Never expected anything else from one of the greatest developers in the business.
One of the few developers triple A companies that still haven't sell their soul to easy money, to MP crap, to microtransactions, to make any game a "party game"
Evolution Studios was closed, is a fact. BigBig was a sister developer for Evolution Studios, making it the closing of one being the closing of both. Guerilla Cambridge was formerly known as SCE Studio Cambridge, which makes it an internal Sony studio. In 2012, they changed their name and became a sister studio of Guerilla Games. Guerilla Studios, as we all know, still exists. Incognito Entertainment was always a division of Santa Monica Studio, which in turn is a Sony internal developer. Zipper Interactive was also a internal studio. All developers that have "studio" in them (Manchester, Liverpool and Japan) are internal.
All in all, the only studios of the ones you mention were actually bought and close was Evolution. But the most important take is that Sony actually creates studios (they also buy of course), MS buys them all....except for 343. That was always one of the biggest problems with MS when compared to Sony, MS works by "see an Ip they want as exclusive, so they buy the company". Sony actually creates Ips.
Again this is not a Sony vs MS crap, i still have a 360 which i love to death, so i don't do those fanboys wars nor i care for them. This is about facts.
Before Lionhead there was Bullfrog, which was bought by EA and destroyed years after (with Origin and Westwood). MS bought Lionhead in 2008, the same year Fable II came out (which means it was being made before the buyout). So, the only AAA game they ever did under MS was Fable III, after that it was a XBLA "Fable Heroes" and the Kinect crap "Fable: The Journey". So, all in all, you can't say that Lionhead "killed itself". Lionhead death was about Molyneux leaving, in both cases, because he was disgruntled with EA and MS.
As for Rare; they were one of the greatest companies in video game industry when working with Nintendo. They were even great when in the 80s, making games for the ZX Spectrum when they were called Ultimate Play The Game. So, they were great in the 80s, they were great under Nintendo...and now they are "just one more team".
Last but not least, Blizzard North. BN, like the name states was an division of, an internal developer of Blizzard. As sad as it is, is not nearly the same thing as to buy a company and destroy it.
Wow....i haven't written any thing on Gamespot for YEARS!...but i have to after this one.
This might be the biggest acquisition of all times in the gaming industry. I don't remember the last time anyone bought a PUBLISHER, it's usually publishers that do the buyout. And this awful if you are a console only gamer and a PS fanboy. But the real problem is.....MS destroys every company they bought until now, so...........does this mean Bethesda will be garbage from now on or is just a matter of time for them to go independent again like Twisted Pixel, which became garbage after being bought? But all in all, unless their games go console exclusive, this move is rather pointless in the "console war".
This is not, in any way, a Sony vs MS, i don't do that crap nor i care for this "wars", but it's a fact. Remember Digital Envil? Lionhead? Rare (kinect crap)? Emsemble?
Video Games are the scapegoats that movies were back in the day.
A person goes on a gun killing spree and they say that he played violent video games...the surprise would be if that person played Barbie video games. Of course a violent person will play and do violent things, that is logic 101, but that doesn't make video games the ones to blame but rather the person itself.
The irony and hypocrisy of this all is that the government will look at anything but gun control, because there is a lot of money to gain from selling guns.
Why oh why did you guys elected a moron?!?!?!?!?!?!
It doesn't need a tv show to say that we are all molded by our parents, but what they don't say is that the parents are molded by their parents and their parents by their parents and their parents by their parents....and so on ad nauseam.
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