Microsoft Buys Lionhead

[The Red Scare]

Lame lame lame. First Bungie, now this. Microsoft buying yet another company famous for unique games that are made for a variety of platforms...in this case Lionhead which made titles such as Fable and Black & White. Apparently, "Microsoft Game Studios said Lionhead would now develop exclusively for the Xbox 360 and Windows-based PCs."

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technolo ... ref=slogin

---

Microsoft Buys "Fable" Developer's Game Studio

By REUTERS
Published: April 6, 2006
Filed at 11:20 a.m. ET


NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. (MSFT.O) on Thursday said its in-house video game unit acquired Lionhead Studios, the British developer started by the famed game maker Peter Molyneux, in a deal that gives Microsoft exclusive access to one of the industry's leading creators.

Most recently, Lionhead was responsible for ``Fable.'' Released on Microsoft's Xbox platform, the game has sold more than 2 million units worldwide.

Molyneux is also known for innovative ``God games'' such as ''Black & White'' that give players omnipotent power over a world.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Microsoft Game Studios said Lionhead would now develop exclusively for the Xbox 360 and Windows-based PCs.

Video game publishers frequently acquire the external developers that are responsible for their hit franchises, not only to increase their own in-house development talent, but also to cut down on milestone and royalty payments that independent developers command as part of making a game.

Microsoft had previously acquired high-profile developers such as Bungie Studios, maker of the ``Halo'' franchise, and Rare Ltd., which made some of Nintendo's most popular games of the 1990s.

[Smooth Lou]

Meh. I didn't really like Black & White, and while Fable was cool, it took them a hundred years to come out and they cut out a lot of the stuff that they were bragging about.

I am waiting to see what this really means for gaming...

[The Red Scare]

I don't think this single deal will mean a whole lot for gaming. But what worries me is the fact that this keeps happening.

[Smooth Lou]

I don't think this single deal will mean a whole lot for gaming. But what worries me is the fact that this keeps happening.

Well, if the choice was between "Get bought out by M$ and guarantee success of your games via first party support and great marketing, not to mention great benefits for working as a division of one of the largest corporations on the planet" and "Make games that sell pretty well but face severe competition from big ass companies that could crush you like a bug" I think they chose well. With development costs rising higher all the time, it's in most of these boutique-style game companies' best interest to sell themselves off to the highest bidder, unfortunately.

Not to talk about the Revoluton for the 400th time today, but I really enjoy the fact that Nintendo is offering dev kits to just about anybody that wants one, not just the big ass game manufacturers.

[curiouscharles]

if anything this is a good thing...bungie never even blew up as a studio until they got bought by microsoft...as far as i know, microsoft isn't like EA, they don't force their devs to make their games suck by restricting their creativity...they will simply support the studio any way they can, they will simply force them to make great games for my xbox 360, and that makes me happy 8)

[The Red Scare]

^^^true, MS might be better than EA in that it doesn't stifle creativity as much, but still...I don't like the fact that games released by Lionhead will now only be available on Microsoft machines.

And in my opinion, Bungie was indeed more cutting-edge and creative before the Microsoft buyout...many of its earlier titles (Such as Marathon and Myth II) are far better than Halo.

Also, almost all of the games I've really enjoyed playing in the past few years have been released by independent developers.

[curiouscharles]

yes marathon and myth were good games, but they weren't great...if they were they would have been commercially successful, and they weren't at all

lionhead never released games for anything other than the pc (as far as i can recall), so why does exclusivity to the 360 (and likely vista) change anything?
one of lionhead's biggest problems has been their limited budget, games like black and white have always suffered from long development times and lack of "crew" so to speak, with the big M behind such a potentialy legendary studio i can't see how bad can come of it

[2root2]

I don't think this single deal will mean a whole lot for gaming. But what worries me is the fact that this keeps happening.

basically, they weren't punching their weight. this will allow them to continue making games without cutting back on more staff. quality will also go up.

[Smooth Lou]

yes marathon and myth were good games, but they weren't great...if they were they would have been commercially successful, and they weren't at all...

I see you've never played Ikaruga, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Eternal Darkness or Beyond Good & Evil.

Meh, it's your loss.

[T-Wrex]

RCT and RCT2 were good games.

The Activision bought the franchise and RCT3 sucked.

I hope MS doesn't fuck shit up like that

[curiouscharles]

yes marathon and myth were good games, but they weren't great...if they were they would have been commercially successful, and they weren't at all...

I see you've never played Ikaruga, Donkey Kong Jungle Beat, Eternal Darkness or Beyond Good & Evil.

Meh, it's your loss.

i've played ikaruga and beyond good & evil, those games were indeed great, but they lacked proper marketing as nobody even knew about those games until right before they shipped, they slid under the radar so to speak (at least BG&E did) most great games don't suffer this fate, which is why i (unfortunately) generalised when i made that statement, i apologize.