Microsoft has officially acquired both Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment, two gaming developers well known for their diverse RPG games. This comes a month after it was heavily rumored that Microsoft was in the process of buying Obsidian to try and bolster their Xbox One exclusives department and boost sales, both of which have mostly failed to compete with Sony's PlayStation 4.
Obsidian is well-known for RPG titles like Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity and Knights of the Old Republic 2, while inXile is perhaps best known for The Bard's Tale and the two latter entries in the Wasteland series. While both developers have created games that have been enjoyed by fans and critics alike, Obsidian has been in financial trouble for quite a long time and has had to utilize crowdfunding initiatives to fund both Pillars of Eternity titles. With big money like Microsoft now behind both, however, the developers could be free to make bigger budget and more ambitious titles.
Related: Fallout: New Vegas 2 Likely Won't Ever Happen, Says Obsidian
Microsoft announced that they had officially bought both Obsidian and inXile, revealing that both studios would "continue to operate autonomously" and be able to create games in both their existing franchises as well as create new RPG titles. While the move will bring new exclusive Xbox One games, it will also assure new PC games as well.
This move comes not long after Microsoft announced the addition of five other studios at this summer's E3 event, including popular developer Ninja Theory which used to develop games exclusively for PS4. It's quite obvious that Microsoft is buying up a lot of these companies in an effort to finally start competing with Sony, which has crushed Microsoft in both sales and exclusives with this generation of games. Now, to be clear, fans will probably have to wait quite a while to see tangible results from these purchases as game development is a long and arduous process. In fact, it might not even pay off until the next generation comes inevitably rolling around.
Still, if Microsoft can finally start churning out some quality exclusives, they might just start to make Sony sweat. After all, the Xbox One X is the most powerful console available, its controller has far more customization options, and Microsoft's embrace of cross-play (unlike Sony) is likely to endear more gamers to them. On top of that, Xbox One appeals to nostalgic gamers with a backwards compatibility system and PC-oriented fans with native mouse and keyboard support. Considering its Netflix-like Game Pass model as well (which includes exclusives upon release), if Microsoft can start releasing a ton of exclusives through its 13 different developers, they may just start winning the console war again.
More: Wasteland 2: Director's Cut Is Coming To The Nintendo Switch
Source: Microsoft
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