Microsoft Buy More Studios, Announce Phantasy Star Online 2
Microsoft used their E3 Press Conference to broadcast their growing dominance in game development, with the purchase of Lucas Arts spin off company, Double Fine Productions.
In the last year alone Xbox has added seven Development Studios to their family, more than making up for their shuttering of Xbox Entertainment Studios.
Phil Spencer, the chillest studio baron ever, now controls some of the premier game developers from Rare (Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Hollywood Squares, Jeopardy! Junior Edition, key Xbox Live Avatar items) to Ninja Theory (Academic texts debating the existence of Medieval Japanese Assassins) and Playground Games (Unannounced Fable Racing Title).
This year has seen the Xbox platform move forward in leaps and bounds. They have expanded to PC, and have now confirmed that they’re heading to the cloud, allowing them to finally eliminate the weakest element of the Xbox proposition, the Xbox One.
With a wealth of development talent behind him, Phil took the opportunity to announce the Xbox’s next big game, Phantasy Star Online 2. This Sega developed MMO, released in Japan in 2012, and coming to PlayStation, PC, PlayStation Vita, Android, iOS and Xbox in 2020 was a power move few expected. With so much of the development talent now being paid by Microsoft, there is no better time to release an eight year old MMO.
According to a growing body of industry chatter, 2020 is going to be the year of the PlayStation 5, the Xbox One Too and the Switch XL (Nintendo’s foray into Smart TVs). We look forward to a rejuvenated Xbox launching with a strong line up of games including Age of Empires 2, Another Halo and Minecraft 2077.
