Microsoft’s billions finally pay off, the Xbox Game Pass is more valuable than ever

Microsoft has invested incredible sums over many years to strengthen its first-party offering for Xbox. After a long dry spell and some failures, it is finally paying off – also for us gamers.

For more than 23 years, the Microsoft representatives have been trying to position themselves with their offering of games and gaming platforms – at least – on equal footing with PlayStation and Nintendo. A reliable stream of so-called “first-party” games from its own studios is particularly important for selling consoles or “Xbox Game Pass” subscriptions.

However, Microsoft has rarely founded and built its own studios. Instead, they invested a fortune to acquire already established teams. Here are the most important acquisitions from the past 23 years:

• Rare was the first notable acquisition, in 2002.
• In 2014, the developers of Minecraft from Mojang followed.
• From 2018, Compulsion Games, inXile Entertainment, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Undead Labs, and Playground Games belong to the Xbox Studios.
• In 2019, Double Fine Productions was acquired.
• In March 2021, the acquisition of Bethesda and Zenimax was completed.
• On October 13, 2023, the responsible parties announced the completion of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft invested over $83 billion alone in the last two acquisitions. On paper, Team Xbox consisted of 35 first-party studios at the end of 2023, not counting the actual number of developer teams at Blizzard, King, and others. The stage was set for an offensive.

Team Xbox celebrated the acquisition of Activision Blizzard with a trailer:

Money does not solve all problems

However, even though Team Xbox has been strongly positioned regarding first-party studios since 2018, the offensive was hardly felt for a long time. Below is a comparison of the release highlights from Sony and Microsoft from 2019 to 2022:

Of course, both sides have many great games that one should play. However, the most important and successful blockbusters of this time come almost exclusively from Sony. This imbalance was exacerbated by the fact that the most significant Xbox launch during this time – Halo Infinite – could not meet the high expectations of many fans.

2023 then followed with another difficult release year for Microsoft. While they were able to set a highlight with the shadow drop of Hi-Fi Rush and celebrate smaller successes with the console port of Age of Empires 2 and Minecraft: Legends, the two flagship releases caused trouble:

• The co-op shooter Redfall was a generic disaster that only vaguely indicates that the creators from Arkane (Dishonored, Prey) are behind the project.
• Starfield has been received much better by many players, but Bethesda faced much mockery and criticism over outdated technology and various issues in the RPG. In direct comparison with Baldur’s Gate 3, Starfield had no chance.

All of this is far too little when Microsoft has such great ambitions and can rely on so many renowned studios. The harsh reality is also: The development of games is lengthy and complex. Hits cannot be planned.

In 2024, there followed more bad news, such as the extensive layoffs at Activision Blizzard or the closures of the four studios Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog, Arkane Austin, and Roundhouse. Therefore, in May 2024, I published this article: After the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, I was still optimistic, but Xbox is torpedoing its own portfolio.

Redfall was a predicted failure – here is the launch trailer:

A lot can happen in a year

Now it has been just over 12 months since the article was published and the situation has changed drastically. Triggered by the strong December release “Indiana Jones and the Great Circle” and followed by more highly recommended first-party releases from Microsoft, as well as clever decisions regarding the integration of external games into the Xbox Game Pass.

Here are the major releases from the Xbox studios in the past months:

• DOOM: The Dark Ages (Metacritic score of 85 / 86 percent positive on Steam)
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered (Metacritic score of 82 / 82 percent positive on Steam)
• South of Midnight (Metacritic score of 77 / 94 percent positive on Steam)
• Avowed (Metacritic score of 81 / 77 percent positive on Steam)

Additionally, with the RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Metacritic score of 92 / 95 percent positive on Steam) and the digital headbutt Blue Prince (Metacritic score of 92 / 86 percent positive on Steam) were included in the subscription upon release.

Are these all masterpieces? Certainly not. But with these six games alone, one can have hundreds of hours of fun. Plus, there are time-consuming games like Anno 1800, GTA V, Hunt: Showdown, Stalker 2, Palworld, Crusader Kings III, the various Call of Duty titles, and so on. And of course, many little gems like Dredge or Eternal Strands.

In short: Microsoft has finally managed, after all these years, to establish a consistent stream of solid to very good first-party games and thus – in combination with clever third-party additions – make the Xbox Game Pass in its current form more valuable than ever before.

Clair Obscur is one of the best games of 2025:

What does the future hold for Xbox fans?

In the following, I summarize what the Xbox studios are currently working on – at least as far as is known. After all, the stream must continue in the future. Note that various Activision studios have had mainly one task for years: to support Call of Duty.

Current projects of the Xbox studios

• Double Fine Productions: Apparently several yet-to-be-announced projects in development
• inXile Entertainment: Clockwork Revolution
• Ninja Theory: Project: Mara
• Obsidian Entertainment: The Outer Worlds 2
• Playground Games: Fable reboot
• Rare: Everwild
• The Coalition / People can Fly: Gears of War: E-Day
• The Initiative: Perfect Dark
• Turn 10 Studios: New Forza
• Undead Labs: State of Decay 3

Current projects of the Bethesda studios

• Arkane Studios: Marvel’s Blade
• Bethesda Game Studios: Elder Scrolls VI
• Machine Games: DLC for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and currently unannounced project
• Zenimax Online Studios: Not yet announced (new MMORPG), continuing to support The Elder Scrolls Online (the Seasons of the Wormcult starts in June 2025)

Here is a roadmap of the Xbox studios from the community (via Reddit):

Current projects from Activision

• Infinity Ward: Call of Duty 2026
• Raven Software: Supporting Call of Duty: Warzone and assisting with other CoD projects.
• Sledgehammer Games: Call of Duty 2027
• Toys for Bob: Working on an unknown project

Current projects from Blizzard

• Continuation of the World Soul saga (Midnight, The Last Titan)
• Mists of Pandaria Classic
• New expansion for Diablo 4
• Together with Nexon: Overwatch Mobile and new StarCraft game

Current projects for Xbox from partners

• Avalanche Studios: Contraband
• Kojima Productions: OD
• Stoic Studio: Towerborne (Preview version already in the Game Pass)
• Iron Galaxy Studios: Remake of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4
• Team Ninja / Platinum Games: Ninja Gaiden 4

Keep in mind that the final acquisition of Activision Blizzard only happened at the end of 2023. It takes a long time to integrate such a huge publisher into a corporation like Microsoft. Additionally, many studios had to finish their “old” projects before they could concretely discuss with people like Phil Spencer which of the numerous franchises they want to develop new games for.

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In other words: It will take several more years before we can assess from a distance how the acquisition by Microsoft has affected, for example, Blizzard and the games developed there. By the way, if you believe Activision is responsible for what has become of the Warcraft developers, you should check this out: It wasn’t Activision that killed the “good old Blizzard”, but the success of WoW