My guess with Studio Wildcard would be if they want to be acquired, they may have approached Xbox, in which case it would have benefits to Xbox and I’m sure they’d push forward.
I wouldn’t see it as the top of Phil’s list for acquisitions to go out and pursue himself though as they have Mmo’s pretty well covered and have other gaps.
I think there are
Wildcard would be interesting, I like the ark games but because all the Jane, there isn’t really anyone who I know that will play
Agreed, I think it may be a good move for Xbox but not necessarily the most pertinent or beneficial. That said, assuming that meant they’d get the means/support to be a world-tier studio, I support any situation like this; Gods know they could use a support team, more funds, more focus, and less platforms to optimize for as Ark was still a buggy mess last time I played.
This was actually really heavily speculated until they announced that pirate game. Lol
Undead Labs doesn’t make MMOs yet…
Id rather see the money spent on wildcard on literally any other studio haha. I get that ark is extremely popular but damn is that game the definition of crusty. Unoptimized, buggy, unfinished. Could probably buy Asobo for the price of them and that would be a much much better investment
Same for me. Asobo, The Astronuats, Dontnod, etc. would all be far better acquisitions.
Wildcard wouldn’t be bad. Not much other games like ark that I can remember , and they get an IP that has a good following. They also have a lot to grow with more resources. I’d also like to see what a polished ark would look like.
Oh yeah the pirate game. What happened to that? Did it not go well for them?
I believe they spun off a second studio to publish it, but the game was just a low effort cash grab made by a different studio. I think it still gets updates but its buggy and unfinished beyond belief
Xbox Acquisition Tiers in my mind (note that this has nothing to do with what I think is likely) :
Tier 1: CD Projekt Red Sega/Atlus Capcom WB Studios Square Enix West From Software
Tier 2: Asobo Remedy IOI Supergiant Bungie Techland Moon People Can Fly Konami
Tier 3: Dontnod Crytek Hello Games Level 5 Kojima Studios Larian Studios Jackbox Studios Playdead Studios Platinum
Tier 4: Studio Wildcard Koei Tecmo Workhorse Certain Affinity Haemimont Games Mistwalker
Tier 5: Bloober The Astronots White Owls Playtonic Iron Galaxy Sperasoft
I’m just glad this thread is back to being active because I for one love baseless speculating.
That being said i am starting to believe the from software hype. I think the reason they didn’t show elden ring is because theyre waiting until after the buyout is Finished
Lol you’re making fromsoft fans even more anguished out here.
To be honest, I think if anyone gets From, it’s Sony due to how Kadokawa alligns with their corporate strategy.
Maybe I didn’t look up the right company, but it looks like Kadokawa is worth more than Sony, so I don’t see Sony purchasing a company worth more than them. They’d be trying to purchase just from software in which case it doesn’t matter who aligns more with kadokawa, just who bids more and meets any other desires they might have for speed of acquisition or IP involvement etc.
Kadokawa has a market cap of about 2.6 billion. Sony has more than enough cash on hand to buy. Also, my point was more I could see Sony buying Kadokawa and getting From, whereas I don’t see Kadokawa selling From on its own.
Wildcard could be a rather bad idea to get too closely involved with considering one of it’s co-founders, co-creative directors (and current lead designer on Ark) is Jeremy Stieglitz.
(From his last studio)
After he got shat out by Trendy games, he went on to co-found the Ark developers. Except in addition to being a sexist, abusive boss, he is also not legally very smart because that violated a non-compete and he got Wildcard sued to the tune of $40 million.
This is like one of those timebomb people who is probably going to get themselves into the shit again before too long.
I think the next acquisition will be Techland. Dying Light 2 is nowhere to be seen, and my thinking is they are waiting to announce they’ve joined MS first
I don’t think they need more first person studios. They should focus on their weaknesses now. Studios like IOI, Asobo, Playtonic, JP Games, Platinum Games, Remedy, Iron Galaxy ect… should be the target.
I’m sure any of these large scale studios could work on a 3rd person game if they wanted to for their next project.
It’s interesting to me that Tango went back to First Person at the exact moment they switched away from their in-house idTech fork. TEW and TEW2 are both 3rd person, 30fps games running on a fork of an engine that was really designed primarily for first person shooters that ran at 60fps (Wolf TNO / Rage were 60fps even on x360 / ps3!). Now they’re on a very flexible engine in UE4, but they’re a first person action game, haha.