TheBlueOmen Administrator
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| Subject: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Tue Jan 28, 2014 5:59 am | |
| Microsoft acquires Gears of War from Epic, hires series producer Rod Fergusson!!
The future of the Gears of War franchise is now in Microsoft's hands. The Xbox maker revealed today it acquired the rights to the franchise, including all existing and future games, from creator Epic Games.
That means new entries in the Gears of War franchise will come from Microsoft Studios and will remain exclusive to Xbox. Microsoft has tasked Black Tusk Studios, the company's Vancouver-based developer, with creating future Gears of War titles.
Aiding Black Tusk will be Rod Fergusson, the former Epic Games executive producer and director of production who oversaw the first three games in the Gears of War series. Fergusson is joining Black Tusk, working with the studio's general manager, Hanno Lemke, and overseeing the franchise.
Fergusson left Epic in August 2012 to join Irrational Games but, after the completion of BioShock Infinite, left the studio. He announced in September 2013 that he was joining 2K Games to lead a new studio on an unannounced project. His transition to Microsoft is a homecoming; Fergusson worked for the company from 1996 to 2006.
According to Microsoft, Fergusson will "play a key studio leadership role at Black Tusk on the development of the franchise going forward."
"I'm extremely excited to be joining Black Tusk Studios to oversee development on the Gears of War franchise," Fergusson said in a statement to Polygon. "I've been privileged to work on a lot of great games with a lot of great teams, but Gears has had the most impact on me professionally and personally, so this really feels like a homecoming. I can't wait to share more with you all soon."
Phil Spencer, Microsoft Studios corporate vice president, told Polygon that the company isn't ready to discuss its plans for the Gears franchise yet, but will be making some related announcements later this year.
The discussion to acquire the Gears of War franchise — which includes the games as well as all "entertainment experiences and merchandise," Microsoft said — is one that's been going on for a while, according to Spencer, roughly since last fall.
"We finished the last Gears talking about the next iteration of the franchise, one that Epic and I were going to talk about just as a natural course of the publishing and studio relationship," Spencer said. "They didn't have a firm plan for what they wanted to do with Gears, which obviously opened the door to conversation. They wanted to make sure the franchise landed somewhere we could develop it well, so we started having discussions about how we could continue the franchise."
Spencer said Microsoft's interest in acquiring Gears came down to the fact that the series, as one of the platform's exclusives, has been critical to the success of the Xbox 360. Epic's motivation to transfer Gears of War to Microsoft, Spencer said, was that "they've just got great new things they want to go do."
Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games, echoed that sentiment in a statement to Polygon:
"We're very proud of the franchise we built in close partnership with Microsoft over the past decade and are happy that this agreement enables Microsoft to forge ahead with the Gears universe on their industry-leading platforms as Epic concentrates its efforts on new projects," Sweeney said. "Epic remains totally dedicated to supporting Xbox One and is licensing the Unreal Engine 4 technology to Microsoft in support of their future projects."
Gears of War's new home, Black Tusk Studios, may come as a surprise to Xbox fans who watched Microsoft's press conference from E3 2013. It was there where Spencer teased a new project from Black Tusk, a sleek, stealthy action game with no name.
"The thing we showed at E3 last year, it was something that was done in Unreal and more of a concept piece," Spencer said, calling it "an asset" created by the team to get their creative juices flowing, not necessarily an in-development game.
"The studio has really been incubating different ideas over the past six to nine months on what they might work on," he said, "but the discussion with Epic obviously didn't start yesterday. We've been in this discussion for a while. The leadership team there has known for a while."
Because Black Tusk was already working with the Unreal Engine on Xbox One, the opportunity to bring Gears of War to the studio "was actually a nice coincidence," Spencer said, and not something planned during the formation of the developer.
"I wanted to make sure I had a great internal team, similar to what we did when Bungie moved out and Halo moved to 343 [Industries]," Spencer said.
[original story can be found here: http://www.polygon.com/2014/1/27/5345342/gears-of-war-xbox-one-microsoft-epic-games-rod-fergusson]
Also found this on Cliffy's Tumble page:
The one constant is change Friends, Waking up today I was drowning in a deluge of emails, tweets, direct messages and smoke signals. My former employer has sold the Gears of War IP/franchise to Microsoft and my friend Rod Fergusson is going to be working on it. To be honest, I don’t think the franchise could be in better hands. Heck, Rod’s Twitter handle, to this day, is “Gears Viking.” Gears is just as much Rod’s baby as it was mine. He’ll take good care of her. (Rod, I owe you a girly drink at GDC.) Phil Spencer went out of his way to give me a phone call to inform me of the transaction last week. Phil, you didn’t have to do that, you’re a gentleman. I appreciate it; that goes a long way. 343 knocked it out of the park with Halo and I think Black Tusk will do a fantastic job with Gears. I suppose this puts the nail in the coffin of the question “Will Gears ever come to Playstation?” Safe to say that’s not likely to happen. (Besides, it gives me something to look forward to on Xbox One besides Titanfall and Project Spark…oh and more Halo, of course.) Now that that’s out of the way… I’m not going to move to Vancouver and work on it. I’m not going to consult on it. My headspace is in the future now, not the past. I have come to realize that until you give people something new to focus on they will obsess about the past. (good problem to have!) To those of you who love Gears, I love you as well, and I appreciate your support through the years. The fandom, the cosplay, the tattoos, it all means more than any amount of money could ever mean. These recent events have steeled my resolve to make something entirely new. Time for new cosplay, new tattoos, new fandom. Fingers crossed there will be news soon. Stay tuned. Love, Clifford
[original story can be found here: http://dudehugespeaks.tumblr.com/post/74738315563/the-one-constant-is-change]
This is awesome new for Gears fans so thought would share with you guys!! | |
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Phenom 247 Moderator
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:12 am | |
| Wow.... Super excited about the possibilities with this announcement! | |
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ThePublicNME Administrator
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Tue Jan 28, 2014 9:33 am | |
| Awesome sauce!!!! | |
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SnarlingCandy Social Media Manager
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Tue Jan 28, 2014 7:07 pm | |
| This is such amazing news! Can't wait to see what they do with Gears. It's too epic to be left on the shelf. One very excited lady! | |
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Viking Community Manager
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Wed Jan 29, 2014 4:57 am | |
| IT could be a good thing for gears ,, a new studio too breath new life into the series | |
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Grey Rookie Gear
Clan : The EGFC Trade Rep : 0 Number of posts : 51 Age : 29 Gamertag : NL Grexoz GOW cash : 30
| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Wed Jan 29, 2014 5:59 am | |
| This could be good news indeed, Let's hope Rod got enough inspiration in the time he was gone. | |
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mmartina Battle Tested Gear
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:08 am | |
| I was shocked when i heard about it on my break at work yesterday, all i could do is think about it. great to see Gears of War live on and i already have my Xbox One just need to play the waiting game. | |
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Perkinator Rookie Gear
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:10 am | |
| TBH thinking about it this is what went on "Ok our fans want a new gears game for the xbox one but we cant make a better game than gears 3 now and this franchise is dying anyway I know we dump it on a different company they release a bad gears game and kill the game completely and we dont get the blame" | |
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Grey Rookie Gear
Clan : The EGFC Trade Rep : 0 Number of posts : 51 Age : 29 Gamertag : NL Grexoz GOW cash : 30
| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Wed Jan 29, 2014 8:12 am | |
| Actually i think it went more like this:
Microsoft really wanted a Gears of War launch game for the xbox one however Epic Games said they wanted to focus on something else. So Microsoft offered Epic Games $$$ so they could give the license to a other studio so they will still have a Gears of War for the next gen. | |
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ThePublicNME Administrator
Clan : Purple Vei Trade Rep : 9 Number of posts : 3121 Age : 43 Gamertag : ThePublicNME GOW cash : 3894
| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! Wed Jan 29, 2014 9:26 am | |
| I'm so glad that Gears now has a future. It will be a massive draw for the Xbox One. Exciting times ahead. | |
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| Subject: Re: MICROSOFT AQUIRES GEARS OF WAR FROM EPIC!!! | |
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