Grubb basically said we know Xbox's 2022 and that what we know is what is listed internally with the exception of some titles smaller than Stalker 2 so that would be Redfall, Starfield and Forza Motorsport being the only major titles for 2022 and those three are all in the 2nd half of the year. Of course Starfield will be huge but Microsoft 1st half is looking barren.

This is where they should use 3rd parties to cover their gap, no matter what it costs, otherwise I could see a dip in subscriber count for Game Pass in early 2022, stuff like MLB and Outriders were a nice start but they are on the small side in terms of reach, they should go for Dying Light 2 at minimum for 2022, a franchise with 17m+ players, I doubt it will happen but Elden Ring should be a target too, likely cost a ton but take that short-term hit until 1st party can cover you.

In an ideal world, Dying Light 2 would move to April and Elden Ring sticks to Feb, Microsoft gets them both into Game Pass, Lol. I'm doubting it will happen though, even Dying Light 2 is a huge jump from something like MLB, B4B and Outriders, likely bigger than them all combined, Lol.

Agreed that it is unlikely but did Grubb actually say that? Wasn't that something to do with EA? IIRC I heard Elden Ring pulled out of Xbox's E3 for marketing reasons, they wanted to be the last reveal on the show and Xbox wouldn't budge on that so they went with Geoff's show instead.

This keeps getting longer, Lol.

At least it won't be a short gen.

I 100% expect in 12 months the same people will be saying chip shortages to last until 2024.

Agreed. I also hope that these 4 player co-op focused exclusives like Redfall and Contraband feel like they are almost completely playable solo, or that they have the option for AI controlled teammates.

All of these studios I would either already consider AAA, have worked on AAA in the past, believe they can easily scale up to AAA or are already confirmed AAA.

• Asobo Studios
• Avalanche Studios Group (4 Studios)
• Bungie (600+ Employees)
• Behaviour Interactive (850+ Employees)
• Certain Affinity (250+ Employees)
• Frontier Developments (680+ Employees)
• Gravity Well Games (Confirmed AAA)
• Humanoid Studios (Hiring AAA Experience)
• IO Interactive (3 Studios)
• Kojima Productions
• Larian Studios (7 Studios)
• People Can Fly (8 Studios)
• ProbablyMonster's Cauldron Studio (Confirmed AAA)
• Rebellion (300+ Employees)
• Remedy
• Techland (400+ Employees)
• Turtle Rock Studios
• That's No Moon (Confirmed AAA)
• Unnamed ProbablyMonster's Studio (Confirmed AAA)

Sony in a year alone announced partnerships with 3 AAA studios that nobody had ever heard of prior; Deviation, Firewalk and Haven - They were all made fairly recently by former veterans of other studios, Microsoft would be wise to partner with any of the following; Gravity Well Games, Humanoid Studios, Cauldron Studio, That's No Moon, as an example of some new studios set up by former veterans of other studios who don't yet have an announced partner.

Then we still have stuff like Mainframe Games out of nowhere, another AAA studio, a lot of the studios in my list are American/UK and I haven't even really looked into studios in other locations such as Japan or certain European countries, as above, Mainframe is an AAA studio across Finland and Iceland, not locations we often look at but showing that they can pop up anywhere.

And we also have the fact that some publishers aren't above straight up loaning their studios out, Sega did it with Creative Assembly and Relic Entertainment, Square Enix is doing it with Crystal Dynamics, Embracer Group is doing it with plenty of their studios because Embracer is essentially a holding group who doesn't care, as long as the money is coming in, Crytek also.

Even Tencent I don't think cares too much, I think someone like Sumo Digital could easily still work with other publishers, I'm unsure on Splash Damage, they now have the funding to go their own way but if they actually like working with Microsoft I could see that partnership continue, I doubt Tencent will get in the way of that.

That's sorta a positive of Embracer Group and Tencent acquisitions, they're extremely hands off, the only thing that changes is the studio now has more funding but if someone actually still wanted to work with Microsoft then Tencent and Embracer are unlikely to get in the way of that but you're unlikely to see EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Take-Two lend out their studios.

Can we get another reminder tomorrow before the show? My Monday's can be a bitch and I can easily get sidetracked. Thanks.

What?!

Wtf is at the 20th Anniversary then, Lmao, nothing?

Excited, it's about time.