Xbox will reportedly announce another new acquisition of game studio in E3 2021

Xbox Game Studios is reportedly going to announce another new acquisition on the stage of E3 2021.

Xbox has quite a behemoth-like stable of studios under its wing, especially after acquiring Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax Media in September 2020.

It was Jez Corden, a reporter from Windows Central, who talked about a very good chance of at least one acquisition being announced at the show. The show that is being referred to in Corden’s words is the Xbox show in E3 2021.

Corden has previously leaked various pieces of information about unannounced Microsoft titles. Coming from him, the speculation seems to hold serious weightage.

Xbox’s new acquisition is unlikely to be a AAA studio

According to Corden, Xbox’s new acquisition will warrant them some IPs, which most likely is part of a studio acquisition. While the IPs are not big AAA-level franchises, they are likely to be studios or even publishers with low-budget projects.

There have been rumors about the acquisition of The Farm 51 studio by Microsoft. Farm 51 is currently developing Chernobylite. There is also strong speculation about Microsoft acquiring Asobo Studios, the developers of Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020).

As per their track record of acquisitions, Microsoft has not dabbled in publicly traded companies. By that logic, the rumors of Xbox acquiring the likes of Sega, Dontnod, Square, or Remedy can be put to rest.

Among privately-owned studios, Asobo, Bloober Team, Moon Studios, Studio MDHR, and Playtonic look like strong candidates for the Xbox acquisition.

Xbox currently has a ton of new and exciting titles in the making. With all the games available to play on an affordable subscription-based Xbox Game Pass, the next-gen console war seems to skew more and more towards Xbox console owners and PC gamers.

With titles like Starfield, Halo Infinite, Forza Horizon 5, Hellblade 2 on the horizon for Xbox Game Studios, the new acquisition might not seem much. However, it surely adds to the trend set by Microsoft to build a diverse and gargantuan stable of game development studios under its belt.