After the news that parent company, AT&T, is looking to sell the gaming arm of Warner Bros. Interactive, reports are surfacing that Xbox is among those companies interested in buying, though a sale is not imminent.
It’s being reported by The Information, who says that Xbox is joining EA, Activision, and Take-Two in acquiring the game development studios under WB Interactive. Whoever ends up being the buyer will likely also be purchasing studios like Avalanche, NetherRealm, and Rocksteady.
However, anyone who buys Warner Bros. Interactive won’t also own the rights to any characters like Batman or Harry Potter. They will have to negotiate licensing deals for those characters so that studios can continue making their games based on those properties.
Some properties, like Mortal Kombat, will be included though.
Acquiring Warner Bros. Interactive would be a huge get for Xbox, who has been working over the last few years to expand their Xbox game Studios developers. Not only would they be getting some big name studios to join Ninja Theory, Obsidian, and more, but they would also potentially be getting the license to publish games for some huge franchises.
The news of AT&T looking to sale came out last month, with reports saying that they were looking to pay down on their $154 billion debt and selling WB Interactive was a way of doing that.
In terms of games, recent rumors have suggested that WB Montreal is working on a new Batman project and Rocksteady developing a Suicide Squad game. Avalanche has also been rumored to be working on a Harry Potter RPG.
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