As Embracer Group crumbles before our eyes, it offers a stark warning to what consolidation in the gaming industry could lead to.
Ex-Rocksteady directors' Hundred Star is collaborating with Xbox Game Studios Publishing for its first-ever AAA game.
Highly doubt it'll be an actual Batman game that IP belongs to WB Games along with other DC property.
They're making an action adventure game. IMO I think it needs to be another Marvel game despite MS already have Blade as that action Marvel game. Dead Pool? Punisher?
Realistically it'll probably be a new IP entirely.
I agree with you. I think I'll be a brand new IP. Now it could be a superhero themed, kind of like infamous. Speaking of which, Suckerpunch needs to make one after Ghost 2.
I definitely think it'll be super hero themed game 100%. Something MS needs in their portfolio.
Dead Pool or Punisher would be amazing!!!
Don't tease me like that man lol. I see them making a new IP that's like an arkham knight clone
I don't think it needs to be Marvel. It needs to be a totally new IP. That's what Rocksteady should have done after Arkham City. They've pigeonholed themselves as DC devs.
I hope these devs needed support to start/finish (like Stalker 2), vs are basically done with the game but wanted to secure an exclusivity-bonus because they know Xbox needs a system seller (like Titanfall).
It’s a bit strange that they’d rather invest in this game than Tangoworks’ TWO canceled projects; or just trust a single dev from their existing massive stable of talent to emerge with a system-seller themselves anytime soon.
Either way, it is just cool that we’ll likely get a new IP from the geniuses behind the Arkham Trilogy. I wonder how creative they’ll get now that they aren’t married to an established franchise.
This is about the former co-founders of Rocksteady and their new studio. So naturally it makes people think its Batman related with the way its worded, even though its not.
Exclusive? Sure
This year alone Microsoft has changed their plans so much with Xbox regarding multiplatform releases as they step closer to just being a full blown third party publisher and it's only been 4-5 months, imagine where we'll be once this game is finished. It will be a completely different landscape.
I don't think MS will ever go completely full 3rd party with all of their games. I can see them looking towards expanding their own mobile store and moving into Mac as ways of expanding. I'm sure ms will bring more exclusives over to ps and nintendo, but I don't think it'll be as many games as you think it will. I hope I'm wrong.
The ever contradictions thoughts and actions of MS definitely says otherwise MS changed up so much on the past 6 months of the year I lost count.
Though I'm more declined to believe they also won't go full 3rd party also.
But.
This year they're having Renaissance a super bowl of gaming with Gamepass this year. BO6, older ABK games, Avowed, Indy and other 3rd party exclusives all to grow and expand gamepass. If these games don't grow the service or grow only a little bit. Then you can fully expect MS to hit the red button and put everything everywhere. Satya will have full Xbox take over doing what he wants from that point on next year.
It's up to Xbox to advertise these games and gamepass in the next 6 months or so get the word out.
The more the news evolves the more I'm inclined to believe we will see MS embrace full third party status but not call it third party in their word soup ways.
It will be Xbox everywhere plays best on a Xbox.
Next gen Xbox is rumoured to be a reference design similar to the 3d0 where any company can make and sell it.
If you're offloading hardware costs to a third party yet still profiting from the games then you've cut out losses on the hardware you still have a store front that users can use and still make a 30 percent cut on that.
Your games sell for a profit on PS and Nintendo platforms and on Xbox reference hardware along with PC
You lose .kney on DLC and games sold on a competitor storefront they are seemingly already comfortable with this.
The ms bean counters are coming for the ROI that was promised they don't care if they kill the brand as it stands Xbox was never a profitable business it was always just done for reputation
@Lightning the would end the console then. No one would buy Xbox over PS at that point cause now you get both with just a PS. If GP flop for them, Logically, rolling back on GP would be the smarter than to do. No more day 1 title. Less quality titles. They'd lose subs but people would go back to buying the games.
@Philly They could scale back gamepass put Indies only, AAA 1st party games coming 4 to 6 months from release. The thing is MS will have to tell their fans to buy their games again and that's gonna take years and years to condition them to buy games again. MS will lose money from that also. They'll lose out on gamepass revenue, lose out on games sales because their fans don't buy as many games anymore.
I can't see them scaling back or axing gamepass it does make them allot of money, they just want more money from it. They're not gonna condition their fans to start buying games either.
As I said they'll go full 3rd party and yes you ate right, if they do that then there would be no reason to buy the next Xbox. I know j won't be, you better hope the next 6 months they advertise the games and GP there little hearts out because this could be it.
Spawn (as well as master chief) are the only characters I associate with Xbox. Are there more I can’t remember?
Yeh big game, do you know the name of the lead character. Or team of lead characters. I don’t
Also the chick from gears 5 seems to pop up on all their modern advertising I can't remember her name either.
Cars also feature heavily in a Xbox ad it's always master chief front and centre with cars and maybe a gears character hanging around
Industry insider Dusk Golem reveals that there is no Resident Evil 1 Remake in the works. Instead, Capcom are reportedly in active development of Resident Evil Zero and Code Veronica.
RE Zero would be better to do first over RE1 because they can tie the story into RE1 more.
The original RE Remake was weird because Rebecca never mentioned anything about what happened in Zero and it felt so disjointed because Zero was developed during the Remake and they clearly didn't share any notes with one another.
LOL! A phone call from you? ROFL! They have been remaking RE games for YEARS! It was a matter of time!
Love survival horror? Love physical editions of games? Limited Run Games have got your back as they reveal a physical collection for Clock Tower: Rewind on Xbox, Switch, PlayStation and PC.
Dude just buy a xbox or pc and call it a day .
Not a bad article but there were things there that were completely unnecessary like the PlayStation hack, PS3 being expensive to buy or the always online and Kinect of Xbox. These things have nothing to do with industry consolidation.
With Sony, you could have went with the purchase of Evolution Studios and their shutdown after not delivering with Drive Club. Article writer did mention Lion Head closing their doors but could have mentioned the huge publisher acquisitions of Zenimax Bethesda and Activision purchases. It was kind of spoken about to sure up game pass but could have expanded more on these and their effect on the industry and their competitors.
Problem with Embracer is that they haven't made any impact with their purchases. They bought Studios and IP but have done really nothing to show for it. Maybe it was to get profit down the line eventually on their acquisitions by being the owner in the background. But their spending just seemed wasteful.
We'll see what they'll do over time and if it was worth the acquisitions.
With the cost of game development rising so much it is only a matter of time before the small to medium size publishers are required by larger companies. one huge failure, code, sync, the whole ship. Microsoft threw the biggest punch rent it wired so much talent so don’t be surprised when there is a definite reaction to those acquisitions.
I have always said this and I will always say this. I am against game platforms buying of publishers there enough independent studios they could acquire they should never go after publishers and then make their games exclusives
They were a warning since last year when they began shutting down several studios left and right after acquiring the rights to Deus Ex and the Legacy of Kain series.
This is why I don't want MS, Goggle, Amazon or Apple anywhere near gaming. At anytime these tax dodging mega companies can just take huge chucks of any industry they decide to enter away. Until we have consumer protections that are allowed to work outside of MS money hatting we will carry on losing more and more.
The more things owned by fewer and fewer companies the worse everything always gets.