Microsoft is a giant corporation with unlimited resources. Still, the company lost the battle to Sony in the game market. It was mainly due to a lack of exclusive titles on Xbox One and Xbox One X. The quality of games provided by PS4 remained unmatched throughout this generation.
The plethora of games offered by Sony Studios led PlayStation 4 sales to close in on 100M. Microsoft has accepted second place for Xbox One and the company is looking to the future, looking to Xbox Scarlett. How can Microsoft redeem its brand and bring back the audience it lost to PS4? A change of strategy is required that this exactly what the company is doing.
With Xbox One and Xbox One X, Microsoft spent little to nothing on first party studios. The focus remained on buying exclusive deals from third-parties to boost Xbox One’s appeal. Sadly, that didn’t work so well but Microsoft has realized what it needs to do. As we head closer to Xbox Scarlett release date, Microsoft is focusing on Xbox exclusives by boosting its first-party studio line up.
The Redmond giant has acquired many studios recently and it aims to make their “wildest dreams come true.” Microsoft is reportedly throwing large sums of money at these newly acquired studios for Xbox exclusives development. During a recent podcast, renowned Youtuber Boogie2988 recalled a conversation he had with Mike Ybarra of Microsoft.
During the conversation, Boogie asked Mike “why would Microsoft buy so many studios at the end of a console generation.” The reason is pretty simple, dominating the next generation. Speaking about the studios they bought, Ybarra basically implied the following, according to Boogie:
He (Mike) said we basically went in there to those companies and said: “what project do you wanna make?” And they are like “what’s our budget?” And he’s “I don’t think you understand, that’s not our question, our question is what games do you want to make? We are Microsoft and we have the budget, we just want to know what game you want to do, what are your wildest dreams”.
It sounds like Microsoft is going to use its financial power to possibly create the biggest Xbox exclusives line up for Xbox Scarlett. This explains why Microsoft is silent about what’s to come from these studios, they are not announcing anything for Xbox One at the moment, and all preparations seem to be for the eventual release of Xbox Scarlett.
The release date for Xbox Scarlett is still two years away, at least. Sony is also rumored to be sharing its next-gen plans at PlayStation Experience 2019. Both companies are ready to go toe to toe, it is definitely going to be an interesting battle this time around. Sony’s strong first party line VS Microsoft’s unlimited resources provided to newly acquired studios.
