Acquiring Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, Microsoft is now the world's third-largest game publisher by revenue and owns several of the biggest game franchises of all time, such as Be a Creator, The Elder Scrolls and Call of Duty and "World of Warcraft". Since the early 2000s, Microsoft has slowly and steadily expanded its IP holdings and added a standing roster of first-party developers. For more than a decade, Microsoft's explosive acquisitions and last year's acquisition of Bethesda have made Microsoft a "giant with a hundred arms" in the game industry, second only to SONY and Tencent in scale. If the deal goes through, here are the studios and games Microsoft might own. Although Xbox Game Studios Publishing was founded in 2000, Microsoft publishes a slew of games, including familiar mini-games like Solitaire and Land Miner, dating back to the 1970s. Microsoft has also created several first-party studios to handle flagship series development.
In 2001, Microsoft founded Turn 10 Studio for the racing game "Forza Motorsport". Halo: Infinite developer 343 Industries was founded in 2007. After Microsoft purchased the Gears of War series from Epic Games in 2010, it created the studio The Coalition. In 2018, The Initiative became Microsoft's first Santa Monica-based developer to work on the new Perfect Dark series. In 2019, Microsoft established World's Edge, responsible for the operation of the "Century Empire" series.
In 2002, Microsoft sounded the "big acquisition era" and acquired British developer Rare. With the release of Battletoads in 1991, Rare spearheaded the cartoon platformer genre of the early 1990s, and went on to launch the Donkey Kong franchise, Abon Aka Adventures, A Bad Day for Squirrel Cook, and Donkey Kong 64" and other masterpieces. Haunted Mansion was Rare's first Xbox-exclusive game, but the response was lacklustre. Rare's second exclusive, Viva Pinata, was a hit. Rare developed several games for Xbox's defunct Kinect add-on and is now operating the popular multiplayer game Sea of Thieves. In 2019 Rare announced the development of a new action-adventure game called Everwild.
In 2014, Mojang became Microsoft's largest acquisition to date, bringing the hugely successful sandbox game "Be A God of Creation" into the Xbox family for $2.5 billion.
2018 was a big year for Xbox, with six studio acquisitions:
Compulsion Games, developer of Lucky Few, is working on an unannounced third-person narrative game.
Ninja Theory, developer of the critically acclaimed Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice series.
inXile Entertainment, a role-playing studio, developer of Wild Ranger 3.
Obsidian Entertainment, which developed the acclaimed Pillars of Eternity series and The Outer Worlds. There's a new first-person RPG coming soon.
Playground Games, developer of the Forza series.
Undead Labs, developer of the City of Decay series.
Microsoft's buy-and-buy boom continues in 2019 with the purchase of Double Fine Productions, the developer of Brain Navigator 2.
In 2021, Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax Media / Bethesda Softworks means that Microsoft seems to abandon the acquisition of a single company strategy and instead absorb large publishers and all its studios. Microsoft buys Bethesda and eight subsidiaries for $7.5 billion:
Action developer Alpha Dog Games.
Arkane Studios, the French developer of the "Murder" series and "Death Loop".
The Fallout series and The Elder Scrolls series BethesdaGame Studios.
Wolfenstein series MachineGames.
Id Software, creator of the Doom series.
"Evil Invasion" series developer, Japanese developer Tango Gameworks.
Roundhouse Studios, formerly Human Head Studios, developer of Predator in 2006.
ZeniMax Online Studios, responsible for the online version of the MMO The Elder Scrolls.
If the Activision Blizzard deal closes, Microsoft will add nine new studios, bringing the total number of developers to 32. The biggest deals were from Call of Duty series developers Treyarch Games and Infinity Ward, as well as Blizzard Entertainment, developers of Battle Strike, Diablo and World of Warcraft. Activision's previous acquisitions and mergers would have given Microsoft the rights to the former PlayStation exclusives "Baby Dragon," "Tyxolotl" and the "Tony Hawk Pro Skate" franchise.
The deal also includes smaller studios, co-developing or supporting Activision Blizzard's larger games, including Beeox, Toys for Bob, High Moon Studios, Sledgehammer Games. Raven Software appears to be in bad shape, with employees on strike for five weeks. Microsoft also has access to major players in the mobile gaming space through Candy Crush creator King.
Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard provides a good opportunity to expand its game subscription service Xbox Game Pass, but the addition of the above games to XGP is unlikely to be achieved soon, and the various controversies of Activision Blizzard must also be considered. At the same time, it must also integrate ABK's various studios . The acquisition is subject to national scrutiny and is not expected to be fully completed until 2023.