5 More Studios Microsoft Should Acquire

5 More Studios Microsoft Should Acquire

Microsoft shocked the entire industry this year at E3, after announcing 5 new first-party studios: The Initiative, Playground Games, Undead Labs, Ninja Theory and Compulsion Games. This is undoubtedly a result of Phil Spencer’s (Head of Xbox) promotion to the Senior Leadership Team of Microsoft giving him more power and an increased budget. But this news is exciting for Xbox fans as it shows Microsoft is building up to a dominant next-generation and listening to fan’s concerns about the quality of their first-party studios, especially after the success that both Sony and Nintendo have been having with their exclusives over the past two years. Phil Spencer has said in interviews that the new studios they announced at this year’s E3 weren’t thought about as the end of their work when it comes to expanding their studios. With that in mind lets jump into who else Microsoft could acquire in the years ahead.

TellTale Games

TellTale might not make blockbuster titles on the levels of God of War or Halo, but there’s no other single developer better fitted to release their games on Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft's subscription service. TellTale almost always has a season of one of their games currently being released or about to begin, making them the perfect developer to keep players subscribed to Game Pass as they’re eagerly anticipating new episodes of their on-going games. Even though TellTale’s games don’t have the production values of a first-party exclusive, the big brands they attract to license would certainly be valuable to advertise Xbox bundles with; sizzle reels including big names like ‘Stranger Things’, ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Batman’ are sure to turn heads.

How likely is this to happen?

With 25% of TellTale’s workforce suffering from lay-offs last November and TellTale admitting they’re a “company already under financial strain” following a lawsuit from a co-founder, it’s clear that TellTale’s current structure isn’t working for them. TellTale’s much more likely to accept an acquisition while they’re under financial instability and we’ve already seen they have a tight relationship with Microsoft after releasing two seasons of ‘Minecraft: Story Mode’, owned by Xbox. The increased support and funding from Microsoft could lead to some of TellTale’s biggest problems such as frame rate issues and lengthy gaps between episodes becoming non-existent.

Moon Studios

With the critical acclaim and commercial success of 2015’s ‘Ori and the Blind Forest’, it was no surprise to see Microsoft green light a sequel due out next year. It’s arguable that Moon’s position as a decentralized team makes them less valuable or desirable as a first-party studio, but it’s impossible to ignore that they’ve been able to attract some of the finest metroidvania developers. It’s questionable whether or not ‘Ori’ has the potential to become a franchise since even the first game felt more like a one off, but Xbox is in dire need of new IPs so letting Moon continue to create new worlds wouldn’t be a bad idea. Furthermore, taking cues from the granddaddy of platformers, Super Mario, and either reinventing ‘Ori’ or taking it into 3D doesn’t seem like bad ways to expand the franchise.

How likely is this to happen?

As much as I love ‘Ori’ the chances of Moon accepting an acquisition are low. The studio’s given the impression in interviews that they like their independence (to be fair Ninja Theory gave the same impression too) and if this acquisition were to happen, it would’ve happened at this years E3 in preparation of ‘Ori and the Will of the Wisps’ release.


Playtonic Games

Playtonic Games, made up of former Rare developers, came together for one reason in 2015, to crowd fund the game they’ve wanted to make since the golden era of Rare: a ‘Banjo-Kazooie’ spiritual successor. Despite record-breaking success on Kickstarter to fund their game, ‘Yooka Laylee’, the critical reception to it was less than stellar. Most of the criticism came from the game’s frustrating camera, bad controls and inconsistent level design. It’s evident from all of this that the demand for a throwback 3D platformer is there, it’s the lack of resources, time and funding that the team lacked.
Mario has bafflingly been the only AAA platformer for the past few generations and with the recent success of the Crash Bandicoot remakes it seems like the perfect opportunity for Microsoft to bring back the iconic bird and bear with the developers who originally created them. Rare might be one of the most historic developers in the industry but the truth is that that team isn’t what it use to be and is probably not equipped to be developing a platformer. There’s also a severe lack of other studios making 3D platformers; leaving Playtonic as the natural choice to revive ‘Banjo-Kazooie’.

How likely is this to happen?

3 of the 5 new first-party developers Xbox announced at their E3 conference have been mid-tier developers with Compulsion Games employing only 40 people. Playtonic Games is similarly small making them both a cheap acquisition and perfectly in-line with what Microsoft has been doing. Unless the studio has aspirations for a different style of game I’d bet this ones pretty likely if Microsoft came knocking.


Mistwalker

Founded in 2004 by famed ‘Final Fantasy’ creator Hironobu Sakaguchi with the financial backing of Microsoft, Mistwalker originally began by making two traditional JRPGs exclusive to the Xbox 360, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Both received positive reviews and commercial success and have continued to gain somewhat of a cult following. But despite their successes Mistwalker went on to make smaller DS games, and eventually mobile games, shrinking to a team of about 15 employees as of last year. Since the downfall of ‘Fable’, Xbox has been missing a big, exclusive RPG, and has struggled to gain Japanese support since the first Xbox. An acquisition and expansion of Mistwalker could help in both ways, as well as giving them boasting rights by having an iconic Japanese developer leading a first-party. An acquisition of a Japanese developer would also make them and Sony the only publishers to have first-parties in Europe, North America and Japan.


How likely is this to happen?

The breakout commercial success of full-priced turn based JRPG ‘Octopath Traveler’ and Microsoft’s reinvestment to get more Japanese games on the Xbox might make this more likely but as much as I want to will this into existence, this acquisition doesn’t seem likely any time soon. Microsoft have tried before to get a foothold into Japan and failed; this doesn’t mean that Western audiences aren’t interested in Japanese games but it just means there isn’t going to be enough talented developers in Japan to come together and make an Xbox exclusive, although Sakaguchi’s pull might be significant enough.


Remedy Entertainment

Remedy’s relationship to Microsoft as a second party studio goes as far back as at least 2005 while the classic survival action game, ‘Alan Wake’, was in development. Released to sales as high as 3.2 million and incredible critical reception, ‘Alan Wake’ is one of the more wanted games to get a sequel. Remedy’s next Xbox exclusive ‘Quantum Break’ failed to generate excitement resulting in poor sales and having nowhere near the adoration that Remedy’s last game had. Despite this Remedy has proven they can make successful, ambitious and most importantly, quality single-player games to combat Sony’s onslaught of story-driven exclusives. Plus, an announcement of a sequel to ‘Alan Wake’ is guaranteed to excite Xbox fans.

How likely is this to happen?

A year or two ago I would have said Remedy would be the first developer in line to be acquired by Microsoft. But with the underwhelming impact of ‘Quantum Break’ and Remedy’s decision to debut their new game, ‘Control’, on Sony’s stage this year at E3, an acquisition doesn’t seem like an eventuality at this point. Remedy has expressed desires to make a sequel to both ‘Alan Wake’ and ‘Quantum Break’, but those sequels would be entirely dependent on Microsoft’s cooperation, meaning an acquisition isn’t outside the realm of possibility; just maybe after ‘Control’.

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