What’s Next For Xbox?

Well, that was a surprise I wasn’t expecting yesterday morning. If you haven’t read Samuel’s article this morning, Microsoft are in the process of buying out all of Activision-Blizzard|King, with the deal expected to close in 2023. I’ll make no mistake in saying, this is a big shift in the landscape of gaming, not only because it is leading Microsoft itself to look at its policies on misconduct in the workplace but the overall shift this brings to the market. This is a major publisher buying another major publisher. Meanwhile, the ZeniMax deal was seen as a major publisher buying a smaller company and that was a shift.

So while we real from everything that has just happened, I want to ask what is next? Not for Activision-Blizzard, I don’t really care unless they allow Sony to remaster Spider-Man 2 from the PS2, which ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. What is next for Microsoft, or more specifically, the catalog that is being built for the Xbox division of Microsoft. It isn’t easy to predict what is next, as anyone who has ever tried only has at best a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Everything that I am about to say isn’t something to be held in stone. I also won’t be stupid enough to say “Microsoft buys Sony next,” I’m stupid, but not that stupid.

What is next for Xbox? Going through the process of finalizing this deal by the start of 2023 is the obvious answer, alongside reviewing policies to further embrace the company most recently marred by several lawsuits on workplace conduct. A little further down the line, we can expect something else, something akin to the ZeniMax deal or the ABK deal, maybe not as big but surely something. Now, yesterday when this was announced Alexx (our editor-in-chief) and I spent a good 20-30 minutes hypothesizing things about franchises. Please Uncle Phil, let Sony work on a remake of the best Spider-Man game, please!

In that conversation, we even talked about what company Microsoft goes after next? It may be out of the park and on another planet in terms of ridiculous ideas, but Microsoft for a few E3s now have been pushing to break further into the Asian market, or Sony’s backyard as it were. I don’t think they are stupid enough to attempt to buy Nintendo, again. That is a company that will stay where it is until it dies in several thousand years alongside the heat-death of the universe. I wouldn’t say Konami would be out of the question, however.

As a gaming company, Konami isn’t doing much these days. However, as a gambling merchant and distributor of one anime franchise that I like, because you say D thirty-six times before you finish the word Duel, they are in business. Is it still a far-out idea? Yes, wholeheartedly. Do I also think it is possible? Microsoft just announced they are buying Activision-Blizzard|King, I’d say it is a little more possible after that, given the deal was billions and this comes after Take-Two bought a mobile/Facebook game developer for just over $11-Billion. You wave around another $30-50 billion to anyone willing to sell up, Konami will bend over backwards to take it.

Some suggested EA as the big acquisition, which could happen given the size but I don’t think it is entirely productive to do that. Sure, once you do it you’ll have Bethesda and Bioware under one roof making western RPGs about elves you sleep with, but something about it doesn’t fit. Remember, the ZeniMax deal was done back in 2020-21, doing such a big deal with EA or even Take-Two as I’ve heard some suggest so soon after this would seem bizarre in some way. Microsoft wants to make money, not just throw all of it at other companies to buy up the market share.

My other suggestion, based on the Activision-Blizzard|King deal, was Ubisoft. It is a similarly maligned company for its series of sexual misconduct cases up and down the company, but also not too large to rock the boat into capsizing. With a wealth of IP and studios, it fits the mold that Activision-Blizzard are making here, and as we’ve seen with E3 showcases, Microsoft loves buying studios to expand their platform beyond Halo, Gears of War, and whatever else a mid-2000s male college student would play all night long with a focus on multiplayer.

If there is one way to characterize the top three console sellers, it is story-driven experiments (in the gaming sense), multiplayer-focused gunfights, and well-refined family fun. Each of course being, in order, Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. With these acquisitions by Microsoft for the Xbox label, it looks as if the company wants to shift away from the focus on multiplayer and expand into being known for Game Pass. It is trite to say it, but Microsoft and Xbox want to make the shift that Netflix did when it sold you DVDs and moved to Streaming.

The trouble with that movement going forward is that it isn’t something that would conceivably take long to catch up. At least the same way we’ve seen with the likes of Disney and HBO playing catch up with Amazon and Netflix, Sony is already making its shift to transform your PlayStation Plus subscription while Microsoft is still assembling the infinity stones. To make a cluttered metaphor. These acquisitions by Microsoft are building up the Game Pass catalog to be something you can’t ignore if you want to play games on a budget.

Arguably right now, the cheapest way to play games is done one of two ways: You buy a decent PC and wait for a Steam sale to snatch up all the indies you want, or you buy an Xbox Series X/S and get Game Pass. PlayStation is lagging in that regard, and it shows with 25-million subscriptions to Game Pass, as their leading titles cost $70 each on the newest console and you have no other option. While some argue I’m not talking enough about Nintendo in this race, the Switch and Nintendo is a whole other kettle of fish. You don’t hear of Nintendo buying up studios the same way because they do their own thing.

Conceivably, Microsoft’s next buy could be any number of publishers. I still think there is worth in looking to the east, either in terms of a large publisher or smaller publisher like Koei Tecmo or Marvelous. The company for a number of years has pushed for Japanese releases, notably the remake of Tales of Vesperia at E3 2019, to expand their audience beyond the typical male college student I joked about a moment ago. It may not be their next purchase, but I do think at least one Japanese company is on the internal memo for their next buy.

Equally, I think there is room to talk about other publishers like Annapurna Interactive, Focus, Team17, Paradox, even Embracer (Formally THQ Nordic AB). The thing is, I’m not saying any of these will or won’t happen in the absolute, anything could happen. The point is we’re looking at what is next, and the most important thing throughout all of this isn’t who it is but what it is for. Going forward, what is next for Microsoft’s gaming division and Xbox as a whole is Game Pass and the attempted expansion into a wider audience than their stereotype. Each publisher and each region has a different way of embracing gaming culture.

Such a large portion of Japanese titles are historically visual novel and JRPG-based, a number of French games focus on the story because historically the audience wants one, and many other niches are based on demographics. I’ll say it again, Microsoft wants to walk into Sony and Nintendo’s backyard but it is has had trouble getting over the fence thus far. A big enough acquisition with the right demographic could lift them over that fence and put them further into the garden-party conversations they have been shut out of for so long.