Microsoft announced they had bought Press Play during a press release the morning before their press Conference at last year's E3 conference. So far they have made a Max and the Magic port for Windows Phone and a another Original game called Tentacle: day of the dolphin.
Saw some interesting tidbits about the game on twitter.
-The game will be shown off at GDC next week.
-Game is built using Unity
-No Kinect or Smartglass support
-Will probably be in summer of arcade.
Video of a Presentation by AJ Grand-Scrutton CEO of Dlala Studios who is working inside of Microsoft's Soho building (holds Lift London and Soho Productions) in an incubation process. Video is about ow the studio got started and how Microsoft is trying to help its image in the eyes of indie developers. So they're working in a situation similar to thatgamecompany had with Sony. They have a contact with Microsoft to work on a game for them (how many games wasn't disclosed) and Microsoft gets to keep the IP. In return Dlala is using space inside of the Soho building alongside Microsoft's two internal development studios. Dlala is paid as if they were normal Microsoft employees as well receive help from other studios and MS employees. By the time the game is complete Microsoft will have enough capital for Dlala to work as a completely independent studio and then go forward and go their separate ways. I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft buys Dlala after the contract is up as a way to show independent devs that working on Microsoft platforms could have great benefits.
On that note i'm pretty surprised that Microsoft hasn't acquired signal studios yet as thye have worked on nothing but Microsoft platforms thus far.
A new trailer for Twisted Pixel's Lococycle