Obsidian and inXile Join Microsoft Studios

by Matt Booty, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Studios:
"As part of our commitment to bringing a steady stream of new, exclusive games to our fans, I’m excited to announce Microsoft’s intent to acquire two new game development studios – Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment."

[Spurg]

2 great rpg studios
Inxile-
Torment: Tides of Numenera
Wasteland
Bard's tale

Obsidian Entertainment-
Fallout new vegas
Star wars knight of the old republic 2
Alpha protocol

That makes a lot of new studios Ms have acquired and their future and commitment in this industry is clear.
343 industry
The Coalition
Turn 10
Rare
Mojang
Ninja theory
Playground games
The initiative
Compulsion games
Undead Labs
Inxile
Obsidian Entertainment

[Alexious]

Indeed. Though perhaps they should have gone with one great JRPG studio to diversify more.

[The 10th Rider]

Aren't Japanese companies really averse to being bought out by foreign companies or something like that?

[UnHoly_One]

Plus JRPG’s are terrible. :D

Just one man’s opinion, don’t lose your minds.

[Skull521]

When you’re right, you’re right.

[NewMonday]

Obsidian is a great catch, if they give them funds to make AAA graphics there is a 90% chance I will buy the next Xbox .

they should let them make Fable.

And if Obsidian teams up with Ninja theory there is a 200% chance I will buy the next Xbox.

[mikeslemonade]

Good now convince to buy a Xbox by keeping these games fully exclusive. That includes not putting it out on PC.

[Atom666]

Now it's really starting to be impressive.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

It not how many studios that matter. What will matter is how MS/Xbox uses its "family" of first-party studios. MS reps have repeatedly stated the new studios are independent from each other, thus,creative freedom of the different studios is implied.

[Jinger]

Which is a good thing. That way all their games don't start feeling similar too each other... Lord knows we don't need all games to become 3rd person emotional cinematic games. Sony has us covered there

[agent4532]

I am a bit skeptical for Microsoft has a track record of running amazing game studios to the ground. Those studios were:

Mistwalker Studios
Lionhead
Rare

Microsoft needs to let their studios to do the games they love not keep them making the same franchise over and over which is why Biggie left.

[The 10th Rider]

@agent4532,

By Biggie I assume you mean Bungie? That is why they left, but I still find that really weird because they then want on to sign a 10 year franchise agreement with Activision of all people, lol.

"We're tired of working on the same franchise, so we're excited to announce we've left Microsoft and signed a deal with Activision to lock us down on our next franchise for the next ten years!"

[Zabatsu2]

InXiles games are crap though. Obsidian was a Good catch, but is anybody really surprised about that one? They've been butbudies för a long time. Was finally time to put the ring on it. Would rather see MS buy some real quality studios, that's not going downhill. MS doesn't have the best trackrecord of fixing bad management.

[Jinger]

InXile is crap? What? Lol

[Zabatsu2]

@Jinger, yes, crap compared to other studios that could have been bought. Simple as that. They're little fish just to fill up the pond. MS could spend those dollars on a lot better studio.

[conanlifts]

Wasteland has quite a cult following. Its not my type of game, but at least I recognise it is great for it's genre. They are a reasonable developer.

[conanlifts]

"@Jinger, yes, crap compared to other studios that could have been bought. Simple as that. They're little fish just to fill up the pond. MS could spend those dollars on a lot better studio. "

The games from these studios range from average to excellent. Wasteland 2, fallout new vegas and Pillars of eternity are examples of great to excellent games with meta scores from 84-90. Now imagine what they could do with increased resources. They are buying capable studios in the hope of making them great. Plus lets not forget they already expanded playground games and created a new AAA studio. For me this was a very good announcement. Plus we have no idea yet if they are finished. They could easily add or create a few new studios and announce them next E3.

[Clark88]

It would have been better if they acquired Capcom or some other big third party studio

[King_Noctis]

Are you implying Obsidian, Playground games, and Ninja Theory are not “real quality” studio? Oh and Inxile is crab? That is some reaching there. With MS’ cash, they gonna produce even much better games.

[Glak18]

Obviously you are more of a casual gamer if you think inXile is crap. Wasteland, Torment and The Bard's Tale? This just proves you only controller and know very little about gaming.

[gangsta_red]

Wasteland 2 was awesome and i think part 3 was announced.

As for Torment: Tides of Numenera ...well, that game seriously sucked.

[conanlifts]

My issue from this developer is too much text. Less reading in their games would be good.

[TedCruzsTaint]

It was great from a roleplaying and player agency perspective. The combat was lame though, and the art was less than amazing. I still really enjoyed it though.

[Vegamyster]

Obsidian was hit by layoffs in 2011 & 2012, they missed their bonus from Bethesda on New Vegas. A lot of the guys that made those three games aren't there anymore hence why they've been making smaller budget games like Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, ect.

[Ulf]

Pillars was probably Obsidian's finest work.

[Vegamyster]

I'm not arguing the quality but they're not on the same scale, it's kinda disingenuous to use those three bigger budget games instead of their recent work which weren't as big especially given news of how Pillars of Eternity 2 flopped pretty hard. I hope they do well given their current financial woes, i want them to see what they can do with a larger budget.

[Ausbo]

The reason they’ve been making smaller games is Microsoft cancelled a big launch title from them. Supposed to be a AAA RPG. That hit them hard and they almost had to close. So In a sense Microsoft screwed them over and then saved them.

However, there’s new management with Microsoft (Phil, booty), so maybe everything is all better now

[Sophisticated_Chap]

Microsoft is now a true competitor in the game development space. This is pretty exciting. Looking forward to seeing what next gen holds for MS. Now all they need to complete the pie, is to buy Remedy.

[UltraNova]

To truly be considered as a competitor you first need to put up a worthy fight, in this case produce some great games first. The best approach here is to keep expectations at bay until MS delivers the fight.

[ConsoleGamer]

Yeah they are potentially a true competitor. But they have to constantly deliver awesome AAA games and not low effort gamws like sea of thieves, state of decay and probably crackdown 3

[conanlifts]

I wonder if they are done or whether they will announce any more next E3? A couple more additions would certainly be welcome. Plus as I mentioned above, both of the new studios release a new game every 1-2 years, so they have the ability to keep the games coming, which is fantastic. Not to mention how gamepass suddenly looks like a must have purchase for any gamer next gen.

[ThinkThink]

Instead of acquiring more studios, maybe they should just add on more teams like they did with playground games.

[conanlifts]

@ThinkThink. I agree this would be good, but it is more risky, which is probably why they are not doing it as much. They are purchasing established studios for their talent and ideas as much as anything else. But it would be good if they expanded their current studies as well.

[King_Noctis]

I feel like there gonna be some more announcement regarding studio acquisitions, as they need more to boost their Gamepass service. It is looking like they are talking Gamepass very seriously, and I hope it will become the Netflix of gaming.

[-Foxtrot]

Well...there’s the final nail for a spiritual successor to New Vegas

Oh well

[Spurg]

Did you actually think Bethesda and Obsidian's relationship were tip top after the review debacle?

[-Foxtrot]

Hey you never know

There was a chance...more then now

[TedCruzsTaint]

Bethesda weren't going to let that happen. They've been a bit bitter at the fact that, years later, fans of the series consider New Vegas the better release over Fallout 3.
Then look what they did to the series with 4.

[Vegamyster]

TedCruzsTaint

I don't think that really mattered, i think the problem was the financial situation Obsidian was in at that point which wasn't great and they laid off a bunch of people. Given how New Vegas was already a pretty buggy product regardless of how good the game was minus those issues, it wouldn't make sense for Bethesda from a business perspective to green light another product with a studio that's been scaled down and is having issues.

[King_Noctis]

If Bethesda really wanted another Fallout New Vegas, then we would already got one and not that bullcrap Fallout 76.

Plus, Obsidian is known for developing multiple projects at once. So who know. Maybe they might have a game similar to Fallout planned in the future.

[Obscure_Observer]

Phil Spencer is the man!

[Retroman]

@ spurg

MS should have done this in the beginning with original Xbox.
with those foremention Dev hope not all of them developing open world only games.
except Turn 10 and Rare.

[crazyCoconuts]

Nice to see them put their money where their mouth is. I'm starting to see a future where I might come back to Xbox.

[TGGJustin]

2 Great RPGs studios? Lol sorry but nothing Inxile has made is great. All of their games are average at best.

[ThinkThink]

Your opinion has been noted, and disagreed with. Imagine these studios with bigger budgets and even more resources. Next gen is looking pretty exciting.

[TedCruzsTaint]

Wasteland 2 won multiple awards, and Tides, while the combat was pretty lackluster, was fantastic on the roleplaying and player choice aspect.

[King_Noctis]

Torment got 81% on Metacritic. That is not the definition of average to me, especially when we have people here proclaiming that games like Detroit which got 78 on Metacritic deserve GOTY.

[starchild]

I don't agree. They've made some great games. Especially Wasteland 2.

[Strafe]

This is why thisgengaming.com is shit. You have people like TGGJustin, and he's a complete spanner.

[TheSaint]

Honestly, how many of them do you expect to survive long enough to release a game?

[Kavorklestein]

Honestly? All of them

[King_Noctis]

Yeah what is the point of acquiring them without closing them first before they release any game?

N4G’s logic is awesome.

[jznrpg]

Inxile is a decent rpg company I wouldn’t call it great . Obsidian is a much better company but they don’t own any of those IPs

[King_Noctis]

Uhh...they own games like Pillar of Eternity and Tyranny which are some of their best games.

[Euphemism]

Alpha protocol was so buggy, we can only hope that with Microsoft's funds they can release a game bug free.

I preferred FO3 over Vegas, another bug ridden game. Anf no one gonna pretend now "oh yeah! Gonna buy me an Xbox because of inxile upcoming games..."

These acquisitions are made to enlarge the gamepass portfolio. Eventually they're adfind older titles from them to the list.

No one will buy an Xbox because of the new studios ... the main reason for getting an box will remain untouched : Halo, gears and førza.

Rare is Ded, the new two studios are too PC centric and Mojang will keep working on Minecraft forever.

Playground's RPG will be the first game made by Microsoft that has me interested.

[ILostMyMind]

A lot of RIP will have to be given.

[King_Noctis]

To Sony fanboys today? Yeah you are right.

[King_Noctis]

There are alot of salty people today. Its kindda like they wished MS wouldn’t announce any studio acquisition at this event lol.

[shaggy2303]

Haters gonna hate.

[Lilrizky]

The guys who make Ori, Moon studios I think is owned by Microsoft too, though I could be wrong. Either way they are an excellent dev too.

[Christopher]

If they're allowed to continue making the games they have, I'll buy them on Xbox if that's the only place I can get them on consoles. Obsidian has been one of the most solid teams for CRPGs since the late 90s.

I do hope this doesn't mean PoE2 isn't cancelled for PS4. I don't think I'll rebuy it on a third platform just to carry over the save. I'll probably just pick it up on PC and play from my laptop if that's the case, though not preferable.

Inxile is okay. I really hated the Numenera ruleset implementation into the sequel to my favorite game of all time (which, coincidentally, was made by now Obisidian employees and Chris Avellone). Wasteland was good. Bard's Tale is a classic, but not great. So, if these guys leave behind bad rulesets or at least implement them in a manner where I don't feel like every choice I do is at the expense of extremely limited point pool (most decisions in a PnP game would have been roleplayed, but in CRPG, they decided to have them cost points for the most basic of decisions).

[iofhua]

Microsoft won't do anything with these IP's. They are dead and won't be seen in the gaming world for maybe another 20+ years.

Eventually someone in the far future will buy the IP back from Microsoft for pennies on the dollar and do something with it again.

Microsoft doesn't make games. Microsoft entombs games.

[jordan22290ps]

I'm Playstation all the way but it's pretty stupid how you're gonna get a bunch of down votes for saying a clear and innocuous thing like that.

[Glak18]

I know where you are going with this, but at least get the games right. YES, Obsidian developed the games you listed and own Alpha Protocol, they do not own New Vegas or KotOR. How you can leave out PoE or Tyranny is a bit mind boggling.

This is what MS bought for current IPs:
Torment (inXile)
Wasteland (inXile)
The Bard's Tale (inXile)
Alpha Protocol (Obsidian)
Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian)
Tyranny (Obsidian)

This is a great acquisition for the PC side, the problem is casual console gamers do not like these games...too much reading and thinking and being creative and stuff.

[Christopher]

Just FYI, Torment is owned by Brian Fargo specifically. If he leaves, he could take it with him or sell it to the company. After Interplay/Black Isles went away, he maintained it through an LLC with him as signer of the holding. There's been no registration update that says he's moved it to Microsoft or inXile to date.

[NoWayOut]

You're absolutely right

[xRacer74x]

Obsidian did the excellent South park stick of truth as well.

[xX-oldboy-Xx]

All studios shadows of their former self - bar a few and I mean a few.

[Master of Unlocking]

Sweet Jesus, are you on Microsoft's payroll or what???

[THC CELL]

Classic ms as always.

[Imalwaysright]

Publishers buying studios is something perfectly normal in this industry.