Microsoft opening two new studios with focus on Kinect

New studios “pioneering experiences on Kinect” inside Microsoft’s first party team.

A new job listing points to Microsoft opening two new studios to foster in-house development for Microsoft's Kinect. "Platform Next Studios" and "Microsoft Studios LEAP" are the two new studios that will be "pioneering experiences on Kinect", according to the job listings.

This should come as no surprise to Xbox 360 gamers that have seen Microsoft's exclusive lineup of "core games" dwindle in recent years. In an interview earlier this month, Phil Spencer of Microsoft spoke about the difficulties of bringing new exclusive IPs to the console. Those difficulties are obviously mounting when you take into consideration that nearly all of the internal development has been geared towards their Kinect motion controller.

The company does have a handful of core titles on the way in 2012. Alan Wake's American Nightmare will see release shortly on the Xbox Live Arcade, during the company's House Party event. Of couse, Halo 4 will also satisfy many of the core demographic that flocked to the console that was launched by that franchise.

What's coming out of these two new internal studios?

By William Schwartz on January 25, 2012

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55 COMMENTS

Brian
REPLY
Let’s hope more mass effect, steel batilon type of development and less kinectamals
- Cool dude
  Back you up there brother…
Allen
REPLY
Whoa, whoa…whoa! So M$ put out 2 good games in 2011, I see 1 good game for 2012 and instead of devoting at least 1 studio to core gaming they are devoting both to Kinect?
LMAO, here’s some advise….jump ship now..it should have been done back in 2006 or at least 2009 but if you haven’t yet…do it before that POS not only overheats…but before M$ turns that thing in a weighted kid’s toy.
- Cool dude
  LMAO, Allen couldnt keep his mouth shut.
  Stupid loser.
- Allen
  Well I was just having a little fun but seriously…Sony is the one a bunch of 1st party Studios & M$ really needs some good exclusives right now. Why are they putting 2 more studios focusing on Kinect? They seem to be focusing on Kinect only…come on man. You guys deserve more than just Halo 4 in all of 2012.
- jason
  Hey Allen, why don’t you look up kinect hacks on youtube and see how amazing that tech is before you start talkin shit with no toilet paper! Now go stick yo dick in a meat grinder! ;)
Titan
REPLY
Probably developing for 720 release on a more advanced kinect, could be promising
Bryant
REPLY
This Allen guy acts like his xbox was having an affair with his wife
Cool dude
REPLY
Good to see MS listening to its X360 gamers. Keep opening studios. Really need more games next time.
- Allen
  What??? Listening to gamers?
  it was 9.6 months before you got 1 good game in 2011, now only 1 good game is coming in 2012 and they’re saying already that they are focusing more on Kinect.
  No way in hell is focusing on Kinect “listening” to gamers. All of my xbox friends hate kinect, except dance central…even I can agree that game is okay. Not my style but I can admit that it’s a decent game for the genre it is.
  Kinect should not be the future of Xbox…they need to focus on what has made them good – Halo & online play. And I say that for your own good.
  But if you want to pet thin air and wave you arms around on a laggy POS then please….be happy that they are focusing on Kinect only.
- Cool dude
  I dont even know why you go nuts over kinect.
  If its not your style, dont buy it. Simple.
  Something you wont understand. Right Allen?
- Allen
  Okay cool dude.
  I hope M$ totally abandons the core market and you are stuck with laggy kid kinect games. I hope you are happy.
- Cool dude
  If thats how you interpret what Ive said. Then you simply cant read.
  I never said that im totally pro-kinect.
  Im just saying that you shouldnt bash kinect just because Ps move has been abandoned. Hahahahaaaa
  Nah jokes.
  Again, I never said anything about abandoning the core market did I?
- Allen
  Ha ha, okay cool dude.
- Allen
  Oh but I did want to mention cool dude that I personally love how Sony has implemented the move and I wouldn’t say it’s abandoned at all.
  There are soome move exclusive games but they have done a great job implementing the move into core games. . I have the option to pick it up for a shooter, or little big planet or use it to play basketball or baseball & golf on core games that I already love. Then with the option for move only games like Sourcery, the fight lights out, start the party, etc.
reality
REPLY
I like how Allen still thinks that true gamers don’t already have a PS3 and a 360. Such a tool.
- Allen
  I love how you call your self a true gamer Reality. You are missing the best of the best..yet somehow too ignorant to realize it.
  PC baby….before PS3 that was my go to for online play, it is undoubtfully the best of the best and between PC, Wii and PS3 you can play every game ever made with the acception of like 4 titles on xbox 360 – with some version of those titles being sequels of games that are on PC.
  Anyways, fk off – I was having fun but was saying you guys deserve more than just Halo 4 and some Kinect rubbish in 2012
- Cool dude
  If you were “having fun” with us. Your doing it in a very insulting way. The way you talk is very insulting, the way you reply is very insulting. It seems that youre the only one having fun.
  Seriously Allen stop acting like a fanboy and more like a true gamer for once.
- Allen
  Well, I thought it was obvious that I was having fun but after everyone got their feelings hurt I said that all I was trying to say is m$ should focus on core games since there’s only been 3 in the last 2 years that seem worth while. And that since M$ doesn’t have many 1st party studios like Sony does then they should have put at least 1 of those towards the core games instead of Kinect. They said that they weren’t abandoning the core market but little to no evidence has shown that.
Gman
REPLY
I think what Allen meant is that Xbox gamers deserve more than Halo 4 in 2012, and MS needs to refocus their goal to cater core gamers, not casuals with kinects.
- Cool dude
  I know he means that. But it the way he says it.
  He sounds like idiot trying to get his point over to other people.
Raven
REPLY
A lot of concern from sony fans who probably have skyrim, battlefield, or some other non exclusive in their ps3 right now.
- xL337x Revenant
  I think its great how Allen talks the kinect is garbage and is only kid related when its not. i use it while i cooking and having to reach a remote after making meatballs or something I can just tell the xbox what I ned done instead its very handy. Also I heard that SOny might come out with A only games sense they shaped there move controller after a vibrater and dont worry its free Allen like the crappy online you dont have to pay for.
Hoppsy
REPLY
and the abandonment of core gamers by M$ continues………
- Cool dude
  You never know. One probable reason why they are opening kinect studios is because they want their better experience studios to develop core games.
Tuck
REPLY
Yup, sony fans abandoned buying exclusives for multi plats a long time ago. Especially when old xbox exclusives like saints row go multi plat, sony fans love those games.
- xL337x Revenant
  The real reason to go multiplat now a days is money, they want more of it and if they multiplat they make 2x the amount they would have if they just had it for pc and xbox for example. There is only a couple companys that do not do that to stay loyal to fans and that is epic with gears and for exmaple on pS3 side I forget the name but guys who developed Killzone I hadnt got to play it sense PS2 do to PS3 being way expensive on release and I love my xbox more than ever now.
jason
REPLY
Allen I was just Kidding bro, dont be mad!
That Guy
REPLY
$sony isnt that good at producing games either.
- That Guy
  lol i failed… the message is still the same though
Pete
REPLY
I bought 3 kinect games last year, all fun, looking forward to what’s up next.
Plus I assume some of those kinect profits went to securing the Witcher 2 port. Non gaming pc here, so this is pretty exciting for me.
- xL337x Revenant
  I totally forgot about Witcher 2 port, thats gonna be amazing sense its only for xbox and pc. Cant wait amazing on windows, but more content added for xbox version though.
reality
REPLY
I do have a pc that can run games, don’t play pc games because I prefer a controller (gamepad) and the majority, if not all, new pc games, especially shooters, do not support their use.
It’s way past time for you to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.
Lol@all3n
REPLY
Lol 18 million kinects sold, so putting out game for those 18 million buyers is a bad thing go figure lmao. Bad bad bad Microsoft lol. All3n keeps forget MS AND SONY are businesses and have to make money anyway they can so 18 million kinect games need games at 50 bucks pop….um business 101 lol
Truth
REPLY
Face it xbots, MS turned their back on their hardcore fans. Now it’s all about the kiddie games.
Roach
REPLY
@Truth the question is nowadays, what is the gap between a “kiddie” game and a game for “core gamers”? Are Little Big Planet 1 and 2 “kiddie games”? Is Legend of Zelda a “kiddie game”? Or Super Mario Galaxy? Or Kirby Epic Yarn? Or Donkey Kong Country? Or Rayman Originals? Or Limbo? Super Smash Bros Brawl? The line is so thin that I almost believe it doesn’t exist at all.
- Allen
  I think the real question is; are you okay with getting 1 to 2 core games a year and 12-15 Kinect games. is that what you want? Because 1 to 2 core exclusive games feels like abandonment to me.
- Cool dude
  Ok so it happens for one year. So you call that abandoning?
Andrew
REPLY
It’s okay while Allen continues to complain about Xbox throughout this year I’ll be enjoying Halo, Fable, Minecraft, Allen Wake, Ryse, Deadlight, Trials Evolution, Witcher 2, Mass Effect 3 with some pretty awesome Kinect intergration and I might get around to buying Gears of War III because of all the games from last year plus my School exams didn’t provide time. Oh and maybe any other exclusives that Microsoft hasn’t announced yet.
But you know Microsoft they don’t provide exclusives any more. Oh and BTW in case you haven’t realized in addition to having added four new Kinect Studios, Microsoft has also started two new studios that have been said to be working on AAA Core titles, one of which is Microsoft Vancouver. With a likely 2013 Xbox 720 release with Probably Gears of War IV, Forza 5 and these probable two titles in development with Halo V and Fable a year later the future of Xbox doesn’t look that bleak to me.
Now stop trolling and try to do some research before you make stupid statements, I don’t put down the PS3 because I know it’s a great system with good games but I chose Xbox for both it’s stronger online performance/services and focus on First Person Shooter titles. So stop bitching.
Microsoft Vancouver:
http://www.mgsvancouver.com/
- Allen
  So you are really excited about games that are no name: Ryse, Deadlight, Trials Evolution or games that are on PC: Fable, Minecraft, Allen Wake or games that are mutli plat: Mass Effect 3
  With limited motion control – that you paid like $100 for. Oh I meant laggy, misreading command POS control you paid $100.
- That Guy
  heh, i wrote the same thing allen it just didnt publish :(
Andrew
REPLY
Wow, very very creative. I guess Crytek is a no name company as well (Team making Ryse). BTW the reason the games have no name is because you’re a PS3 fanboy so of course you never heard of them, Trials is a hugely popular game on the 360. And so what if Fable, Minecraft and Alan Wake are on PC also? They are first party games by Microsoft that either own the IP or paid for porting rights and hence I get to play on my platform of choice hence I will be enjoying them this year as a console exclusive. And I know Mass Effect is Multiplatform which is why I said I’m excited for the additional Kinect functionality. Now I have not once put down PS3 even despite it’s troubles which both systems have, but for some reason you seem out to prove a point that the 360 is shit. It obviously isn’t and yet you persist is trying to put down other peoples system of choice.
I never went and posted on forums or news sites when the PS3 had a one month outage, when it was announced that you will never get party chat or multitasking on PS3 or when PS3 got PSN+ and that it was hyprocritical that Xbox had a paid system for online features.Sure some xbox fanboys did but they’re complete idiots and you are just a Playstation alternative. Sony makes mistakes as does Microsoft,
You said that the 360 had no exclusives this year, I posted quite a number and you either completely rejected them because you haven’t heard of them or because you can’t play them on PS3 so you resort to calling the Kinect a piece of shit despite it obviously being a hit with others. You said that there where no new core game development studios opening, once again I informed otherwise and yet you are still to provide any factual agruments as to why the 360 is bad other than a highly opinion based “Kinect is POS”. If you really do call yourself a gamer stop trying to put down other gamers and their systems because obviously nobody here is enjoying your negativity and obvious fanboy attitude in the name of ‘having fun’.
- Allen
  I looked up what you wrote and couldn’t find anything on them. Sorry.
Andrew
REPLY
Who?
- Allen
  Okay, I’ve had time to read what you wrote and Respect, you’re cool Andrew.
  me I hate xbox in a million different ways and perhaps you just never seen it before. they are a total scam and Kinect is mostly laggy. I will agree that Kinect will have it’s uses but right now I consider it a POS. Sure that’s my opinion and you have yours but mostly my beef is with Xbox.
  Xbox is the only gaming plat form pay to play
  Well all their best exclusives are on PC so they aren’t really exclusives. And those that aren’t (Halo and Gears) still have a prequel to them on PC, so really there is almost no game in the world you can’t play between PC, Wii and PS3. All of which have an internet browser, free online play and have had hardware reliability since launch.
  Xbox launched early and caused RROD as an evil strategy to gain market share and it worked. No one should have stayed with Xbox after they got that home and realized that they had to pay $60 – sorry $50 at the time to do anything other than play single player games or watch DVD’s. And no one should have stuck with them after their Xbox died on them the 3rd month in a row.
  I will agree, xbox slim is probably as solid as PS3 now, although it does still scratch disks is bumped or moved but like who’s gonna do that. Just a couple thousand to a couple million people probably did that, no it’s not a big deal but M$ did release knowing it was missing a $0.25 plastic buffer to hold the disk securely in place but didn’t care because they wanted market share.
  Then there’s how M$ made Halo 2 for PC on Vista only. There is no reason for this other than a scam to push their new at the time OS. It is the only game in the world I’ve ever personally seen that is only available for 1 OS. Now days it would be understandable because of direct x10 & 11 support but that wasn’t the case for Vista.
  And other minor BS that pisses me off. Like how the money whores have only lowered their cost $100 in 6 years. How no wifi was included for 5 years, then the proprietary adapter was $100 & how it has no browser and for the cost $299 you don’t even have blu ray – all that’s sold is HDTV’s and if you want blu ray you gotta pay another $90-$150 for one at current prices. Then expensive, limited in size proprietary HDD as well.
  Then you could go onto exclusive content, like how PS3 gets full free games, map packs, game modes, charactors and other things for free on the best multi plat games of this gen.
  There’s more but this is long winded enough and no one gives a fk anyways but you seemed to think that I was just being a fanboy trolling on xbox. They deserved each and every bit of what I give them though, no one needs to support them and until they change their ways I would like to see them drop off the face of the earth. Keep Halo where it belongs – on PC and give me a hardcore Nintendo to compete with my PS4.
  Thank you again for your respectful comment and I do apologize that I didn’t see those “no name” exclusives; I was in a rush and only checked one source. Funny that they didn’t have a thing about it though.
- Allen
  Oh re-reading here. I do think Kinect will be awesome in the future. Really someone mentioned the other day on the star wars kinect page and I totally think this would be the ultimate experience for Star Wars.
  First – better graphics but that’s not what I was going to say
  2nd – Kinect for body control and Move for accurate/fast 3D Light saber control. That just seems perfect, the real virtual reality coming to life.
- Raven
  360 was rushed due to losing a legal battle with the chips on the orginal Xbox, it was either release 360 or completely redo a system that wasn’t selling. Sure some shady plans were probably in there too, but not as much as you imply.
  Halo’s popularity is due to bringing PC style online gaming to the console. Sure every game has something similar now, but that was Halo 2′s original selling point. So all this Halo can just be bought on PC is pointless, there are tons of better PC FPS’s, no point to buy it on PC. What do you own Battlefield on? PC? Probably PS3 because it provides ease of play, no system upgrades, and can be played on your big screen easily. Nothing against PC gaming, but I know you own Battlefield on PS3 so that defeats any “just buy the PC version” comments.
  Also waiting for a game several years after it’s release does not sound that good to me. Heck the online community would barely be what it was at it’s release.
  Every xbox price drop usually added features and every play station price drop usually removed features.
Andrew
REPLY
Now I can agree with you because you’re not being derogatory. But yeah Move is more accurate but I don’t really like the Alpha builds of Kinect Star Wars, looks laggy and unresponsive. I think if they where able to make Kinect Star Wars as responsive and accurate as Kinect Sports it will be awesome. My game for Kinect I would like to play is Ryse.
Andrew
REPLY
I do find a few flaws in your factual arguments though:
RROD Argument: They did increase the Warranty to 3 years straight away so the market share never increased. It’s more likely that PS3 probably had a marketshare gain after Xbox users switched. I never switched because I’m a long time fan of Halo and I never had a RROD.
Xbox Exclusives Argument: You do realise that Halo 2 being a Vista exclusive is exactly the same as what Sony/Nintendo have been doing with their IP’s. Also sure you can get many of the older exclusives on PC but the key is that they are older and Microsoft is not competing with Sony on the PC platform. And there are still many exclusives on the Xbox you can’t get on PC.
Scratch Disks: The discs are only scratched if you move the console or it falls over while the xbox is on. If it’s off you have no problem.
Console Costs: Proprietary hardware is not only an Xbox issue, Apple, Sony and every other major manufacturer is guilty of this (Look at the proprietary issues with Vita for example) and the HDDs are same sizes as PS3, but the Xbox 360 Core edition had a small storage space when it released but at the time arcade games where virtually non-existent and Xbox is required to install games like the PS3.
As for Blue-Ray yeah Microsoft dropped the ball by not converting their games to HD-DVD’s. Microsoft most likely wont support Blue-Ray because of Royalties to Sony however if their next gen console has a HD-DVD reader with HD-DVD games then I don’t see an issue with it. It’s only early 2011 where DVD has started to cause an inconvenience with multiple discs but with a new console in 2013 it should be okay.
I never try to put down the PS3 and I’m hoping you realise that although the Xbox has its shortfalls so does PS3. I’ve once owned a PS3 but kept the 360 because of the online experience and as I said before Halo. I’m glad you’ve changed your tone because I didn’t like calling you a fanboy.
- Titan
  With the whole HD-Dvd/Blu Ray thing, it wasn’t like Blu Ray was known to be a winner. I worked at Circuit City then, during college, and we honestly thought HD Dvd would win due to the cheaper players, but Sony stepped up and pressured the right companies. Games were not even pushing the GB’s that are needed today. Plus for Xbox to include either option in 2005 would have bumped the price up to a very un-affordable range.
  Sure I’d like my xbox to have a blu ray player, but I don’t think they dropped the ball, it just wasn’t a simple option back in 2005. I do think Sony did future proof nicely and I give them credit for that.
- Allen
  Again respectful and I love that. Too many fanboys on this site lack that and I think it’s made me grow more “immature” when I started commenting here I was all about facts, now there’s this drama game that’s just not me.
  Anyways yes I do agree Sony has had some shortfalls but they are so few and far between. The only one I can seriously be upset about is them taking backwards capability out. Sony invented backwards cap, now they are the only one’s not doing it. Something I hope they correct with PS4.
  The USB ports, memory card slots and other OS doesn’t bother me. If I had to pick and choose out of those I would want the other OS back, but again I just wouldn’t use it; it would just be nice because I know that was a big selling point for others.
  Xbox in comparison; in my eyes anyways has done nothing but scam after scam. If I were an xbox gamer I would feel so ripped off.
  Let’s bring up Netflix. Xbox is the only streaming platform in the world (that I know of) that makes you “pay” for the “right” to “Pay” for a sub to netflix. There is no reason M$ shouldn’t allow people to sub to netflix without gold. But they are stingy.
  Going back to HDD, I’m talking comparing PS3 and 360. Sony made PS3 easy to upgrade to any SATA HDD, so I upgraded mine to 500GB for only $50. Xbox until recently was limited to 250gb & at $120.
  Also since the controllers don’t come with recharge batteries yet still cost $50 you gotta pay $70 total including battery packs.
  Between the expensive limited hardware, the lack of true exclusives, the high cost without blu ray or browser, te pay to play, the Halo 2 for PC deal and all, I just can’t get over it my self.
  Exclusives are supposed to be exclusives. Yes I understand what you were saying about Halo 2 on PC but I just can’t see it that way. If they were going to play that game they should have left it on xbox only. At least then they could call it a true exclusive.
  Game on Andrew
Andrew
REPLY
Yeah that’s true Titan. They probably made the right move with DVD, for me personally I’ve had a Blu-Ray player for a few years now and all I buy is DVDs. I’m hoping now they got HD DVD so we can still buy DVDs but the games can still fit on one disc.
- Titan
  Yup, right move at the time, but in the long run Sony took a gamble and it paid off.
- Titan
  Though what really annoys me is Nintendo not adding at least a DVD player.
njb
REPLY
i saw some comments and it seems like normal everyday ppl have found a way of making kinect better.
surprising considering MS have so much money to develope and all their focus is on kinect now.
And ive noticed Halo quite abit poppin up in these previous comments. i must admit if PS3 never had exclusives or free online then id have to get 360 just to play halo but for 1 game only i cant see the point.
ANd its actually nice to see Allen, Andrew, cool dude and titan and others……. all making just and fair points with facts. I really hate blind trolls, Greenrings for example