In a year of major acquisitions, Microsoft is continuing their shopping spree with the additions of Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and Star Wars: KOTOR II developer Obsidian and Wasteland franchise developer InXile Entertainment. One of these leaked about a month ago when Kotaku revealed that Obisidan and Microsoft were in final negotiations for the acquisition.
It looks like a deal was finally met as Obsidian will be making its way under the Microsoft banner. The Kotaku leak noted that there would be an emphasis on Microsoft’s PC gaming ventures so we could see more from both Obsidian and InXile in the PC space rather than exclusively Xbox titles. There’s no word on what either studio is working on just yet but perhaps we’ll hear more at E3 in June.
At E3 this year, Microsoft also announced they had acquired various studios like Forza Horizon dev Playground Games, Hellblade’s Ninja Theory (Hellblade joined Game Pass today as well), We Happy Few’s Compulsion Games, and State of Decay’s Undead Labs. They also announced a new studio known as The Initiative, a studio comprised of world-class talent from all over the industry from studios like Crystal Dynamics and more.
We don’t know of any new games these teams are working on but Playground Games is rumored to be developing something open world, possibly in the Fable series. We’ll keep crossing our fingers for more details at E3 this summer.
If we had to guess, these two new studios will help focus on PC games given that’s largely where their background stems from while the five studios announced at E3 will lead the charge on Xbox with 343 Industries and The Coalition. This is pure speculation but it would make sense for Microsoft to want to dedicate talent to PC AND Xbox rather than invest purely in their console.
It’s entirely possible for Obsidian and InXile’s new games to be for Xbox as well given Microsoft also announced Mouse and Keyboard support for Xbox One today.
