Microsoft has confirmed that they’re investing $1 billion into games on the Xbox One, which will finance new studios and exclusives for their new console.
“I think, candidly, people are way, way under-indexing how hard we’re punching,” Microsoft’s Don Mattrick said in an interview with Official Xbox Magazine.
“We just ran through our [release slate] and counted the number of exclusives, and looked at the amount of money that we’re spending and the deals that we have, exclusive windows and [things to create differentiation],” he said.
The $1 billion in investments include new studios in London, Washington and Victoria, plus the acquisition of Phil Harrison, formerly of Sony exec and the installation of John Needham as head of Lionhead Studios.
Additionally, Rare is currently working on a revival of one of its own franchises, Black Tusk Studios and Microsoft Osaka are working on an unannounced titles, Lift London is working on cloud experiences and Press Play and Twisted Pixel are working in shorter, arcade-like titles.
It’s assumed that the studios above will play a large part in creating Xbox One exclusive titles, of which Microsoft confirmed we’ll see 15 of in the console’s first year.
We should get a first look at some of those 15 titles during Microsoft’s E3 press conference on June 10.
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