There are currently 23 studios under the Microsoft umbrella, thanks to the recent Bethesda/Microsoft merger. The bulk of those studios are located all over the US, but there are quite a few Canadian studios working for Microsoft, two Swedish studios, three English studios, and thanks to the Bethesda acquisition, one Japanese studio.
But Phile Spencer doesn't seem to think Microsoft is worldly enough when it comes to its developers. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Spencer made it seem like Microsoft buying a studio located in an emerging market like India or South America is a sure thing.
“It would actually surprise me if that doesn’t happen,” Spencer said. “Just knowing the talent that’s available, and the tools [such as game engines Unity and Unreal] that are so much more accessible … I would be surprised if in the next three to five years, you don’t see numerous studios in places that aren’t the traditional hubs of video game development."
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Matt Booty, head of Microsoft Studios, expressed a similar opinion. “There should be a several-hundred-person studio [in one of these territories]. And not for outsourcing or support, but a team building whatever the version of the best blockbuster game may be for that market.”
This isn't the first time Spencer has expressed a desire to expand Xbox games to include new regions. Microsoft has historically had difficulty making inroads in Japan, but during the Bethesda roundtable last March, Spencer told a livestream audience he hopes Tango Gameworks can fix that.
"I’m ready to go to Tokyo. Yeah, I mean go see Tango [Gameworks], a studio that I have such respect for the history of the creations there. I’ve talked for a long time about our desire to have more of a first-party presence in Japan. This is a great step there."
Sadly, it looks like Microsoft’s first potential success in Japan will have to wait until 2022 as Ghostwire: Tokyo announced a delay earlier today.
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