Xbox Game Studios currently boasts fourteen internal studios with an additional nine that were added with the purchase of ZeniMax media. Additionally, there is an announced sequel to The Outer Worlds from Obsidian that should see release within the next calendar year. Though it has been six years since the original release well prior to Ninja Theory’s purchase by Microsoft. Senua’s Sacrifice has an announced sequel, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. Out of all of the games that launched in the Xbox One generation, not a single one has launched a sequel that has not been included in the above list. If we take out the three-game requirement and go to just two games but with the promise of a third, in the last 5 years, there is only a single series that qualifies, Ori and the Will of the Wisps whose last entry launched in 2020. The Xbox One generation was utterly crippling in developing new franchises. Of these franchises, none of them began life on either the Xbox Series X, which is not surprising, or on the Xbox One, which is. Forza Horizonholds the highest mark with an average of 89. Of these active franchises, four of the six all sit above an 80 on Metacritic as the average for all entries. State of Decay has received a single entry per generation going back to the Xbox 360 and a new entry State of Decay 3 has been announced. Minecraft qualifies thanks to its spin-off entries Minecraft Dungeons which launched in 2020 and Minecraft Legends which was released this year. Two of the franchises from the original article, Crackdown and Killer Instinct no longer have a place on this list. Microsoft currently has seven active franchises. These titles include Deathloop, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Hi-Fi Rush, and Redfall. Titles published by Bethesda Softworks that were released post Microsoft’s acquisition of Zenimax in 2021 are included.So Fable is allowed to be included since there is an announced title, despite not having released a title in the franchise since 2017. Active franchises must have at least three titles in the series and a release in the last 3 years or a current announced title in development.Franchise indicates any game series with more than one sequel.Halo: The Master Chief Collection has been included, but the port of Banjo Kazooie was not. Re-releases are only used when the re-release was a substantial upgrade, i.e.I will use the same analytical methodology as I used in the previous article which uses the following assumptions and definitions: Given this week’s candid interview by Phil Spencer, I felt like it was a good time to revisit the central thesis of that article and check in on the current status of Microsoft’s first-party studios and their ability to create and sustain franchises. It represented a significant amount of analysis looking at Microsoft’s struggles to create and sustain new franchises. Four years ago, almost to the day, I wrote an editorial piece about Xbox Game Studios for Lords of Gaming titled “Microsoft is Failing as a 1st Party”.
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