Last year, Phil Spencer took the stage to announce that Microsoft had acquired four new game studios–Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, and Compulsion Games–and started a new one from the ground up called The Initiative. These studios joined the roster of 343 Industries, The Coalition, Turn 10, Rare, Microsoft Global Publishing, and Minecraft.
In the time since E3 2018, Microsoft has acquired inXile and Obsidian, while also renaming their group to Xbox Game Studios. This brings the total number of developer studios to 13.
We’re not expecting this trend to slow down, as we think that Xbox will be showing up with a few more studios under its belt this year. With Phil’s list of 14 first-party games coming to E3 2019, and deducing that certain studios like Turn 10 and Undead Labs won’t likely be showing anything, we must be in for a treat from some newly-acquired companies.
Moon Studios is probably the most likely buy, as they’re well known to have a strong relationship with Microsoft for the Ori series. While the company is small, they could buy the studio for its IP and fold in its talent into another studio, or use them to develop smaller titles all the same.
The opposite end of the spectrum would be a studio like Insomniac Games. While they’ve worked with Sony most recently on the PlayStation-exclusive Spider-Man, they have also worked exclusively with Microsoft this generation, to craft Sunset Overdrive. They have a great fit with Microsoft in making wacky, open world games with unique flair, something that Xbox has been known to prioritize on its consoles.
Platinum Games would be a nice acquisition, and fuel rumours that Scalebound is returning to active development (it’s not, people, give it a rest). It may also allow Xbox One to further its push into the Japanese market where Nintendo and Sony have much larger holds given that their software catalog and home bases are both much more Japan-centric. Xbox has tried to tackle this problem before, and Platinum Games certainly wouldn’t be a horrible place to start, but needless to say, we think they’re a bit too busy working with Nintendo right now.
While we don’t expect Microsoft to announce that they’ve bought someone like CD Projekt Red at E3, let’s also put our wishful thinking caps on for a moment. A purchase of the Polish studio would mean that Xbox still has one of the highest-regarded independent studios on the planet, they’re the type of company that would still make good on the developer’s promise for Cyberpunk 2077 to reach PlayStation, and they instantly take hold of some of the best world- and story-building talent on the planet.
Here’s why it won’t happen: CDPR is incredibly, fiercely independent, and they like it that way. They’ve been developing games they want to develop without needing shareholders to look over their shoulders to do it. Their games have naked ladies and sex in them. Oh, and Playground Games is building Fable. If you were going to buy CD Projekt Red, you’d let them do it.
Project xCloud – With Google announcing Stadia, their Cloud gaming and streaming platform, earlier this year, and Phil Spencer’s recent statements about the Project xCloud team completing their take-home release (that is, their internal staff’s beta test for the project) earlier this year, we expect that xCloud development is on its way to deliver promised public trials and demos later this year.
E3 2019 is going to be the perfect place to show this off, naturally, though doing so with some finesse will be necessary, as it might be a bit tough to share a value proposition for two new consoles if gamers can get all 3,500 Xbox titles, from the original Xbox right through to the current crop of consoles, they need streamed in from Microsoft servers.
While we don’t expect to see a live demo of just how the streaming service will run, as that introduces a number of variables that can’t be controlled in a theatre space of more than 10,000 people, we do expect to see some pre-recorded footage or another demonstration of just how the platform will work.
Xbox GamePass and Xbox Live – Phil Spencer has done a solid job over the past few years of making sure that the group’s E3 press conference focuses on games for as much of their presentation as possible. There is still, however, a small portion of their showcase dedicated to sharing the improvements they’re making to their services platform. With the recent announcements of GamePass coming to PC and GamePass Ultimate, we’re not sure what they’ll show off, but we’d bet they’ve got at least a few cool new features for players here.
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