Best Xbox Game Studios Franchises

These are some of the best and most popular video game franchises now owned by Xbox Game Studios and Microsoft.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

Microsoft was involved with Halo, Gears, Forza, Ori, Flight Simulator and Fable from early development, I will give them credit for those franchises. Fallout, Elder Scrolls and Doom were established franchise before being acquired by MS.

[Crows90]

Exactly. They had nothing to do with their most popular franchises now.

Their old franchises are dwindling and pretty much non-existent.

They've had perfect dark in the chamber this whole time and haven't done squat...that tells you the kind of company they are. Fable is another franchise that's been destroyed and ignored...let's see how the new game turns out.

[Profchaos]

Yeah perfect dark, banjo conquer ms seems to kill more franchises then they like to admit while pretending to care about others like hexen

[Sitdown]

Given the article specifically says "now owned", what made you feel the need to do a break down?

[thesoftware730]

Sit-down,

Because it's N4G and any opportunity to shit on MS is never missed.

[Rude-ro]

Gears is not.
It was the same as mass effect:
Just contracted.

[closed_account]

Ah yes, feels like forever ago since Microsoft created Skyrim. So much so, I had actually forgotten they had created it and the other Elder Scrolls games! 🤔

*They really shaped my preteen years w the original Doom too!

[ocelot07]

Don't forget the original Elder Scrolls way back in 1994 or fallout in 1997.

[Sitdown]

So you don't understand the combination of "now owned"?

[Crows90]

I fully expect all these popular franchises to be killed off by Microsoft. Just a matter of time.

Unless they take a huge distance approach which pretty much means they don't ba e anything to do with the games being made ...in that case the franchises should be fine. But then...they shouldn't really get credit.

[DOMination-]

"I fully expect all these popular franchises to be killed off by Microsoft. Just a matter of time."

Based on what?? Microsoft usually gets stick for releasing too MANY games in their franchises, to the point where it's quite a long-running joke - one I'm sure you've partaken in before.

Pretty much all of their major IP has had releases in the last five years or have upcoming releases scheduled so I see no evidence whatsoever for this claim.

"Unless they take a huge distance approach which pretty much means they don't ba e anything to do with the games being made"

But.. They HAVE been very hands-off for a long time and have drawn lots of criticism for it?

[fr0sty]

See: All of Rare's games

[DOMination-]

I really wouldn't say that MS have let Rare franchises die. They've just had the freedom to create new IP in Sea of Thieves and Everwild. MS are currently developing a Perfect Dark game, licensed Killer Instinct out, Rare themselves released several compilations and several Banjo games as well as PDZ in the past.

I'm not sure what else you could want. They can only make one game at a time. You can't say MS let all their franchises die but also be annoyed that they allow their studios to make new IP.

[Profchaos]

If that's the case where my banjo or conquer sequel why didn't I get sunset overdrive 2 oh yeah not enough bro in those games

[ChasterMies]

EA is a good example of what can happen to a franchise when a larger corporation buys up studios from a smaller corporation. Quarterly earnings should never matter more than quality.

[wiz7191]

@Crows that is the case , Zenimax is operating independently of MS and have full creative freedom to do what they want. Zenimax games aren’t being published under XGS ,

[ravens52]

Soon Microsoft will be known for making Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, Candy Crush, Call of Duty etc. Lmao they know what they're doing. Especially with the archiving issue the gaming industry has.

[closed_account]

Microsoft built the game industry. Microsoft invented games. Didn't you know? ;)

**What a bizzaro world we live in where the losers can become the winners overnight.

[Hypertension140]

@ravens52

What are those franchises you're talking about?
Activision/Blizzard only makes Call of Duty and Bethesda has Elder Scrolls and Starfield only, stop making it seen that is much more anti competitive/consumer than it actually is.......

[Profchaos]

Zero creative vision and the ability to bankroll it by purchasing everything that everyone else had success with even Halo wasn't technically theirs Bungie had to sell it to them to become independent

[Atari6052B]

You mean any studio Microsoft could acquire to flog last gen games on game pass ... What happened to HD-DVD that Microsoft pushed so hard ...

[anast]

MS Xbox revolutionized the world with Morrowind. They had their hand in Mario Bros and Resident Evil too. MS Xbox is a historic game studio. I think they even invented the term "video game."