OXMUK

Microsoft has sunk around one billion dollars into Xbox One games development, and a healthy chunk of that has gone towards acquiring development studios, such as Max and the Curse of Brotherhood developer Press Play, or founding studios, such as cloud gaming specialist Lift London. The manufacturer doesn't view an acquisition campaign as the safest way to consolidate its first-party line-up, however - according to Lionhead's creative director Gary Carr, it would rather developers approach it after completing "their journey".

"It was seven years ago when we got bought, and Microsoft hasn't bought many studios," Carr reflected. "It hasn't rushed in and grabbed any newbies, because it doesn't want to do that - it doesn't want to own lots of studios, because it knows that all too often, that's the death knell. If studios want to be bought that's fine."

That acquisition (or as the wags may prefer, "selling out") is the surest way to stunt your creative growth is one of our industry's more lingering myths. There's plenty of evidence in support of the idea, to be fair - heed the testimony of ex-EA man and Payday 2 developer David Goldfarb, for instance - but the activities of (e.g.) Dishonored developer Arkane Studios suggest that it's possible to dodge the bullet.

The Fable series could also be taken as proof of this. In the course of the franchise's nine year life, Lionhead has experimented with the notion of dynamic moral alignments, plots that hinge on the player becoming a monarch, Kinect-powered cart-driving, scrappy, arts-and-crafty dungeon crawling and, latterly, co-op questing in which one player appears as the evil fantasy villain.

Lionhead originally joined Microsoft because it didn't have the resources to fund the games it wanted to make, Carr continued. "I think Lionhead was at the point where it wanted to be acquired, so that it could move onto the next phase. We could see where it was going, and how expensive game development was becoming, and the reality was that we were trying to stay at the triple-A, high-end development edge, and that was because we'd evolved to that point.

"If you look at games like Black & White, that was as cutting edge as you could get at that time. If you want to stay at that level, it's very difficult to remain indie. But we were happy making simple games like Theme Park and Theme Hospital, quite cheap to develop games, ten years earlier. That to me is as important as something like a Black & White or a Fable.

"So I don't think that Microsoft wants to buy studios, because I think it wants them to go on their journey," he concluded. "And if they're ready to be acquired, or ready to take more robust funding from a big corporation, I think Microsoft lets developers come to them."

http://www.oxm.co.uk/61355/microsoft-doesnt-just-want-to-buy-developers-says-lionhead-boss-because-thats-the-death-knell/

That's what a lot of people don't get, M$ isn't looking to start and own a bunch of studios, they would rather out source it.

By the way, Welcome Back.

Nsanity : Oops, Guess we'll see you in another 5 days.  Guess you better not have an opinion when you come back.

saying sony fans have nothing better to do on a sunday isnt an "opinion" its an attack.

@OT: i get what these guys are saying, that MS shouldnt just buy devs for the sake of buying. and i agree, its better for a publisher like MS/Sony/Nintendo to get work close with a dev and help develop their talent and increase their teams, then buy them if their working relationship works. thats what Sony did with GG, sucker punch, and many more and they seem to be doing so with quantic dream and ready at dawn. MS seem to be doing the same with Remedy as well

The thing is there are many people that feel MS isn't doing this quickly enough not realizing that it took time for Sony and Nintendo to do the same.

I agree that is a method that can be used and M$ has used it.  I think that their experience with many different things leads them to outsource a lot of things.  From a shareholder perspective, I would want them to outsource.  They are not locked into anything if they don't like the game or how the studio is working = a lot less risk.  Better to spread the money around to many developers and see if it works out = safer investment.  Because we don't have ANY knowledge of the actual contracts that M$ signs, we don't know if in a number of cases that they have options to buy the IP if they want or even the developer.  All of these are things that could be happening, we just don't know.

Yes, if that's an attack, then they better close all the threads.  Almost every other response is a marginal "attack" from an opposing persons perspective.  The only way a generic comment like his is taken as an insult or attack is if a mod or a person responding has a hyper  sensitivity to anything that doesn't support Sony.  He made an observation based on the feed back in the threads, therefore it was an opinion.  He didn't make his remark directed to anyone.  I think that everyone is just a little to touchy and needs to relax the whole taking sides about something as silly as he said.

^This!

Certainly see how the most exciting game coming out within the next it is ReSpawn's TitanFall.  Sure they could have purchased it, but with the deal the have the developers have had the freedom to make something that is capturing the world's attention.

There are plenty of other first party developers working on all sorts of cool things.  But one shines above all others.

Sony's top developers are Sony made internal studios. Microsoft is learning from Sony,actually. Don't buy a company with a opposite method for development that doesn't match your code of productivity. Create them from within. Sony has majorly been purchasing close second party. Microsoft created Turn 10 which has been their most successful home-grown company. 343 was created with a purpose and that is to finish the job Bungie started. As for Back Tusk they are working on yet another shooter. Hopefully its good. Quite frankly, I am getting tired of all the shooter IP's, even though I like some of the established ones. There are just too many though. 

*makes witty remark about buying Nokia*