Yesterday, during ‘Inside Xbox’ live stream, corporate vice president Matt Booty joined the show host Larry ‘Major Nelson’ Hyrb and announced that corporate game development arm of Microsoft called Microsoft Studios will change its name to Xbox Game Studios. While the changes don’t affect any of the titles currently in development, rebranding shows that two decades in, Xbox has become a strong brand in the gaming world – probably even stronger than Microsoft recently. This is not the first time Microsoft has renamed its game development section. Previously it was known as Microsoft Game Studios
Xbox Game Studios is made up of 13 separate development teams responsible for the games we all love. The list includes 343 Industries, The Coalition, Compulsion Games, The Initiative, inXile Entertainment, Minecraft, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Playground Games, Rare, Turn 10 Studios, Undead Labs, and a Global Publishing group, which is responsible for… publishing, of course.
In a post released right after the stream, Matt Booty further explained the sudden change saying that the company has expanded their focus beyond the console and the Xbox brand has also evolved from its original roots.
“Today, Xbox is our new gaming brand across all devices no matter how or where you want to play, or who you want to play with” – Matt Booty wrote in his post.
It’s going to be a fun year for the company as many new releases are slated for 2019. The company plans to release a few exclusives such as Crackdown 3, Gears 5, and Ori and the Will of the Wisps. The company has also revealed that in the upcoming year Xbox Game Studios will also deliver big content updates for games like Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 4, and Minecraft.
