Xbox Game Studios har vuxit kraftigt senaste tiden och består idag av hela 15 studios. Den senaste som köptes upp var Double Fine, vilket avslöjades under E3 i somras. Sedan dess har det varit lugnt, trots att Xbox-chefen Phil Spencer tidigare sagt att han gärna skulle vilja köpa en asiatisk utvecklare. I en intervju hos Eurogamer, passade de i samband med X019 på att fråga om Spencer är klar med uppköpen nu. Han svarade:
"No! I do think we can sometimes get a little infatuated with putting a bunch of studio logos on a slide and that becomes the news. They're not trading cards. They're studios. And we want them to build great games. I love the fact we're here announcing three new IP, two from our internal studios. As I look forward, there's not a show I can look at where we're not gonna be announcing new games, just because of the breadth of studios we have. It's not really some kind of PR battle about how many new acquisitions we can put on stage. Because if we're not building great games, the acquisitions don't matter. But are we done? I don't think so."
Det leder ju såklart till frågan vad de egentligen letar efter. Och det visar sig att Spencer fortfarande är sugen på att köpa en asiatisk utvecklare:
"I look at the geographic diversity of our studios. I love the fact we now have three studios here in the UK. You can go back decades... you could argue the UK is as strong as any country in terms of its impact on the history of video games. I love that we're here in such strength. Now we have studios in Canada, studios in other parts of the US. I think we have a hole in Asia. I've said that both to Matt and publicly. I would love to have more of an influence in our own first-party team from Asian creators. There's nothing that's imminent, so it's not a pre-announce of something. But if you just plotted where we are on the map with our first-party, that's a real opportunity for us."
Spencer avslutar sitt resonemang med att säga att Microsoft just nu jobbar med att stärka relationerna med asiatiska utvecklare, och att detta tar tid, men att de ändå bör ha en egen studio även i denna världsdel:
"I love the fact we can stand here and announce Yakuza and Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy coming. That's through third-party relationships, which take time. And we've been really focused on that. But I think we could have stronger first-party creation capability there. We have in the past and I think we should again."
Finns det någon asiatisk utvecklare som du tycker hade varit ett särskilt bra uppköp för Microsoft?
