In-house technologies are becoming more common, and developers and publishers are doing this to save development time on their new and upcoming games. Most of Sony’s in-house studios have been doing this for years; every big game, like The Last of Us and Spider-Man, is built on in-house technologies.

Hence, it would not be surprising to know that Microsoft is also working on something similar. It is being said that they are currently developing a team to help their Xbox Game Studios in the development of their new and upcoming titles.

Microsoft is working on the Xbox Games Technology Group to help first-party studios with game development

A while ago, Sony announced the existence of VASG. It was basically a fancy name for their in-house R&D department, whose mission is to help first-party studios with game development. If someone is looking for a new technology to build characters with better facial expressions, VASG would help them.

In fact, they have found a way to use AI to build more expressive 3D face models. Microsoft is starting something similar; as seen by the job postings for it. They are on the lookout for experts with knowledge of machine learning and such. It appears Microsoft is going Sony’s way, and fans will soon start seeing AI-developed character models in upcoming Xbox Game Studios titles.

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It is also being suggested that this team might focus mainly on preparing Unreal Engine 5 for first-party studios. Given the fact that this team is being gathered under The Coalition Studio, this claim is even more plausible.

The coalition is a studio that has experience with Unreal Engine like no other studio. They have been working with it to develop their Gears of War series for quite a significant amount of time. This might also point out the fact that maybe a new Gears game is indeed in development at Coalition Studios, and it might end up being far better thanks to the efforts of this new technology team.

However, it is unclear what the purpose of this new division will be. But it cannot be much further from the things mentioned above. Why else would they be hiring Engine Programmers and a Principal Technical Program Manager?

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