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Microsoft acquires Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, and others, and opens a new studio in California

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
Microsoft buying thins.
And a new AAA studio called The Initiative. It's based in Santa Monica, California, and led by Darrell Gallagher, former Crystal Dynamics head: https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/06/10/e3-2018-microsoft-studios-opens-the-initiative/

Ninja Theory developers emphasize they'll have "full creative independence":

 

Freddie

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I guess they bought Playground Games for Horizon series, which physics model, at least in Horizon 3 felt quite arcadey. Forza Motosport 7 was... not very good. I wonder if talent left the building before MS bought them.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
I guess I can forget about State of Decay on Steam then... :argh:
 

SumDrunkGuy

Guest
I guess they bought Playground Games for Horizon series, which physics model, at least in Horizon 3 felt quite arcadey. Forza Motosport 7 was... not very good. I wonder if talent left the building before MS bought them.

Playground only makes the Horizons. Turn 10 makes mainline Forza.
 

Freddie

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I guess they bought Playground Games for Horizon series, which physics model, at least in Horizon 3 felt quite arcadey. Forza Motosport 7 was... not very good. I wonder if talent left the building before MS bought them.

Playground only makes the Horizons. Turn 10 makes mainline Forza.
I forgot that. That leaves to wonder what is going to be Motorsports series future. Horizon and MP share models for cars and there also appear to be similar bugs caused by certain permissions in certain folders who aren't were they are supposed to be to begin with, in both games Horizon 3 and MP 7. Can't comment physics engine more than I already did, but there are folks on Forza forums who say physics engines has similarities, something gets in to MP may appear in Horizon and vice versa.

Horizon is hugely popular, more so than Motorsport series AFAIK and Infiltron posted about Fable series which MS also got. So it looks like they made pretty good deal. Then what corporate bureaucracy may cause to them remains to be seen.
 

Cross

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I for one am thankful Microsoft is concentrating all these shitty developers into one entity so I can more easily ignore them.
 

vonAchdorf

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Everyone is researching AI because it's the thing to do. Unity has added AI and machine learning to their engine as well.

Most AI / machine learning in games likely won't be used for what players think of when they hear "AI", but for other purposes.
 

Invictus

Arcane
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Divinity: Original Sin 2
Guess they learned their lesson from Nintendo and now Sony; it is the exclusives that make your console desirable and the first party studios of Sony are crushing Microsoft right now
Smallish developers like Undead Labs should receive a huge boon out of this because they will get a lot more funding and tech support but kind of worried about Team Ninja
 

toro

Arcane
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And this is the last time we will ever hear of them again ... and that's a really good thing. #bonvoyage
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
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Codex 2014
One of the main motivations behind these acquisitions of mid-sized studios: more games to Game Pass library: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2018-08-23-why-xbox-bought-ninja-theory

A bit about further acquisitions:

Microsoft will hope the same will be true of Game Pass; people come in for Sea of Thieves, but stick around for Hellblade. So with that in mind, is Microsoft keeping its cheque book out to buy more mid-tier studios? Or is the shopping done?

"I don't want to seem like we're going out to fill a quota," he says. "It's not about filling a spreadsheet by any means. We will, however, have an interest in studios right now that fit this criteria of 50 to 100 people, who are making games on a two to three year cadence, and have content that we think will be of interest to our Game Pass subscribers. That means content that is a little different to what our big AAA franchises can deliver.

Obsidian (180+) does not quite fit in that criteria, without layoffs that is.
 

Wirdschowerdn

Ph.D. in World Saving
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https://www.trueachievements.com/n3...ntertainment-reportedly-acquired-by-microsoft

Age of Empires Studio Relic Entertainment Reportedly Acquired by Microsoft
By Rebecca Smith, 3 hours ago

The next episode of Inside Xbox will be arriving on streaming services at the start of next month. While we don't know exactly when that will be, we do know that Age of Empires will be featuring in the episode because they have "some very exciting announcements" to make. While many believe that to be related to Age of Empires IV, or perhaps the Definitive Editions of Age of Empires II and Age of Empires III, one source known for his reliable Microsoft Studios leaks is hinting that the news will be another studio acquisition by Microsoft instead, and that Relic Entertainment will have joined the Microsoft Studios family.

Makes sense.
 

BrotherFrank

Nouveau Riche
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As a forner relic fanboi I'm not sure how to feel about that.

On one side they made dawn of war 1 (and 2 was allright if not as good as 1), and coh (once again, wasn't as fond of 2 though) which are rts classics. Impossible creatures was also an interesting experiment. With such a history behind them it would be a shame for the studio to just sink like a stone in water.

But they also made fucking dawn of war 3, and listened to starcraft 2 players, a sign that none of the greats behind their older games still work there and it's just a bunch of noobs using the relic name but not being worth of it, I don't have confidence they can find their touch again.

I guess microsoft can't fuck them over more then they already fucked themselves up.
 
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DJOGamer PT

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If those studios shutted down nothing of value would be lost. Specially Ninja Theory.
 

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