Xbox Plans to 'Continue to Invest in New Gaming Studios and Content to Expand Our IP Roadmap' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 September 2020 / 2,970 Views
Microsoft in the last two years has overhauled their first party studios by acquiring several gaming studios and opening brand new developers to bring the total to 15. The list of acquired studios includes Obsidian Entertainment, inXile Entertainment, Ninja Theory, Double Fine Productions, and more.
Head of Xbox Phil has previously stated the company is not done acquiring studios and has the full backing of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Microsoft in their annual report for the current fiscal year to the US Securities and Exchange Commission has reiterated they plan to "continue to invest in new gaming studios and content to expand our IP roadmap and leverage new content creators. These unique gaming experiences are the cornerstone of Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service and gaming community with access to a curated library of over 100 first- and third-party console and PC titles.
"The gamer remains at the heart of the Xbox ecosystem. We continue to open new opportunities for gamers to engage both on- and off-console with both the launch of Project xCloud, our game streaming service, and continued investment in gaming hardware. Project xCloud utilizes Microsoft’s Azure cloud technology to allow direct and on-demand streaming of games to PCs, consoles, and mobile devices, enabling gamers to take their favorites games with them and play on the device most convenient to them. Project xCloud will provide players with more choice over how and where they play.
"Xbox Live enables people to connect and share online gaming experiences and is accessible on Xbox consoles, Windows-enabled devices, and other devices. Xbox Live is designed to benefit users by providing access to a network of certified applications and services and to benefit our developer and partner ecosystems by providing access to a large customer base. Xbox revenue is mainly affected by subscriptions and sales of first- and third-party content, as well as advertising.
"Growth of our Gaming business is determined by the overall active user base through Xbox enabled content, availability of games, providing exclusive game content that gamers seek, the computational power and reliability of the devices used to access our content and services, and the ability to create new experiences through first-party content creators."
In its official annual report for the current fiscal year to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft prepares investors to “continue to invest in new gaming studios and content to expand our IP roadmap and leverage new content creators.”https://t.co/zzfatxZfYf pic.twitter.com/o38WScGyR3
— Klobrille (@klobrille) August 12, 2020
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Everyone would do well to remember that MS doesn't make all of their games exclusive. I can certainly see a scenario where MS buys studios so that they can get the games on GP on release date, but also releases the games on other platforms. I'm sure this won't be there case for every game. But, MS has demonstrated over the last several years that they will launch games on systems other than their own when appropriate.
Some of those Xbox One games that went multiplat were not actually owned by Microsoft even though people believed they were. Cuphead, for example, is an entirely third party property owned by Studio MDHR, which is not owned by Microsoft. I don't know what kind of exclusivity agreement Studio MDHR had at the beginning, but once it lapsed, they were free to port it however they wanted.
Microsoft will probably buy Remedy games if crossfire x becomes a hit.
They can certainly try. But I doubt they are at a point where they want to be bought out since they've recently been console multi platform.
Yes we know it, they have reinforced this almost every month.
They need to buy moon studios.
What does it mean to expand one's roadmap? Either you expand your portfolio or your range of offerings, or possibily your horizon. Your roadmap is something you follow to reach an amount of set goals.
Achieving something in order to expand your roadmap is nonsensical PR jargon.
I'd like to know why they are releasing next gen consoles this year when there is nothing to launch it with.
And I continue to plan to go to the bathroom every morning. So what's your point?
It'd be nice if Microsoft could, you know, grow its talent internally instead of getting out its checkbook to cock-block Sony and Nintendo.
I see studio acquisitions as moneyhats to keep certain games off Sony consoles. The only exception would be in cases where a game couldn't have been made without Microsoft's money. And in those cases I applaud them.
Of course you do :) But this is quite different. Preventing a game from being on another console without "investing" in the talents or studio is far different from acquiring the studios to make it a first party one and invest in them.
Sony and Microsoft both acquired studios and there is nothing wrong with that as they are actually investing in the studios.
Moneyhating is another story.
when you buy a company it's not only taking it away from the competition. It is part of your company then and it will be maybe for decades. No clue how you would compare that with normal money-hatting which is a single payment and then you are done with it.
Buying a company, Increasing the amount of your employees, taking responsibility for those and so on = moneyhat. Damn...
Really? You have "no clue" how investing in a studio, IPs, making them bigger and part of a bigger org is different than moneyhating? Okay :)
Ah lol, you have a clue actually :`) Missread that lol my bad.
So is it also bad that Sony’s biggest four studios were all bought?
I guess you guys are going out of the way to not understand what he is saying. He is probably someone that only buy Sony consoles, so if MS buy a studio it ends up worse than a moneyhat for timed or one game exclusivity because that studio wouln't launch games on Sony console anymore. He does accept for cases where the studio wouldn't be able to make games anymore.
Sure it is fair that MS and Sony buy studios, but it is also fair that people that don't buy those consoles not like it.
Whether he only buys Sony consoles or not is irrelevant. Publishers and platform holders buy studios to grow their talent. It’s not moneyhatting games away from other platforms, it’s paying people to do their jobs.
Of course it is relevant. He is talking as a customer, that whenever MS buy formed studios he as a Sony buyer is losing a game. That doesn't mean it is wrong for MS to increase their studio count (even though I would prefer they create instead of poach), same as it isn't wrong for he to not like it.
“Poach”, you mean buy available talent? Did Sony “poach” Insomniac? Of course not. Also we all understand his position, doesn’t make it any less silly or incorrect. Hope that helps.
I sure hope not. Personally I would first like to see how they handle the studios they got. If its all going to be GAAS and episodidic games because that works better with GP, I don't like the idea of them snatching up more studios...
Not sure why downvote your preference for they to show what they will do before liking the idea of they doing more.
Hellblade 2, Sea of Thieves, Avowed, Everwild, Grounded, Fable Reboot, State of Decay 3, Etc. Microsoft already shown that they give creative freedom to their new studios. What you seem to get wrong is Microsoft wants more studios that create episodic games and smaller projects that act like filler between major AAA release.
I don't care how they release their games as long as they're quality releases. It seems a lot of what M$ is investing in is providing a varied catalogue for Gamepass, though, so I would be surprised if they're all GaaS type games. You might see more episodic content, but not all types of games can be released that way. Their goal will be to get subscribers to keep coming back, and the only way to do that is to release games people want to play in the way that they want to play them. This means AAA titles will still be prevalent, I can guarantee it.
GAAS and episodic content simply makes the most sense if getting people engaged with GP is more important than selling their new Xbox. Just check out this tweet Jez Cordon, an Xbox insider and writer for Windows Central https://i.imgur.com/cHKrrzg.png
Maybe these "insiders" which also seem to guess 90% of the time if I look at the last year don't know everything or understand everything just because they call themselves insiders. Not sure where you want to put stuff like Fable, Halo campaign, Hellblade 2 and so on in comparison with God of War or TLoU but in my opinion, a Halo campaign or Fable isn't less of an investment in singleplayer than these games from Sony are.
Yes, MS cares more about multiplayer than Sony but that was always the case.
