Microsoft Acquires Obsidian & inXile Entertainment

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Microsoft Acquires Obsidian & inXile Entertainment

As what could spell bad news for seeing native Linux game ports of future Pillars and Wasteland titles, among others, Microsoft announced they are acquiring Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Microsoft-Buys-Obsidian-inXile

[tildearrow]

Typo:

Pillars of Etertinity games

[TemplarGR]

Sad news. Obviously Microsoft wants to create exclusive Xbox games because they are lagging behind PS4 and this has cost them the console war. I don't really believe we are going to miss games like Bard's Tale IV (has been promised a Linux port and it is on the way) or Wasteland 3 (a linux port is still very likely), BUT both companies are probably going to make AAA games from now on, with Microsoft's financial backing. And obviously we are not going to see those games getting linux ports...

[mphuZ]

Valve urgently need to get the aces out of their sleeves..

[ahjolinna]

sad news for Linux and gaming in general.
Also I doubt this will save their Xbox as M$ still has their stupid "play anywhere" system which means that all their games will also come to PC/win10 (-store), so they will never be real exclusives. Also most of these studios they have bought aren't that good, except Obsidian... which is more of PC game studio anyways ....that being said I doubt Obsidian can do anything good under M$ as they love to control everything (which is why Remedy left M$ and Platinum said that they don't want to work with them anymore)

[Henk717]

It will probably not run in Wine for a long long time, Microsoft exclusive games typically means UWP Windows Store exclusive and that is an entirely different platform then the Win32/Win64 that Wine emulates.

[Sethox]

I won't say RIP Obsidian Entertainment, though I will hope for a situation of creating a new company.. wait was that not the point when the kickstarter for Wasteland was announced.

Sigh, when will people learn that joining a big ass company will only kill the soul and hard work of pleasure (for the fans and as a creator).

[rabcor]

It will probably not run in Wine for a long long time, Microsoft exclusive games typically means UWP Windows Store exclusive and that is an entirely different platform then the Win32/Win64 that Wine emulates.

Wonder how long it'll take for us to get a UWP compatibility layer; I have a feeling it will be easier to support. Also, a dangerous move (for everyone else) that microsoft doesn't seem to realize it could be making, is making UWP and Micro$oft Store available on other platform, namely linux and mac.

On the one hand, it would mean people would be less tied down to the Windows operating system in the future; but they're already losing their grip to be honest so that's gonna happen anyways whether they like it or not. On the other however, if UWP was cross platform and worked everywhere? Everyone would just develop for UWP, and by extension the Microsoft Store, which would allow both to invade the linux and (possibly) macos operating systems, and would help them grab every single desktop/laptop consumer and force them to use the microsoft store, rather than just limiting themselves to those who are already using windows.

A scary thought tbh.

[dungeon]

That is 8. studios (and counting) they bought this year... all for future XBox exclusives

[theriddick]

Yeah this is likely bad news for Linux versions of future games, we are already seeing suspicious behaviour from once linux release studios suggesting MS money has exchanged hands.

One example is Phoenix Point is no longer Linux supported... some real phony excuse about unity being shit on Linux was used.