I mean, EA holding BioWare to deadlines is pretty standard practice. Obviously some publishers are more willing to delay games when development goes off track, but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect a publisher to just give a studio unlimited time.
And as for Anthem, Andromeda and Veilguard, if you’re agreeing that a lot of the problems with those games ultimately came from BioWare’s own internal decisions, doesn’t that kind of support my point that they aren’t exactly a great studio by modern standards? I’d absolutely agree they have a legendary legacy, despite not being a fan of their old games, but that’s different from saying the current BioWare is still one of the industry’s elite developers.
You can argue EA should have done more to preserve BioWare’s talent or provided more oversight, and I’d probably agree to an extent. But it’s also kind of a lose-lose situation for EA. If they intervene heavily and the game still turns out shit, everyone says EA meddled too much and ruined BioWare’s creative process. If they give BioWare more freedom and the game still turns out shit, then EA gets blamed for not providing enough oversight.
At some point, you have to acknowledge that BioWare itself has to take responsibility for its recent output. That’s ultimately why I’d be more interested in the Mass Effect and Dragon Age IP than I would be in BioWare purely for its current development talent.
Agree 100%. I think it’s a lot like Microsoft’s dilemma with games like Redfall. Realistically they should have cancelled it or at least intervened to make changes. But if it had been cancelled, it would be the brilliant lost project that would have been perfect if not for MS screwing everything up (see: Scalebound).
The problems with Mass Effect Andromeda and Veilguard are on BioWare staff. I’m a BioWare stan and I can’t even blame publisher meddling because BW management screwed up those games all on their own.
The famous story about Anthem is that EA insisted on the Iron Man-style flight when BioWare was considering removing it. So the only part of the game that was universally well received was the result of EA’s “meddling.”
To quote Wiki, EA demanded they drop their own engine and use Frostbite which caused huge issues with Anthem:
"Furthermore, the team continued to struggle with the Frostbite engine, as EA’s management under Patrick Söderlund wanted all its studios using the same technology. Frostbite was not originally designed for the purposes that the team had in mind for Anthem.
BioWare had difficulty transitioning some of the systems they had built for Dragon Age and Mass Effect into Anthem - leading to the team scrapping some of their gameplay concepts like survival and crafting.
Some of the BioWare team familiar with Frostbite were moved to support the FIFA series in 2016 when it transitioned to the Frostbite Engine, leaving fewer to help with Anthem"
I mean, I think one of Phil’s biggest issues when running Xbox was that he was obsessed with trying to look like the good guy. He wanted Xbox to come across as the saviour of gaming, which to a degree makes sense — if I’m not mistaken, he has a communications degree — but the reality is that to run a healthy business, sometimes you have to be willing to look like the bad guy and make unpopular decisions.
That’s honestly why I respect EA to a certain degree. I don’t like all of their games — I’m not really a sports game fan, although I have a soft spot for Battlefield and The Sims — but at least EA has never really pretended to be your friend. They act like a company that wants to make money, because that’s ultimately what they are. Other publishers have done that too, like Activision before Microsoft’s acquisition, but EA has always felt like one of the more honest companies about that fact.
Obviously that doesn’t mean I agree with everything EA does, but I’d rather a company be upfront about its incentives than try to convince me every decision they’re making is purely for the benefit of gamers.
I’m not completely sure on the validity of that, so I’d need to see the original source, but if it’s true then that’s genuinely a pretty bad decision from EA.
I can understand the logic behind standardising the engines used across development. It can make things more efficient and allow employees to move between projects more easily, especially if a franchise underperforms and a studio’s focus needs to shift. We have seen examples of that historically, like the Dead Space team working on Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Having employees already familiar with the same technology obviously makes that kind of transition easier.
The problem is that not every game is built for the same engine. An engine being great for one type of game doesn’t mean it’s automatically the best choice for another, and Frostbite may of not being designed around the kind of RPG BioWare was trying to build with Anthem.
I know I criticise Phil quite a lot, but I’ll give him credit here: he generally didn’t force the studios Microsoft acquired to abandon their existing technology and move onto some standardised Microsoft/Xbox engine. That’s actually something I’m slightly concerned about with Asha Sharma. While I’ve been relatively positive about some of her short-term moves, I do worry about whether she’ll eventually push something like DOOM onto Unreal Engine despite id Tech being one of the best proprietary engines in the industry.
I’d much rather Microsoft let studios use whatever technology makes the most sense for the games they’re actually trying to make, rather than standardising everything just for the sake of standardisation.
This is the original source of the Wiki page - it’s an article where they interviewed 19 of the developers involved, Frostbite came in for particular criticism as it had been designed for FIFA and its other sports games and similar games, not open worlds which is why the loading times were so bad and the areas quite small, as in FIFA it takes a while to load but then it’s just the pitch, stadium and players…
Fair enough, though. This is genuinely a poor decision from EA, and I don’t think you can just dismiss the Frostbite problems. If the engine wasn’t designed with the kind of open-world RPG BioWare was trying to make in mind, that’s obviously going to create additional development problems.
I don’t think it was solely responsible for Anthem, though. Even that article seems to describe a much broader development mess than just “Frostbite bad.” There were clearly a lot of internal BioWare problems as well.
And even if we give BioWare a bit of a pass on Anthem because of the engine situation, I still think the criticism is fair for Andromeda and Veilguard. By that point BioWare had considerably more experience with Frostbite, so you’d expect them to have a better understanding of its limitations and how to work around them.
That actually makes the acquisition prospect a little more interesting, though. The next Mass Effect is already deep enough into development that I wouldn’t expect a new owner to suddenly rip everything up and change engines. But if someone acquired BioWare, I’d probably want them to seriously consider moving subsequent projects to something more suitable rather than continuing to force everything through Frostbite.
Obviously, that would come with its own problems because changing engines is expensive as hell and you’d potentially be throwing away a lot of existing tools and knowledge. But if the long-term goal is rebuilding BioWare, I’d rather see them choose the technology that best suits the games they’re actually trying to make rather than being tied to EA’s wider engine strategy.
Possibly. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up being nothing more than sports and the sims at this point.
In all honesty, I don’t see anyone buying BioWare. Not sure about other studios. Who else does EA even have besides Dice?
I personally would want Microsoft to acquire BioWare along with the Mass Effect, Dragon Age and Anthem IP’s for one main reason - Game Pass Ultimate. Unless Microsoft eliminates their games from being day one on Game Pass Ultimate, at least I know that their future games would be on the subscription service day one which benefits me as a consumer.
I disagree slightly on BioWare. I think there would probably be interest in acquiring them, mainly because of the associated IP. Mass Effect and Dragon Age still have significant value despite the recent struggles. I think the bigger question is how much EA — and by extension Savvy/Saudi Arabia — would actually want for BioWare and its IP, and whether a potential buyer would be willing to meet that valuation.
I think EA will probably retain a lot of its major FPS assets like DICE and Respawn, as well as a lot of its mobile portfolio like PopCap and Glu Mobile. I’d probably expect them to keep their major driving franchises too, although you could arguably put those in the same broader bucket as their sports portfolio. BioWare just feels like the obvious candidate for a spin-off or sale because it’s less central to what EA seems to be focusing on.
EA actually owns quite a bit more than DICE and BioWare. You’ve got DICE, Respawn, Codemasters, Maxis, EA Sports, Playdemic, PopCap, Glu Mobile, etc. Granted, the ones I just listed are probably some of the divisions most core to EA and therefore the least likely to be sold. If we’re looking for something more plausible, maybe Motive could be a candidate.
Yeah, Microsoft is definitely the obvious buyer for BioWare IMO. There’s a lot of potential crossover there given the WRPG portfolio Microsoft already owns. BioWare would fit pretty naturally alongside Bethesda and Obsidian, while Mass Effect and Dragon Age would give them two more major RPG IPs. And obviously there’s the historical relationship between Microsoft and BioWare as well.
I think it’s fairly likely EA sells off some non-core assets, mainly because of the combination of debt, restructuring and the desire to reduce headcount. If they’re trying to streamline the company, selling assets that aren’t considered essential to the core business would make sense.
Potentially. Besides BioWare, I could see Motive being another candidate, especially given the Dead Space connection and the other IP associated with the old Visceral Games studio, such as Dante’s Inferno. I’m less convinced they’ll sell their major FPS, sports, racing or mobile operations because those seem much more central to what EA is trying to be going forward.
I think there are some obvious candidates who could be interested in BioWare. Microsoft is the obvious one, and potentially Amazon as well. However, I do wonder whether Savvy/Saudi Arabia would actually want to sell BioWare to a company that could eventually become a direct competitor, both in the broader consolidation race and potentially in cloud gaming/streaming over the next 10-20 years.
Take-Two is another possibility since they’ve signalled that they want to pursue M&A opportunities after GTA 6, although someone like Remedy probably makes more sense for them strategically.
Honestly, though, I think this could be a really interesting opportunity for Sony. If Microsoft is genuinely considering a return to greater exclusivity, PlayStation could potentially lose access to a huge portion of the major WRPG market going into the next generation — Fallout, The Elder Scrolls, Fable, Diablo, and potentially future Obsidian and inXile projects.
There are really only three major Western RPG developers of that calibre that aren’t already under Microsoft’s umbrella: Larian, CD Projekt and BioWare. I don’t see Larian selling, and CD Projekt would probably be prohibitively expensive, which makes BioWare the only relatively realistic acquisition Sony could make if they’re genuinely concerned about losing access to most of the major WRPG franchises.
Personally, I’d only really want Microsoft to buy BioWare if they actually intended to take advantage of the crossover potential. If they’re just going to acquire the studio, put it into the machine and let it operate independently, I don’t particularly care. I’m not really a BioWare guy myself.
Although, if SEGA somehow acquired BioWare and immediately announced Sonic Chronicles 2, SEGA would instantly become my number-one choice. I highly doubt that’s happening though.
You can joke all you want, XBOX now is the king of buying studios only to sell them off or close them . I thought in one interview XBOX said they owned the IP but allowed Bioware to have it after the takeover, like they with Fasta (mech assault) not like with SEGA owning the MSR IP & XBOX having to come with Project Gotham Racing.
For me it was a cock up to see the likes of DICE, Bioware be sold to EA after all the great work they did on the OG XBOX never mind 360 (Rallisport & MM 3 are ace) while XBOX looked to piss $500 on Project Natal & give us Kinect, rather than buy these studios & also give us sequels to Alan Wake, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon
People may blame the XBOX ONE, the rot started durning the last couple of years 360 & with Kinect.
I don’t but it maybe the case that EA is looking to just become a sports studio but hang on to DICE for their tech and allow them to continue to make FPS’s?, but the Saudi’s seem to be turning their back on sports of late
The last thing I want if for this great studio to go to XBOX or SONY.
Take Two seem to be a good fit, they’re all in on big open world games & seem to look after their teams, other than the crunch
I mean, if you want to crown the king of buying studios just to either kill them, sell them or spin them off, I can guarantee you that title doesn’t go to Microsoft. Even if we only look at the last five years, that honour goes to Embracer Group, especially with the additional spin-offs they’ve announced.
As for Microsoft owning Mass Effect, you’d need to provide a source for that one. I’m not going to claim Microsoft never made mistakes with its acquisitions or partnerships, though. Companies like DICE, Respawn, BioWare and Mistwalker are definitely interesting missed opportunities in hindsight.
Where I’d push back slightly is calling them obvious moves at the time. We don’t know what the internal economics, valuations or negotiations looked like, so it’s very easy to look back 15-20 years later and say “Microsoft should have bought them.” It’s much harder to know whether those acquisitions actually made sense based on the information Microsoft had at the time.
As for the Xbox One, though, that was definitely the major turning point. You can argue they focused too much on Kinect and the broader entertainment strategy for the core audience’s liking, but the scale of Microsoft’s screw-up with the Xbox One is pretty crazy in hindsight.
Sony was in a genuinely terrible financial position around that period. They were coming off the PS3 generation with serious financial problems and were arguably in a much more vulnerable position than people remember today. If Microsoft hadn’t screwed up the Xbox One launch and had maintained the momentum they had built with the 360, there’s likely scenario where Sony’s gaming business ends up looking very different today.
I wouldn’t go as far as saying Sony definitely would have gone bankrupt or been acquired, because that’s impossible to know, but Microsoft’s Xbox One failure absolutely gave Sony an opportunity to recover. Ironically, Microsoft’s biggest strategic blunder in gaming may have helped save PlayStation as a business.
It’s so long ago, I can’t remember, but I remember talking of XBOX owning the IP or having exclusive rights to the planned trilogy at least. After BioWare’s & Dice’s work on the OG XBox, I wanted them to be part of the Xbox studio’s
For me, the rot with XBOX started during the last 3 years of the 360. Xbox allowed so-called ONLY ON XBOX games to appear on PS3, it didn’t look to make sequels to the likes of Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Alan Wake Ect, Ect Xbox closed down or sold off studios & put far too much faith & money in Project Natal/Kinect, that’s what cost them & allowed the PS3 to overtake the 360 for sales in the USA & UK. Kinect was a SEGA-style 32X cock up, that SONY took full advantage of, yet again
Well all could see SONY was in a bad way, I mean, having a Welshman lead the Japanese outfit was nuts, but the PS3 was starting to be sold at cost price, it won the format war. It was their once mighty TV division that really paid the price & never really recovered IMO
Well, without a source I’m not going to take it at face value. I don’t really see why Microsoft would have simply given the Mass Effect IP to EA. Selling the IP would be more plausible, but even then I can’t find any reports suggesting that happened. If there was an exclusivity agreement around the original trilogy, that’s a different matter, but I’d want to see the actual details before making any claims.
As for Xbox’s priorities shifting during the final few years of the 360, maybe, but I’d push back on the idea that Microsoft had already completely abandoned exclusive content. If you look at the first few years of the Xbox One, its exclusive lineup was arguably more impressive than the PS4’s early output. You had things like Sunset Overdrive, Titanfall, Dead Rising 3 and the Master Chief Collection relatively close to the Xbox One’s launch, whereas the PS4’s early lineup was much more dependent on things like Knack and Killzone: Shadow Fall. So under Don Mattrick, at least initially, there still seemed to be a pretty clear emphasis on securing strong exclusive content.
And while yes, the PS3 ultimately overtook the 360 in lifetime sales, I’m not sure that’s the most useful metric when discussing Sony’s overall position at the time. Sony as a company was in a terrible financial state. It was essentially considered a junk stock at one point and was valued at around $10 billion, while the PS3 itself had extremely high manufacturing costs and Sony had to make significant price cuts. You also have to consider how much of the later PS3 sales were driven by people buying a relatively cheap Blu-ray player rather than necessarily being a reflection of the health of the PlayStation business itself.
I’m not denying Microsoft had missed opportunities. Of course they did — every company does. But one thing I think gets overlooked is that one of Xbox’s biggest strengths historically was also one of its biggest weaknesses.
Xbox was relatively small compared with Microsoft’s other businesses, particularly before the Activision acquisition. That meant Microsoft could effectively subsidise Xbox, absorb losses and deploy its enormous balance sheet to make acquisitions that a standalone gaming company could never realistically afford. That’s a massive advantage.
The downside is that Xbox also has to compete internally with Microsoft’s much larger and more strategically important business units for capital. If Microsoft has $10 billion available, the question isn’t simply “would this make Xbox better?” It’s also “is this a better use of Microsoft’s capital than putting it into Azure, AI, Windows, enterprise software, etc.?”
So I think Microsoft’s history with Xbox is a bit more complicated than simply “they were bad at buying studios.” They absolutely missed opportunities, but they also had a unique corporate structure that gave Xbox access to resources most competitors could only dream of, while simultaneously making Xbox compete for those resources against businesses with vastly higher strategic and financial priority.
Perhaps. I think companies are going in the downsizing direction as opposed to increasing their head counts. Dragon Age isn’t worth much as an IP anymore because while I loved The Veilguard (was my 2024 goty), it didn’t do well at all and Mass Effect seems to be taking forever. I only included Anthem because it was supposed to be a live service game and I could see Microsoft trying to resurrect it. I can see Savvy wanting too much and any potential deal falling apart. They would have to sell things off cheap just so they can unload it.
Dice and Respawn are safe in my opinion. If the mobile studios make them money, I can see them staying alive along with the sports games like Madden, FC, etc. The rest I don’t see surviving if they’re trying to cut costs. Motive made Dead Space remake which was excellent but aren’t they a support studio now? Either way, I would put them at 50/50. Could go either way.
Yep. Everything you said is why I could see Microsoft acquiring BioWare and at the very least the Dragon Age/Mass Effect IP’s. We’ll see what happens but im expecting the worse so if any of it goes good, I will be pleasantly surprised and happy.
I’m not entirely sure on that. I think we could definitely see some slimming down, but at the same time we’re still seeing companies talk about consolidation and future M&A. Take-Two is probably the most obvious example, alongside the fact that Savvy/Saudi Arabia has just acquired EA.
Even since the reset, Asha has talked about M&A as a viable tool and potentially an important part of Microsoft’s future strategy. That’s why I think what we’re seeing is less the industry universally moving toward “downsizing” and more some of these massive companies becoming much more focused on what they consider core.
If it was purely a case of companies wanting to slim down and reduce headcount, I’d expect Asha’s comments on future M&A to be much more dismissive. Obviously she isn’t going to say “we’re done buying forever,” but I think she could have made it much clearer that acquisitions weren’t something to expect for the foreseeable future.
Instead, she seems to sit somewhere in the middle, while leaning slightly toward M&A remaining an important tool once Microsoft identifies something that can accelerate its strategy faster than building it organically.
As I said, I think their major racing, sports, FPS and mobile studios are probably all safe. I’m less certain about EA’s wider portfolio, though. I think the rest will be evaluated on more than just their performance in games — things like cross-media potential, ownership of valuable IP, technology, growth potential and how strategically important they are to EA will probably all factor into the decision.
If they are genuinely looking to divest studios, I think BioWare is probably one of the more likely candidates. Not only is it relatively non-core to EA’s current focus, but it has the legacy and IP necessary to generate a lot of interest in a potential sale.
That said, I don’t know whether Savvy/Saudi Arabia has actually decided to sell BioWare yet. Something like Mass Effect also has significant cross-media potential, which could make BioWare more valuable to EA than simply looking at its recent game performance would suggest.
Savvy acquiring EA with $20B in debt is just going to lead to downsizing because they either don’t have or don’t want to take on the losses themselves. I don’t see Take Two Interactive acquiring anyone unless it’s a perfect fit like Gearbox who they’ve worked with before. They recently shut down their entire Private Division segment and in all honesty, they don’t need to acquire anyone when you think about it.
As for Microsoft and Asha, I don’t take anything that she says at face value as she has to prove herself which is going to take years and if anything, I don’t see Nadella/Hood giving her the time needed to “reset Xbox” and whatnot. If anything, I see her as a stopgap.
Not only that but Microsoft could always acquire assets that aren’t even gaming related which I see as more likely than say BioWare. I obviously could always be very wrong but we’ll see what happens.
Agreed. It could just be rumors about Savvy wanting to sell BioWare in an attempt to gauge potential interest and pricing.
Even if you look past Mass Effect, we saw Lost Planet, Ninja Gaiden 2, Dread Rising appear on rival systems, even with a BIG ONLY ON XBOX on the game case, we saw XBOX turning their backs on Fromsoftware, Mistwaker exclusives , We then saw XBOX letting go of BUNGiE , Fasa studios, Indie Built, Ect.
All that happened in the 360 era & for me, Kinect killed Lionhead IMO with that bullshit Milio crap & the Fable: The Journey, we could see it was crap & on-rails , but bullshit Peter kept on saying it wasn’t on-rails & how Kinect was going to transform gaming
That’s why it all started to go wrong, long before the Xbox One launch & why even in the USA & UK the PS3 was able to outsell the 360 in the last couple of years
Well, obviously EA will probably end up spinning off, selling or closing some non-core assets because of the debt they’re carrying, but the decision-making ultimately still sits with Saudi Arabia/PIF as the majority owner. So it’ll really come down to what they think is worth keeping versus what they can extract value from by selling.
As for Take-Two, they actually commented fairly recently on the possibility of further acquisitions, so I don’t think it’s something I’d completely rule out. I could see them acquiring more after GTA 6 brings in a massive influx of cash, although someone like Remedy probably makes more obvious sense.
A bit of a gut-feeling call, but I could actually see T2 buying Paradox Interactive. They already have a pretty strong console business through Rockstar and 2K, alongside a huge mobile presence through Zynga, but outside of Civilization and maybe some of the Borderlands stuff, their PC portfolio is relatively weak. Paradox could help balance that out considerably.
I also think Take-Two probably wants to remain independent, and acquisitions can actually be a defensive strategy in that sense. If you’re constantly expanding and increasing your own value, you’re making yourself a less attractive or more difficult takeover target. So I wouldn’t necessarily view every future acquisition they make as purely about growth.
In terms of Asha, yeah, obviously I wouldn’t take everything she says at face value. If Phil Spencer taught us anything, it’s that public-facing executives aren’t necessarily going to tell you what they’re actually planning . But I think her comments are still useful as an indicator of the direction Microsoft wants Xbox to move in. Whether Satya and the board actually give her enough time to execute that strategy is another question.
And I agree Microsoft could absolutely acquire companies outside gaming. They’re Microsoft lol. Buying an AI startup or making some other tech investment is probably far more likely than buying BioWare within the next five years.
But Microsoft also has enough capital that it doesn’t necessarily have to be an either/or situation. If they genuinely see strategic value in gaming, they could theoretically invest heavily in AI while still making a smaller gaming acquisition.
So personally, I don’t think Xbox’s consolidation is over. I just think the era of “let’s spend $70 billion and buy another mega publisher” is probably over for the foreseeable future. If they do acquire anything, I’d expect it to be much more focused and tied to a specific strategic gap.
This said, I could still see Microsoft make mid sized publishers acquisitions but their are a lot of unknowns.
I think pointing the finger at stuff like Ninja Gaiden 2, Lost Planet and Dead Rising appearing on other platforms is a little unfair when a lot of those were timed exclusives anyway. It’s like blaming Sony because other people can finally play the Final Fantasy VII Remakes . That’s just how third-party publishing works.
The degradation of Microsoft’s relationships with those publishers is a much fairer criticism, though. Microsoft had an insanely close relationship with Capcom during the 360 generation, and they basically allowed Sony to take a lot of that relationship by helping fund Street Fighter V. That’s the sort of thing I’d criticise Microsoft for more than a timed exclusive eventually going multiplatform.
I can’t really speak for every Microsoft studio, but I do agree the treatment of Lionhead was pretty dumb. I don’t know how important Fable: The Journey was internally, but I think it would have made far more sense as a smaller side project or Kinect-focused spin-off alongside a proper Fable game rather than effectively making Kinect such a central part of the studio’s output.
That said, I don’t think Kinect itself was necessarily bad. There were some genuinely interesting things you could do with it, and you could even argue Kinect gave Rare a second lease on life when their traditional game output wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire.
I think there was a balance Microsoft could have reached. Keep Kinect around as an optional platform with some dedicated games and experiments, while still investing heavily in the traditional controller-based games people actually bought Xbox for. Instead, Microsoft increasingly treated Kinect like it was going to be the future of gaming, and that’s where I think they went wrong.
I highly doubt that’s happening though.