Remember that rumour about Microsoft buying Obsidian one month ago? Well, it's no longer a rumour, but a reality and it includes inXile Entertainment, as well. In total, 7 companies have been acquired by Microsoft just this year. I would make a joke about Larian Studios being next, but maybe it won't be a joke for long if Microsoft continues their acquisition spree.

Source: https://gematsu.com/2018/11/microsoft-acquires-obsidian-entertainment-and-inxile-entertainment

Oh good. I'm sure that all future WRPGs being developed with consoles and joypads as the target devices won't negatively impact the genre at all.

So when does Pillars of Eternity: Dark Alliance come out on Windows (10 only, of course)?

Did anyone else read the other day that IBM also acquired Red Hat?

https://www.npr.org/2018/10/28/661598557/in-major-acquisition-ibm-will-acquire-open-source-software-company-red-hat

How will this affect these two developers'' commitment to Linux? Will there ever be a Linux Bard's Tale Remastered or Bard's Tale IV or Wasteland 3? Will Obsidian's next game be Windows only? IBM is not Microsoft, even though I considered them synonymous in the 80s, and "IBM PC Clone" became "PC" which for some reason now means "Windows PC".

You are right. I mistyped. I was thinking "IBM" but posted "Microsoft". Editing now.

And nothing of value was lost tbh.
The midsize RPG devs from north america are dead and buried though.

Man, these studios and their cookie-cutter shareholder-oriented videos never cease to amaze me. I think Microsoft is becoming a cult of sorts, nowadays everyone seems to be calling them "family" and they all look so happy to join them even if they take away their independence.

Well,that's that then........and soon they will own all except maybe,nah they will buy all.

damn, thats poopy.

im sure theyll make plenty of great stream-only content for microsoft in the future. ugh.

Upcoming exclusive releases for xbone in 3, 2...

Why is MS buying good indie game companies!?
Are they going to tie new games to Win10 & Xbox? T_T

That is because a good half of indie game studios like to throw around words like "The little guy" and other phrases in an attempt to pull at gamers heartstrings, but in actuality, they are just as corrupt as the next corporation. And their hypocrisy makes it all the worse. Some say Microsoft sucks for buying them, but the thing is, they didn't have to sell. No one forced them to.

Anyhow, it's bad news for games. Less games being sold DRM-Free or on open platforms. More locked to the Microsoft windows store, or a DRM-to-the-hilt release if done on other digital distributions.

People don't keep up with current affairs much do they? You don't have to worry about MS making games Xbox only. All their games are now released across both their platforms, and most likely Steam as well.

You don't have to worry about RPG's being made for gamepads anymore than before. Torment, Wasteland 2, Pillars, Divinity OS, all the XCOM games have all been on consoles for years and the PC versions still have mouse and keyboard. Were they still good games or weren't they?

In any case, Xbox now has mouse and keyboard if a dev wants to use it. Stop the shit about it just being a PC, the PlayStation had a mouse and games that used it 20 years ago- it was still a console, it's been done before. Games can even release on Xbox now that require mouse and keyboard. What, you can't do that? Why? Games require Kinect, some require PS VR, or PS Move as requirements and those are sold, so why not mouse and keyboard? Most people have them already anyway. Xbox is now becoming a low to mid range PC in a box so people that don't give a shit about PC's can plug into their TV and play PC type games. What's wrong with that? You can still build your $5000 raytracing PC and play at better frame rates (unless you have RTX turned on), you can still sneer down at the peasants.
Nothing is changing except a couple of companies no longer have to grovel to crowdfunders when making their games. To me that is good. Oh, and no more GOG releases.

Now, InXile doesn't just have the rights to Bards Tale and Wasteland...they just happen to own rights to a title called Autoduel as well. If Autoduel comes back it will all be worth it.

Edit: by the way, the reason MS are on this buying spree is because, for the first time in history the upper management has realised just how big the industry truly is- Minecraft taught them well. At the start of the console gen people thought it was funny to "poke the bear". You not only woke it up, it's angry and going on a rampage now. Never poke the bear.

The lengths people have to go to to really OWN their games these days... SMH.

No, "PC" means any personal computer. Despite how some companies (and individuals) may still use the term, Macs and systems running Linux are PCs just as much as machines that ship with Windows. I always detested the old, stupid marketing-based logic that led to IBM-compatibles alone being labeled as "PCs", while, mysteriously, Amigas, Macs and others were not, and I'm glad that that particular bit of terminology stupidity has mostly died. Unless Nordic gets them first!