, this fixes that
- It’ll piss off Sony (I genuinely think they’ll be spiteful now with all the kickback on ABK)
- They won’t make anything exclusive that’s currently releasing, this is just to get guaranteed releases plus game pass day 1 JP content, new IP will be exclusive however.
- Microsoft has multiple things that will help something like this go through with almost no resistance most likely (this would probably apply to SEGA as well)
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I think they are interest in square, having the marketing of all this games to push gamepass would be good and also square works with several developers that they dont own
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To my understanding Gex was also part of the deal.
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Questions: Do people believe that acquiring a handful of independent studios will meaningfully the number of people in the Xbox ecosystem?
How about a publisher under 10 billion?
It’s about ensuring release frequency. They need to be able to have a big gamepass beat every month, and that’s much more affordable when you own those studios.
Do you think independent studios would help deliver that?
More studios mean more games, so yeah.
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The benefits of a publisher over independent studios are back catalog, IP, more immediate output (no games in work being published by other publishers), and easier integration into the organization.
The benefit to independent studios is you have more choice over the studios and don’t have to take a bundle, making it easier to target specific needs and less regulatory scrutiny.
Pros and cons to both approaches. I do think a publisher will have a more immediate impact though, I wouldnt be surprised if most people didn’t even know who the studios were behind certain games so having IOI or Platinum join XGS means nothing until there are games attached to them.
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I agree with this. I think the differences are nuanced/operational more than anything. A publisher tends to simply be a handful of studios under a corporate umbrella.
Whether you buy a publisher with six studios or buy six individual studios, you still added the same development capacity (all things being equal).