When it’s not buying out studios like it did withBethesda, Microsoft is all too eager to collaborate with other studios to make games for its Xbox Series X/S consoles. Earlier today, one such collaboration was announced and it’s with another giant player within the games industry, Tencent. To be more precise, it’s technically with one of Tencent’s studios,TiMi Studios.
The official announcement doesn’t say much, only confirming the collaboration’s existence and describing it as a strategic partnership betweenTiMi Studiosand Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios. As for what exactly the two will be working on, it mentions creating excellent game content and bringing a new sensory experience to the majority of players (at least according to Google Translate). Right now, this doesn’t exactly mean much. It’s likely that it will involve a new game but what sort of game it’ll be and if it’s a new IP or based on one of Microsoft’s franchises is anyone’s guess.
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TiMi Studios has been making games since 2007, most of which have been for mobile devices. Nowadays, it’s probably best known for developing Activision’sCall of Duty: Mobile, a free-to-play shooter which first released in October 2019. While the mobile title is arguably not as well known or received as much publicity as the consoles games (namelyCall of Duty: WarzoneandCall of Duty: Black Ops Cold War), it’s been incredibly successful for Activision and has contributed to the overall financial success of the franchise. It even has its own esports scene now and has been downloaded at least 500 million times.
The studio is also working with Nintendo on thePokemon UniteMOBA game for mobile and Nintendo Switch. There hasn’t been much news on the game since its announcement, but there was a private beta a couple of months ago. Unsurprisingly, this led to plenty of footage and images being leaked online despite participants being asked not to share anything from the beta.
Around the same time, news broke that TiMi is hiring for another new game, this one being an open-world shooter that will be cross-platform and release on mobile, PC, and consoles, somewhatsimilar to whatGenshin Impactdoes. Basically, TiMi is plenty busy with all these projects, but so far none of them have concrete release dates.
As for Microsoft, it’s been rumored that it’s working withHitmanstudio IO Interactiveas well. While it hasn’t been confirmed, there are more details for the rumored project, namely that it’s a AAA project and is set in a fantasy world with dragons.
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