As Xbox continues to try and push its mammoth Activision Blizzard deal through the door, a number of smaller scale acquisitions are still going on throughout the gaming industry. Today, January 6th, Chinese company NetEase Games has announced its purchase of Canadian development studio SkyBox Labs.
This deal is of particular note to the Xbox community as SkyBox has been working on some big Xbox franchises as of late - most notably as a co-developer on Halo Infinite and Mojang's ever-popular sandbox, Minecraft.
The Canadian team has also worked with Microsoft on plenty of other projects over the years, including its Age of Empires series, and the now-cancelled Project Spark which was born from the beginning of the Xbox One era.
Thankfully, existing development partnerships shouldn't be affected too much by the acquisition, so we can expect SkyBox to continue working with Xbox. As noted by VGC, the developer will continue to operate on its own accord, working closely with existing partners.
"We have built a team of talented individuals who are passionate and creative, and by joining NetEase Games, we will also be able to accelerate our plans to pursue new creative opportunities, and enjoy access to world-class operational resources and the full breadth and depth of NetEase’s services so we can scale faster in Canada,"
Another major gaming acquisition to take place within the last year or so is Sony's purchase of Destiny developer Bungie - another deal that shouldn't affect existing development partnerships.