Remember the dark days? When Xbox had little other than Halo, Forza and Gears of War to show for itself... well, those years are well and truly over.
Xbox fan artist Klobrille, who some of you may know on Twitter, has showcased just how much Xbox Game Studios has grown since Microsoft's acquisition spree began back in 2017. Spoiler alert, there's a lot of new studios here.
Back in 2017, Xbox had a mere six studios to its name, and frequently relied on third party deals for exclusive and timed exclusive content. Now, we're looking at 35 studios once the Activision Blizzard purchase goes through.
We have to say, we're pretty damn excited at what all these studios are cooking up under Xbox. Not to mention that all new releases will come to Xbox Game Pass on day one!
Which of these studios is Xbox's most exciting addition? Let us know in the comments.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 34
The Dream Team 🏅
I'd like for Xbox to now start passing around studios and IP. I'm cool with Bethesda and Activision keeping their umbrella, but some studios like Toys For Bob deserve to be completely unrestrained and free to maneuver with whatever IP they would like. As much as I'd like them to do Spyro 4, the possibilities are endless.
@Alduin I find it funny the same people who beat the drum of "Xbox haz no Gamez" are now armchair anti-trust lawyers interning at Salt Inc lol.
For me the most exiting Xbox studios are:
MachineGames
Ninja Theory
Double Fine
Compulsion Games
The Initiative
Exiting times ☺️👌
Imagine if Activision, instead of having 3 dev teams (atleast! Without the support studios) on the COD treadmill; they had 2 and every cycle the third was given creative freedom to create a new ip. Sure some may not have taken off but I really would love to see Microsoft unleash some of these devs to create new ip on top of bringing back the old classics.
Also I thought Vicarious Visions was separate but apparently they have been merged into the “Blizzard Entertainment” team.
My only "want" is a consistent release schedule. 32 studios should be able to have a fresh game every month without too much crunch or smushed dev cycle.
@isturbo1984 I told a friend of mine that Microsoft are going to buy Activition and i got this in responce: - Now they will finaly have some games - 😅
Its funny since Xbox already have around the same amount of first party games relesed as Playstation each year.
The original Xbox and the 360 had a good amount of variety for exclusives. While not all first-party, they were more than "Gears, Halo, Forza," that talk popped up during X1 when people were fanboying over Sony/PS4.
@K1LLEGAL I am actually hoping that when the deal goes trough and Microsoft owns Activition that they relese a new Call of duty every 3 year ( or maybe even every 4th year) and the studios go on rotation.
Meaning they have one studio working on the game, with maybe one other studio suportig, its getting a little rediculus with with the number of studios used for one game.
Call of duty Vanguard:
Treyarch developed the Zombies mode of the game. Additional work by Beenox, Demonware, High Moon Studios, Activision Shanghai Studio, Toys for Bob and Sumo Digital
What..🤯
@Epux_fhouwuo Yeah, a lot of the ignorance is from those who just don't pay attention. Like, I count 23 studios on that graphic, not including Activision. but now... NOW we have some games lol.
@isturbo1984 yee its going to be hard to overlook/ ignore the xbox eclusives coming out in the next couple of years.
Now they just need to use them!
With twice as many Sony studios and much more varied genres and IPs covered, it's exciting to think what will come to Xbox in the next years.
@Epux_fhouwuo I'm definitely interested to see what Microsoft will do with Call of Duty. Because they definitely don't want so many studios working on one single franchise.
But the thing is, how will the CoD fans react to the games only coming out every 2-3 years? Will that make the series even more popular since it's not coming out as often as before? I draw the comparison to GTA or Elder Scrolls where it's like a national holiday every time a new entry from those series come out. Perhaps making CoD come out less often will strengthen the franchise?
It's absolutely bonkers how quickly this had changed.
During Xbox One era there were so few quality first-party exclusives, really looking forward to seeing what all these studios can put out over the coming generation and beyond. Exciting times.
@LtSarge You bring up a really god point with GTA and the elder scrolls, i think if they change up the release schedule of COD the really hardcore fans will og crazy with negativity at least in the beginnig and over time they might accept it. With more time between each game the developers could suport the existing game a little more with uppdates over a longer period and get a little more breathing room between games, generating more hype for the next one.
I think it could be healthy for the series
It's literally a no brainer to get an Xbox over PlayStation if you are going to only get 1 console....will have alot more games and the obvious killer is that they are all day 1 on gamepass
Makes sense in every regard to get an Xbox if you are only going to get 1 of the 2 consoles
I own both and my ps literally gathers dust and while there exclusives are good they are nowhere near as amazing and essential as the ps fans make out...I won't be forking out £70 to play horizon 2 either...gamepass has spoilt me in regards to paying such prices for games....I will rent it
@Alduin dont worry, sony is about to show off their version of Game Pass, which will be fine with their fans. better actually, just ask them lol
MS's way is to have all those studio's working on their OWN games that they want to make - whether New IP's (Avowed, Redfall, Starfield etc) or New Games using ANY of the IP's they own (Fable, Perfect Dark, ???)...
CoD will end up 1 Studio - like Mojang, 343, Coalition and the other Studio's can make what they Want to. Its about 'individual' studios making Games for Game Pass platforms. That Studio could be 'Raven' for example or MS will create a 'new' studio specifically for CoD from the staff that want to carry on working on CoD.
The rest will be then 'free' to make the games they want - Treyarch could make a new zombies not tied to WW2 and CoD if they want - in fact I bet MS would encourage them to do it as its a fantastic game perfect for Game Pass unfortunately held back by CoD. Infinity Ward may want to break away from the 'CoD Rut' and create a 'new' IP, Sledgehammer making what they want and yes we could see Toys for Bob making a Kart Racer/Smash Bro's type universe with Characters across ALL these IP's Crash, Spyro, Banjo, Psychonauts, Conker, doom, Wolfenstein, Perfect Dark, Halo, Quake, Hexen etc etc the list goes on
Point is, as Soon as they Can once all the prior arrangements are honoured, CoD will be a 1 Studio game with ALL the responsibility to maintain and continue 'CoD' going forward. They will have ALL the assets from the main studios, be the 'CoD' studio for all the Community etc - like 343 with Halo.
That way they have more studio's making their 'own' games exclusively for Game Pass.
@BAMozzy That sounds amazing but i just remembered that Halo Infinite actually also had suport studios similar to call of duty, i am sure this is a common practise with game development but we genarally only hear about the main studio.
Wikipedia: Halo Infinite was developed by 343 Industries with assistance from SkyBox Labs, Sperasoft, The Coalition, Certain Affinity and Atomhawk.
But then again Halo Infinite was a new direction for the series so that must have added to the overall production time and why they needed suport form other studios to relese the game faster, i think Halo Infinite was in production for 3-5 years.
So if they are going to have one main studio developing Call of duty from now then they need to do 2 things:
Hire a lot more people to that studio and have a longer development time with Call of duty, maybe 3-4 years.
I just hope Microsoft changes up COD so the Activition studios have the possibility to make other games.
Absolutely embarrassing. Struggling to make their own games so resorting to buying up established developers and franchises to take away from other platforms.
Those pictures are insane...
@Alduin What amazes me is that the PS community went from "xbox has no games" to "xbox has no games that compare to Sony games" to "xbox controls too much of the games industry and must be stopped!" in about 14 months.....
@K1LLEGAL There may or may not still be time to rescue Vicarious Visions. They were only recently merged into Blizzard. It was done basically without consent, against what was said at the time of the sale, and it was surprise dropped on them in a horrific manner of a minor company event "by the way, you're disbanded and part of Blizzard, as a support studio." Their president became the blizzard co-president, but, the studio is still located in Albany by itself, so reversing a name change and organizing them as their own studio again may be trivial. Officially they no longer exist and cant be on the graphic, but technically they're a stand alone unit that could become VV, or "Blizzard Albany" or something separately later on.
@Beasley2K
You know, most people seem to prefer crunchy peanut butter, but I really think creamy tastes better. It also spreads easier. Don't get me wrong, crunchy peanut butter is better than no peanut butter, but given the option I prefer creamy. That's just me though.
So no Bungie, I guess Destiny is safe then.
@Akimi If I prefer hazelnut spread, should I play Switch?
@Specter_of-the_OLED Activision never owned Bungie, they just had a contract that expired. Bungie's independent.
@Epux_fhouwuo Therefore the logical choice to keep Call of Duty manageable for a reasonable sized team handling the 'upkeep' and legacy of all previous CoD games whilst maintaining an Online Community happy without splitting it between 'consoles' (Game Pass vs PS5) or 'generations' (Those who buy 'new' CoD vs Those still on the last CoD) is to go Free to Play with 'regular' Ranked Seasons that people have to pay for to earn 'sweet' cosmetics and Ranking points. That also keeps things the SAME every year (although could switch it between eras like WW2, Modern etc, get community involved in 'voting'). If MS owns CoD, they will want it available to everyone, everywhere so Free to Play and want it inclusive to everyone (F2P) so a Live service MP makes most sense - especially to compete with all the other F2P FPS games...
They won't be making a 'new' CoD in the traditional sense, just new maps, rotating out playlists, hosting seasons, remaking/remastering old maps etc to 'feed' the free online Multi-player and making sure EVERYONE in the CoD Community is not split by platforms or by generations.
If they need to make CoD on new Engine, it will be transitioned over so EVERYONE gets access to their CoD MP where ever and on whatever platform at no 'charge'. The advantage could be 'free' Battle Pass as a Perk one season for Game Pass owners depends on whether they 'want' to or not.
@Alduin AFAIK, for about 10 years now, Japanese companies limit foreign ownership/investment to a small minority percentage (I think it's 10%). So, unless their government ratifies new law or I'm way off base, it is unlikely that Microsoft will own one of those publishers (or even a development studio).
Conversely, Japanese companies have no problem buying up foreign entities. Shrugs
@IronMan30 Gears, and I think Halo too, weren't even actual first-party during much of the 360 era. Microsoft had to buy the total rights for Gears at least, from Epic, after a few games had already been released. Nevertheless, that ownership doesn't even matter; for as long as an external company (i.e. Epic) develops a title, it automatically becomes classified as second-party (that's the meaning of the "party," as in who else is involved in a transaction).
Sega, Nintendo, Sony and now Microsoft all built at least some of their first-party libraries by "upgrading" second-party franchises. That's the chief advantage of not relying on a third party exclusive, in which the first-party proprietor loses the majority of control. I can't recall Sega or Nintendo's examples, but one of Sony's recent ones is Insomniac Games and their Spider-Man games.
This whole Activision Blizzard buyout by MS, and the Zenimax purchase to a lesser extent before that, upends that traditional practice; now third-party publishers/studios and their IPs are up for grabs — unlicensed entries, no less.
Edit: no not Halo
@Beasley2K Sony has done this, though WITHOUT buying publishers. This makes them a bit cleverer at being cutthroat, IMO. Or maybe they have some sweet honeypot executives working the sales rounds.
@LtSarge I personally don't want a CoD coming out every year. I think it's unsustainable for a publisher to have to requisition & maintain a whole other set of servers for yet another new multiplayer game - and the older I get, the longer I want and need to be able stretch a game as long as possible so I don't feel stressed trying to grind through it as much as possible (and games that have short multiplayer lifespans have their player bases die all the faster).
Reality is, though, that a lot of CoD players don't like one or two of the three main studios developing CoD games. So, every few years or even every other year they'll eschew the current year's title made by the studios they don't prefer. I suspect not much will change for them if the development cycles increase.
(On that note, up until the wacky choice to have the 2020 CoD be Treyarch's Cold War, the dev cycles for CoD have been 3-years anyway. To wit: Sledgehammer titles were in 2014, 2017 with their 2014 title started in 2011; Infinity Ward had 2016 and 2019 CoD, with their 2016 title started after Ghosts released in 2013; and Treyarch had the 2015 & 2018 titles, with Black Ops 3 having started after Blops 2 in 2012. I dunno wtf Activision was thinking changing up the rhythm in 2020 and 2021).
@SplooshDmg traditionally, peasants built their ***** homes and non-peasants either inherited (good) ones, or bought new property. Don't throw terms around and also don't bring up anything that has nothing to do with anything. Microsoft is one of about three or four major companies that defined and built the modern day landscape of the computer and software tech industries; as for myself (before you group me in unjustly with a mob I will ALWAYS stand apart of), have always done things the hard and long way, even if I didn't build some ***** peasant residential area house brick by brick.
I aim for strength, not happiness.
Pathetic way to build up their stable of IPs, they couldn't come up with their own ideas so they just bought other people's ideas. Shining example of capitalism resulting in fair competition, industry growth, and innovation and not in any way a monopolistic practice.
Where are the games though?
As an Xbox owner I gain nothing from these acquisitions.
E3 will once again be the Xbox and Nintendo show... And I'm good with that.
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