Focus On: Microsoft Game Studios' Shane Kim
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Since the Rare acquisition, Microsoft - which once considered buying companies such as EA and Nintendo to gain a foothold in the games market - has been remarkably quiet in terms of buying developers. Rumours that its friendship with Canadian RPG wizards Bioware has gone beyond mere friendship persist despite the lack of any announcement to that effect at E3; but Kim says that continued acquisitions are "not necessarily" a part of Microsoft Game Studios' plans at all.
"What's really important for me is to make Microsoft Game Studios the best home for the best talent in the industry, whether that's our internal studios or external development with partners," he explains.
"When you look at our portfolio, we do about half of our titles internally, half of our titles externally. We're very lucky - we have amazingly talented partners, people like Bioware, Peter Molyneux, Bizarre Creations - and the list goes on. I actually will stack our slate of independent game developer partners against other publishers. I like that."
Which isn't to say, however, that more acquisitions are out of the question. "You never know what'll happen. We don't have a specific plan that says we will acquire X more or something like that. It really is the case that every acquisition is on a case by case basis. I don't think you need to acquire developers to have great exclusive content; again, we develop half of our games internally and half of our games externally, and we work with great independent game developers, and that relationship works really, really well. There's no need to acquire them - some of them don't want to be acquired, so we'll do what's best in each particular situation. It really is a case by case thing."
