Xbox appears to be setting up a new studio or development team

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Summary

  • Xbox may be starting a new in-house game studio, as suggested by a new job listing.

  • Job Post is seeking an Executive Producer to lead an unspecified game development team in San Francisco and New York.

  • If this is indeed a brand new unnoticed Xbox studio, fans will likely have to wait many years to learn what it's developing.

A new one Xbox Job listing has fans speculating whether Microsoft is spinning off a new in-house game studio. While there is already a significant arsenal of development teams under the Xbox banner, one more studio may have been added to the mix in recent memory.

As it stands, Xbox cumulatively owns over 30 game development studios across three core business verticals: Xbox Game Studios, Zenimax Media and Activision Blizzard. Most of Xbox's first-party studios were purchased, with only The Coalition, Halo Studios (formerly 343 Industries), Turn 10 Studios, Initiative, and World's Edge being homegrown teams. The most recent addition of these is the Santa Monica-based initiative, founded in 2018 and working on the upcoming Perfectly dark restart.

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While the initiative faced some teething problems early on, development on Perfectly dark Reboot seems to have settled down at a smooth pace. Now it seems that Microsoft may be in the process Kickstarting a brand new game development studioas suggested by a recent Xbox Job Post for an “experienced executive producer.” The listing mentions that the appointed individual will “lead” an unspecified game development team within the San Francisco Bay Area and New York City Metropolitan Area. Microsoft also isn't accepting applications for the position until the end of February, further supporting the notion that this team is being built from the ground up and will be led by an executive producer down the line.

Xbox may have established a brand new game studio

Executive Producer Production Leader Microsoft LinkedIn Job Listing Xbox New Studio

Notable industry insider Extas1s, who first spotted the job listing, opined in a recent tweet that this supposedly burgeoning Xbox team is a “top-level secret,” and that a vacancy like this usually opens up in the case of a “brand-new, unannounced studio .” According to the insider, Microsoft could line up a “big announcement” for this secret team, possibly along the lines of the revealed initiative among the addition of five new studios to the Xbox brand at E3 2018. On the other hand, the Xbox Job Listing may not be looking for an executive producer for a single team, but multiple teams instead. This would explain why the post didn't list any studio names, but only time will tell which of these possibilities turn out to be correct.

If there is a brand new in-house Xbox studio materializing behind the scenes, fans of the brand will likely have to wait a very long time to learn what it's working on. Thankfully, they'll have plenty to play in the meantime, as Microsoft has an incredible slate of Xbox games slated for release in the coming years. 2025 alone is set to get heavy hitters like Doom: The Dark Ages, Agreed, South of midnight, Ninja Gaiden 4, Fableand potentially even more.

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