Buying game studios is a “natural and healthy part” of the industry, according to Xbox boss
Phil Spencer defends the acquisitions as a positive development, following the purchase of Housemarque by PlayStation.
Xbox’s purchase of Bethesda in late 2020 opened the debate on acquisitions within the video game industry, with people in favor and people against these purchases. And, the truth is that acquisitions are very common in her. Just in the last 6 months, Nintendo has bought Luigi’s Mansion studio , EA has taken over Codemasters, and just yesterday we learned that Housemarque is now owned by PlayStation . In the wake of the latter, Phil Spencer has spoken to IGN about studio buys in the industry , and has made his position clear.
Creating a new study is a very risky propositionPhil SpencerFaced with the position that studio purchases are bad for the industry in general, Spencer explains that ” creating a new studio , well, creating any small business, honestly, is a very risky proposition , and creating a video game studio is still risky. More. And if a team takes the risk of creating a new studio, and they grow on it, they increase its value … to say that they shouldn’t sell it is, in my opinion, to be unscrupulous . “
The Xbox manager explains that creating a studio and making it become a valuable team is part of the reasons why someone creates a studio first. Of course, Spencer is aware that not all studios have to sell , and that most studios don’t succeed in a big way. But the fact that successful studios grow, develop, and can be acquired by a larger company ” is a natural and healthy part of our industry .”
“Getting to the point where you offer real value is a risky journey. I will always congratulate teams when they demonstrate their value through an acquisition, or by independently achieving massive success,” he explains, referring to to his congratulations to PlayStation for yesterday’s purchase . “It is the natural course of things for entrepreneurs and emerging businesses. And for our part, we are always looking for where to expand our first-party capacity, and paying attention to the teams that we think can be a good fit with us.”
Nobody doubted it, but with these words it is clear that Phil Spencer sees the purchases of studies as something positive for the sector. In the case of Xbox, the purchase of Bethesda has given us an E3 2021 conference full of announcements, including the launch date of Starfield , exclusive to the Microsoft ecosystem, as well as Arkane’s new game, RedFall , also exclusive. And outside of Bethesda, those in Redmond have announced a new Forza Horizon 5 coming this year .
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