https://www.mcvuk.com/business/xbox...ms-and-allowing-them-to-operate-independently
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THE E3 STUDIOS
If Game Pass is to be a success then, like Netflix, it will increasingly need must-have content. Which brings us back to that huge multi-studio announcement from E3 and some insight into how that came together.
"It was special to be able to do that," Greenberg tells us proudly, having worked with all the studios in the lead-up to the big day. "We knew we were growing our first-party investment, but to be able to time it right, there's a lot of contracts and process you have to work through."
Even more impressive was that the deals hadn't leaked, making it a massive surprise: "That's the fun part, people want to be surprised, and it was great when Phil [Spencer] went up there and announced first one, then two, three, four… five! I can't think of an E3 were anyone's announced even one acquisition."
Announcing business acquisitions shows how consumers care more and more about the industry and the teams that make their games. Greenberg thinks there's been a huge rise in the "detail and enthusiasm" that fans share with each other for their favourite games: "When we said Ninja Theory, everyone knew their pedigree, the same with Playground. And that makes it more appropriate for a show like that."
We ask if the raft of simultaneous acquisitions amounted to a grand change in strategy, even an admittance that the breadth of the line-up wasn't all it should have been in recent years.
"We were really deliberate in that we wanted to grow our investment in our first-party studios," he replies cautiously. "And we were really thoughtful about how we wanted to do that, part of it is to go find some of the world's greatest creative teams, which are independent, and which make a fit for us.
He's keen to impress upon us that all the new studios will remain creatively independent: "This was first and foremost about finding the world's greatest teams, who can bring new types of content to our first-party studios, and allow them to continue to operate independently," he tells us, before adding: "If you think about a game like Hellblade, how many big companies would have greenlit a game like that? But it's brilliant and it addresses a lot of important issues. Those are the types of teams that really inspire us and it's a privilege to be able to work with them. For them to become part of our team provides financial security, access to resources and tech capabilities, and still the creative independence to go and do what they want to do. These teams they would have never wanted to partner and work with us if that wasn't part of the conditions. I think we have a good track record of doing that: look at Mojang, which has stayed independent and stayed focused.
"It's an exciting time, we've essentially doubled our creative studios overnight, and it just shows that commitment to invest more."
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