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!"

[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.

[TheRealTedCruz]

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.

[PowerOfTheCloud]

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

[TheRealTedCruz]

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.

[TheRealTedCruz]

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.

[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.

[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.

[zackeroniii]

Yeah shows how talentless microsoft is to develop their own studios and how easily microsoft's sheep believes and thinks these moves are actually going to make microsoft better...how miraculous

[Sono421]

Damn MS really making moves, maybe next gen will actually be intersting, I cancelled my GamesPass due to nothing interesting to keep me paying for it, but them adding all these new titles and if they add all the games these new studios are going to be making to games pass, i'm completely sold, I think in concept the GamesPass is a great deal, if NIntendo and Sony had one I would get it in a heart beat.

[x_xavier_x]

Classic THC CELL as always.

[ghostrider32]

First, it was MS need more first party studios. Now it's a problem. There really is no winning with you people. I see why most publishers don't listen to their fans. Gamers whine just for the sake of it like anime fans.

[lxeasy]

@ghostrider32 couldn't agree more

[aconnellan]

Lol right

“MS needs to invest in first party!”

*buys and creates 7 first party studios in the last 6 months*

“Lol classic MS, can’t believe they’re buying studios”

[Kavorklestein]

How dare they spend billions trying to get new games developed and help struggling developers have strong financial backing? The nerve of those guys, I mean what were they thinking?
/S

[CJQNSNYC]

It's NOT a problem.

You forget, this site isn't as much a gaming news site as it is a Sony fan and appreciation site. ANY positive statement about Microsoft will instantly get shot down no matter what it is. The very definition of bias. Sony has been doing very well for itself and it's fans. A very large percentage of those fans DO NOT want there to be any competition whatsoever.

One company doesn't have to fail in order for the other to thrive.

[Bane35]

I agree thats because xbox is the black sheep this generation hopefully next gen will be better for them