14 DAY TRIAL // Obsidian Entertainment and inXile, two gaming studios known for their masterful RPGs, have been bought by Microsoft.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen studios being bought by big companies. It looks like Obsidian Entertainment and inXile, the two victims, as the community undoubtedly considers them, have found a new home with Microsoft.
In case you didn’t already know, Obsidian Entertainment made games such as Neverwinter Nights 2, The Knights of the Old Republic, Fallout: New Vegas, and Pillars of Eternity. On the other hand, inXile is known for The Bard's Tale, Torment: Tides of Numenera, and Wasteland 2.
Usually, it’s not difficult to anticipate what’s going to happen with a gaming studio, based on who’s buying it. If it the buyers were Electronic Arts or Ubisoft, we would guess that new games coming from these studious are about to get some microtransactions. But we can also take a look at what happened with other studios Microsoft bought over the years.
Microsoft owns quite a few gaming studios with high profile names, such as Rare, Ninja Theory, and Mojang. For the most part, the studios are still alive today, but not all of them were so lucky. The one that didn’t make it was Lionhead Studios, but they had quite a few failures before they closed down.
The future is unclear
It’s possible that things will go really well for both studios, and there is plenty of evidence that the developers are left alone to their own devices. The biggest problem that arises from this purchase is the distribution platforms.
We all know that Microsoft really likes the official Windows Store, and that can only spell trouble. It’s a terrible solution for distributing games, and nobody wants it. It’s very likely that future games from Obsidian Entertainment and inXile are going to become Windows Store exclusives. And that simply bad.
The financial information regarding the two purchases was not made available, and it’s possible that we won’t know anytime soon. What we do know is that Wasteland 3 is in development following a successful Kickstarter campaign for inXile, and they might be getting some extra cash.
Here are the official announcement both from Obsidian Entertainment and inXile.
