Twentieth Century Fox Has A New Gaming Division And Big VR Plans

It sure looks like the gaming universe is the most popular entertainment venture for companies across the world. There are dozens of game developers working for countless studios, there are independent teams working on some of the most groundbreaking projects that are constantly new divisions being created within major studios that are being devoted to new games and products.

Twentieth Century Fox is the latest to jump on the gaming bandwagon, and considering that they've been a major part of Hollywood and entertainment in general for the last 80 years, it makes sense that they would choose to expand their reach even further. Gaming is becoming mainstream.

It was announced yesterday that Salil Mehta would be the president of the new division, called FoxNext, and his team would be responsible for overseeing production for all video gaming, #VR & #AR productions and the potential future entertainment based theme parks. We've already seen what they can do, thanks to The Martian VR Experience, so the future looks very bright.

What does this mean?

The announcement of FoxNext brings some exciting potential for the various gaming ventures that Fox is currently working on. Currently within the FoxNext division are:

• Fox Interactive
• Fox Location Based Entertainment
• FoxNext VR Studio

Each of these teams will report to Salil Mehta as they move towards a unified vision for all of their gaming enterprises. Stacey Snider, the current CEO of Twentieth Century Fox Film, had this to say about the development of FoxNext and the appointment of Mr. Mehta.

Extending our storytelling to new platforms in new ways is a constant focus for us as we look to build more touch points with consumers every day. Building on the momentum we’ve already seen in this area via the Fox Innovation Lab, FoxNext represents a natural next step in defining our long-term vision in this arena, and Salil is quite simply the perfect executive to build this group into what we know will be an industry leader.

Twentieth Century Fox believes that under the new direction from Mehta, the studio will be able to commercialize their anticipated VR experiences such as the already announced Alien and Planet of the Apes, as well as advance their console and mobile presence.

What could we see in the future?

Historically Fox has been very cautious with what developers they license their games to; with EA distributing The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Sega with Alien: Isolation. This move to incorporate all aspects of their gaming ventures under one roof should allow Fox to expand their already expansive story lines into bigger and better games for fans.

We could see any number of properties pop up in the near future with FoxNext's direction. We could see newer (*ahem, better) Alien games as well as any number of games based around the studio's more popular film franchises: Avatar, X-Men, Kingsman: The Secret Service and even Predator