Microsoft Studios acquires rights to Gears of War franchise


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Today we're excited to announce that Microsoft Studios has acquired the rights to the ?Gears of War? franchise from Epic Games, including rights to all existing and future games, entertainment experiences and merchandise. In addition, we are excited to announce that Black Tusk Studios in Vancouver, BC will take over development of the ?Gears of War? franchise and that Rod Fergusson, former Director of Production at Epic Games on the ?Gears of War? franchise, will join Microsoft and play a key studio leadership role at Black Tusk on the development of the franchise going forward. We had a chance to chat with Phil Spencer, Head of Microsoft Studios, Hanno Lemke, General Manager of Black Tusk Studios at Microsoft Studios, and Rod Fergusson about the big news

 

http://news.xbox.com/2014/01/games-microsoft-studios-gears-of-war

 

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It isn't really a game announcement is it?

 

I personally got sick of Gears of War after the second game.

Still will be interesting to see what they do with it.

 

Gears of War-Karting might actually happen!

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It isn't really a game announcement is it?

 

I personally got sick of Gears of War after the second game.

Still will be interesting to see what they do with it.

 

Gears of War-Karting might actually happen!

Same here. I haven't bothered with GoW3.
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Today we're excited to announce that Microsoft Studios has acquired the rights to the ?Gears of War? franchise from Epic Games, including rights to all existing and future games, entertainment experiences and merchandise. In addition, we are excited to announce that Black Tusk Studios in Vancouver, BC will take over development of the ?Gears of War? franchise and that Rod Fergusson, former Director of Production at Epic Games on the ?Gears of War? franchise, will join Microsoft and play a key studio leadership role at Black Tusk on the development of the franchise going forward. We had a chance to chat with Phil Spencer, Head of Microsoft Studios, Hanno Lemke, General Manager of Black Tusk Studios at Microsoft Studios, and Rod Fergusson about the big news

Source: http://news.xbox.com/2014/01/games-microsoft-studios-gears-of-war

Well, Microsoft did a smart move of getting back one of the franchises that makes the sales of the Xboxes given the cold reception of Gears of War Judgement

Now, the big question: what is left with Epic?

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Well this was clearly MS' announcement in collaboration with Black Tusk.

 

Wonder what Ruffian has to announce. Don't care what it is, as long as it's new IP. Will it even be exclusive to Xbox more importantly.

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Would of been good to see a new IP, Gears was pretty much MS "only" anyway. Never thought I'd see it on PS.

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It isn't really a game announcement is it?

 

I personally got sick of Gears of War after the second game.

Still will be interesting to see what they do with it.

 

Gears of War-Karting might actually happen!

 

Nah, Nintendo would have to own it to make it a karting game.

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Well this was clearly MS' announcement in collaboration with Black Tusk.

 

Wonder what Ruffian has to announce. Don't care what it is, as long as it's new IP. Will it even be exclusive to Xbox more importantly.

 

Is this in addition to whatever Black Tusk showed at E3 or will Gears be their only game in development? I can't find a clear answer anywhere.

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Is this in addition to whatever Black Tusk showed at E3 or will Gears be their only game in development? I can't find a clear answer anywhere.

 

Apprently not. I've read today Phil Spencer had to beg them to show something at E3 for filler.

 

Quote from him:

 

"The thing we showed at E3 last year, it was something that was done in Unreal and more of a concept piece," Spencer said, calling it "an asset" created by the team to get their creative juices flowing, not necessarily an in-development game.

"The studio has really been incubating different ideas over the past six to nine months on what they might work on," he said, "but the discussion with Epic obviously didn't start yesterday. We've been in this discussion for a while. The leadership team there has known for a while."

 

 

 

Sigh.

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There's still new IP in the works from what I remember but that doesn't mean they can't expand the gears franchise.

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Apprently not. I've read today Phil Spencer had to beg them to show something at E3 for filler.

 

Quote from him:

 

 

 

 

Sigh.

That's ...disappointing.

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I doubt Black Tusk is only going to work on Gears, like Phil said, they've got a number of ideas and thinks they're looking at. Besides, if they have something else in the works they're not going to tell us now, specially not any new IP. They're going to hold off on those for big events like E3.

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There's still new IP in the works from what I remember but that doesn't mean they can't expand the gears franchise.

 

From who? Not Black Tusk, according to their developers.

 

Microsoft have new IP including Sunset Overdrive, Quantum Break, D4, Project Spark and Titanfall. The latter 2 are cross-platform and according to Respawn TF will go multiplatform in future.

 

Just a shame they are insistent on recycling the same releases year after year. A dedicated "factory" for Halo, Forza and Gears. Thank god Lionhead are finally being allowed to work on something other than Fable. Must be soul destroying for creative people.

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Expanding the Gears franchise via games is going to be problematic: the main story arc has been pretty much wrapped up in GoW3.

They could do side missions or bridge the events between GoW 1 and GoW 2 or GoW 2 and GoW 3 but that would make a GoW: Judgement like and I do not think it is a good idea for MS because Judgement was badly executed. (oh the pun!)

Making a game in the time of the Pendulum wars is going to be no locusts, no chainsaw and that is not Gears as CliffB explained some time ago

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Who says Black Tusk is only going to work on Gears from now on? Or that they don't/can't have something else to, last I read they're not some tiny group.

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