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[Varteras]

This, is bang on the money but I do think this gen will be fine. It will be next gen that it goes to shit and PC takes over consoles by a considerable margin and will be the one place you can get most games day and date. it already is to an extent but it will increase

PC is certainly eating better and better as time goes on but as has already been the case for a long time now, the barrier to entry will be price, sheer number of options, and general operation and upkeep. All of which are very intimidating to your average consumer who would rather just push a button and play. For anyone who has the money, the knowledge, and the patience for PC gaming it's certainly the best option overall. But Nintendo still isn't on board, PlayStation is still dragging its feet on PC releases, and there really is no such thing as a unified PC community. I'm predominantly a PC gamer myself but I still don't see even next generation being a turning point where PC becomes THE platform. There is still too much charm and attractive simplicity to console gaming for the average consumer.

 

[ZehDon]

Couldn’t care less unless it’s something big like what MS has delivered. Only something like Capcom, Square-Enix, Konami, or Take-Two would wow.

I don't think acquisitions are made for the 'wow' factor. Bungie was a smart acquisition for Sony, as it heads towards a GaaS future for its studios. Bungie have made every mistake in the book with Destiny, so their book of hard knocks is extremely valuable to that goal. Bungie also plug a hole in Sony's studio line up - FPS games. Sony almost exclusively make cinematic third person action adventure games with a deep focus on cutscenes. Bungie gives them access to a bench of talent that consistently makes some of the best FPS action games ever made.

For me, Capcom, Square-Enix, Konami - these are just add to the style of game PlayStation already makes, and won't bring in new audiences to PlayStation. To me, I think their acquisitions will be about strategically combatting Microsoft's domination of FPS and RPGs. I could see them buying out Gearbox before Capcom, A4 Games before Konami. Square-Enix is akin to the Bethesda buyout in my eyes: it make sense given the history of the companies involved. But they're likely out of Sony's price range. Sony simply can't afford Take-Two, or anyone of that size.

 

[Craig of War]

I think Sony and MS made a secret pact that they both buy up as much studios as possible to keep Google and Amazon and Apple from trying to get in on the home gaming space basically a "the enemy of my enemy is not my friend" deal

 

[remember_spinal]

I don't think acquisitions are made for the 'wow' factor. Bungie was a smart acquisition for Sony, as it heads towards a GaaS future for its studios. Bungie have made every mistake in the book with Destiny, so their book of hard knocks is extremely valuable to that goal. Bungie also plug a hole in Sony's studio line up - FPS games. Sony almost exclusively make cinematic third person action adventure games with a deep focus on cutscenes. Bungie gives them access to a bench of talent that consistently makes some of the best FPS action games ever made.

For me, Capcom, Square-Enix, Konami - these are just add to the style of game PlayStation already makes, and won't bring in new audiences to PlayStation. To me, I think their acquisitions will be about strategically combatting Microsoft's domination of FPS and RPGs. I could see them buying out Gearbox before Capcom, A4 Games before Konami. Square-Enix is akin to the Bethesda buyout in my eyes: it make sense given the history of the companies involved. But they're likely out of Sony's price range. Sony simply can't afford Take-Two, or anyone of that size.

This is why i still think CDPR is on the table and makes the most logical sense for Sony. They aren’t super expensive after the cyberpunk lawsuits and drama. They are still a mid-sized publisher which i think they are a bit smaller than bungie still.

They plug a significant hole in the WRPG segment, where the elder scrolls size hole is. The Witcher is still a major property, and they could probably still manage to turn around cyberpunk if given time and money, probably even get back to the idea of doing the multiplayer for it. Sony knows they need those big WRPG’s, which is why they got the KoTOR deal.

GOG is pretty much on life support. It could easily be refurbished and turned into the playstation PC storefront.

They also just bought a mobile studio. Sony buying them would greatly do wonders for their reputation, instill more confidence in their management, and give sony another region to recruit developers. They’ve been expanding into Europe a lot this gen, this would be an extension of that.

I’d honestly be surprised if its not them. The main issue is that they only own the gaming license for witcher and cyberpunk

 

[Panajev2001a]

This is why i still think CDPR is on the table and makes the most logical sense for Sony. They aren’t super expensive after the cyberpunk lawsuits and drama, they are still a mid-sized publisher, i think they are a bit smaller than bungie still.

They plug a significant hole with the WRPG segment, where the elder scrolls size hole is. The Witcher is still a major property, and they could probably still manage to turn around cyberpunk if given time and money, probably even get back to the idea of doing the multiplayer for it. Sony knows they need those big WRPG’s, which is why they got the KoTOR deal.

GOG is pretty much on life support. It could easily be refurbished and turned into the playstation PC storefront.

They also just bought a mobile studio. Sony buying them would greatly do wonders for their reputation, instill more confidence in their management, and give sony another region to recruit developers. They’ve been expanding into Europe a lot this gen, this would be an extension of that.

I’d honestly be surprised if its not them. The main issue is that they only own the gaming license for witcher and cyberpunk

Both licenses would work super well for animated and live action series and movies on top of games.

 

[remember_spinal]

Both licenses would work super well for animated and live action series and movies on top of games.

I think another company holds the movie/tv rights for both witcher and cyberpunk. I think that’s the major point of contention because Sony would want to utilize those IP for their cross-media power. Maybe they could acquire them also, idk

The Witcher is doing well on Netflix and Cyberpunks Anime comes out later this year. I think they are doing another season of the Witcher Anime also

 

[Y0ssarian]

Buy Koei Tecmo. Make Warriors games, jrpgs about cute Anime girls, porn games like DOA and hard games like Nioh

 

[EDMIX]

Buy Koei Tecmo. Make Warriors games, jrpgs about cute Anime girls, porn games like DOA and hard games like Nioh

I feel like thats one of those buys that lots of us would say "finally" lol

Like I think it seems more likely then most deals tbh, same with Bandi Namco.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I think another company holds the movie/tv rights for both witcher and cyberpunk. I think that’s the major point of contention because Sony would want to utilize those IP for their cross-media power. Maybe they could acquire them also, idk

The Witcher is doing well on Netflix and Cyberpunks Anime comes out later this year. I think they are doing another season of the Witcher Anime also

Sure, but I think they could make deals with them to ensure the entire purchase is well rounded. Gog Store on PC, Witcher game series, CDPR expertise and Sony’s ability to manage and grow their studios with multi project titles (maybe they could get some of the people that left back, being part of Sony WWS brings quite a few perks and better management possibly… being part of the studios helping to design PS6 would be nice too… Cerny does internal and external studio trips to get data and discuss next gen console designs, first party studios getting a first dib and even more details obviously ), etc…

 

[Varteras]

I don't think acquisitions are made for the 'wow' factor. Bungie was a smart acquisition for Sony, as it heads towards a GaaS future for its studios. Bungie have made every mistake in the book with Destiny, so their book of hard knocks is extremely valuable to that goal. Bungie also plug a hole in Sony's studio line up - FPS games. Sony almost exclusively make cinematic third person action adventure games with a deep focus on cutscenes. Bungie gives them access to a bench of talent that consistently makes some of the best FPS action games ever made.

For me, Capcom, Square-Enix, Konami - these are just add to the style of game PlayStation already makes, and won't bring in new audiences to PlayStation. To me, I think their acquisitions will be about strategically combatting Microsoft's domination of FPS and RPGs. I could see them buying out Gearbox before Capcom, A4 Games before Konami. Square-Enix is akin to the Bethesda buyout in my eyes: it make sense given the history of the companies involved. But they're likely out of Sony's price range. Sony simply can't afford Take-Two, or anyone of that size.

Honestly, outside of Tencent and Microsoft, there isn't any gaming company Sony couldn't buy. The question is how much they're willing to spend, which in certain cases would mean how much they're willing to go in debt. Because something like EA would almost certainly require them to take out a loan. It would also be about maximizing value for price. For the cost of Electronic Arts they could instead buy Square Enix, Capcom, CD Projekt, and a bunch of independent studios like Arc System Works, Kojima Productions, Deviation Games, and Ember Lab. These acquisitions could also be done individually at different times instead of one big check being signed.

But ultimately, your stance on them being strategic is very true. Sony will be very careful in weighing the value of the companies and any IP they seek to acquire. They have to fit in Sony's strategy and be able to produce results soon after purchase. If Sony isn't confident in that then there is little reason to pull the trigger beyond a purely defensive purchase if they feel there is a chance of losing certain IP from the platform. Make no mistake though, Sony Interactive Entertainment is Sony's largest revenue generator and the biggest potential growth vector for the company. They're going to spend money. They want to double their revenue from first-party sales by 2025. They will need to substantially increase their first-party teams for that to happen. And it's not going to happen with purchases like Haven, Bluepoint, or Housemarque whose projects are years away, from teams currently sitting at 100 people or less.

Just as an FYI, Gearbox and 4A are both owned by Embracer Group. A rapidly growing Swedish publisher.

 

[remember_spinal]

Honestly, outside of Tencent and Microsoft, there isn't any gaming company Sony couldn't buy. The question is how much they're willing to spend, which in certain cases would mean how much they're willing to go in debt. Because something like EA would almost certainly require them to take out a loan. It would also be about maximizing value for price. For the cost of Electronic Arts they could instead buy Square Enix, Capcom, CD Projekt, and a bunch of independent studios like Arc System Works, Kojima Productions, Deviation Games, and Ember Lab. These acquisitions could also be done individually at different times instead of one big check being signed.

But ultimately, your stance on them being strategic is very true. Sony will be very careful in weighing the value of the companies and any IP they seek to acquire. They have to fit in Sony's strategy and be able to produce results soon after purchase. If Sony isn't confident in that then there is little reason to pull the trigger beyond a purely defensive purchase if they feel there is a chance of losing certain IP from the platform. Make no mistake though, Sony Interactive Entertainment is Sony's largest revenue generator and the biggest potential growth vector for the company. They're going to spend money. They want to double their revenue from first-party sales by 2025. They will need to substantially increase their first-party teams for that to happen. And it's not going to happen with purchases like Haven, Bluepoint, or Housemarque whose projects are years away, from teams currently sitting at 100 people or less.

Just as an FYI, Gearbox and 4A are both owned by Embracer Group. A rapidly growing Swedish publisher.

Spot on.


Which bring me right back to CD Projekt Red. A studio that can still sell 20m+ copies of a game and has substantial room for growth with a Sony co-sign. Sony said they are putting out 10 service games in the next 4 years, they aren’t buying more multiplayer-centric studios.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Spot on.


Which bring me right back to CD Projekt Red. A studio that can still sell 20m+ copies of a game and has substantial room for growth with a Sony co-sign. Sony said they are putting out 10 service games in the next 4 years, they aren’t buying more multiplayer-centric studios.

I think that they are ripe for a purchase considering the internal issues they have had and the potential still in there (yes, with the RED Engine too) and gives them a good hiring hub too. I think they could help the company get back on track and get a lot of talent back to the company with a few minor corrections.

There is a lot of synergy potential between SIE WWS and CDPR. GoG.com is a seemingly minor thing, but the more I think about it the more it makes sense. With the Activision - Blizzard deal pending approval, MS cannot snap them up either right now for a few years either…

 

[SaucyJack]

Still think they should go for FromSoft. Take 'em out from under their existing parent co. if possible. They've done a lot of work with them. Hell grab Namco Bandi too.

The parent, Kadokawa, is heavily invested in Anime (and Manga) which is obviously of interest to Sony. They also own Spike Chunsoft.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The parent, Kadokawa, is heavily invested in Anime (and Manga) which is obviously of interest to Sony. They also own Spike Chunsoft.

With them the stronghold Sony seems to want to establish in the anime and manga production and distribution would be close to being complete.

 

[Varteras]

Spot on.


Which bring me right back to CD Projekt Red. A studio that can still sell 20m+ copies of a game and has substantial room for growth with a Sony co-sign. Sony said they are putting out 10 service games in the next 4 years, they aren’t buying more multiplayer-centric studios.

The idea of CD Projekt also brings to light another strategy Sony is clearly employing. Buying development teams in regions they haven't been in. Talent is becoming increasingly difficult to find. One way to alleviate that is to have locations in regions that aren't yet saturated. Having a studio in California, Japan, or the UK is begging for fierce competition. Especially when you have multiple studios in those areas yourself. But look at some of their recent purchases. Housemarque is in Finland. Bluepoint is in Texas. Haven is in Quebec. Northern Europe, Southern US, and Southeastern Canada (obviously right above Northeastern US) are huge potentials for Sony to get new developers. Canada is a hotspot for video game development. Finland is conveniently located in an area where they can pull in both Northern European developers as well as Eastern Europeans. Texas is a growing tech state in the US with Austin already being a home to several well known developers, such as Bioware and Cloud Imperium. Poland itself also has a fairly sizable game development scene. An acquisition of CD Projekt would not only be great for the talent currently there but as well for the talent Sony could help them bring in to expand even more.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The idea of CD Projekt also brings to light another strategy Sony is clearly employing. Buying development teams in regions they haven't been in. Talent is becoming increasingly difficult to find. One way to alleviate that is to have locations in regions that aren't yet saturated. Having a studio in California, Japan, or the UK is begging for fierce competition. Especially when you have multiple studios in those areas yourself. But look at some of their recent purchases. Housemarque is in Finland. Bluepoint is in Texas. Haven is in Quebec. Northern Europe, Southern US, and Southeastern Canada (obviously right above Northeastern US) are huge potentials for Sony to get new developers. Canada is a hotspot for video game development. Finland is conveniently located in an area where they can pull in both Northern European developers as well as Eastern Europeans. Texas is a growing tech state in the US with Austin already being a home to several well known developers, such as Bioware and Cloud Imperium. Poland itself also has a fairly sizable game development scene. An acquisition of CD Projekt would not only be great for the talent currently there but as well for the talent Sony could help them bring in to expand even more.

Well said .

 

[Varteras]

Well said .

 

[ZehDon]

Honestly, outside of Tencent and Microsoft, there isn't any gaming company Sony couldn't buy. The question is how much they're willing to spend, which in certain cases would mean how much they're willing to go in debt...

That's not really true at all. Microsoft could've bought Sony and nearly, but not quite, paid cash for the whole company at current market cap. That's the buying power of a trillion dollar company moving in full force. Sony, on the other hand, doesn't have that kind of cash in reserve. They're simply not on that level. In fact, I seriously doubt they'd be able to post USD$23b+ right now for half of Square Enix without going taking on billions in debt. Buying out Nintendo, Ubisoft, EA - these are absurd ideas, because Sony simply do not have the buying power. Buying out Bungie represented about a fourth of Sony's entire reserves, and they're not even making exclusive games for Sony, a condition which would've lowered the sale price.

 

[Varteras]

That's not really true at all. Microsoft could've bought Sony and nearly, but not quite, paid cash for the whole company at current market cap. That's the buying power of a trillion dollar company moving in full force. Sony, on the other hand, doesn't have that kind of cash in reserve. They're simply not on that level. In fact, I seriously doubt they'd be able to post USD$23b+ right now for half of Square Enix without going taking on billions in debt. Buying out Nintendo, Ubisoft, EA - these are absurd ideas, because Sony simply do not have the buying power. Buying out Bungie represented about a fourth of Sony's entire reserves, and they're not even making exclusive games for Sony, a condition which would've lowered the sale price.

Where do you get Square Enix costing $23 billion for half the company? Their net asset value was like $3 billion in 2020 and their market cap is less than $6 billion. Bungie wasn't a quarter of Sony's reserve. They set aside $18 billion in 2021 for investments and acquisitions over 3 years. Sony's cash on hand for 2021 was $44 billion.

 

[The_Mike]

This isn't a surprise. Microsoft has said the same. There is still more consolidation that will take place. For Sony, I wouldn't expect any major acquisitions. More like haven, less like bungie.

I don't even get comments like this? They weren't left with any choice with Xbox buying publishers etc.

Also who cares. Both companies can do whatever they want

It's interesting when we talk about consoles, then Microsoft is third like they don't sell any consoles, but when we talk about third party devs people are talking like Microsoft is right behind Sony and that's why Sony has to buy developers.

Must be easy for Jimbo to lose from fans that will always stand up to him with the "Microsoft does it as well" after his bullshit organic growth talk.

 

[O-N-E]

Did someone say virtuous?

 

[ZehDon]

Where do you get Square Enix costing $23 billion for half the company? Their net asset value was like $3 billion in 2020 and their market cap is less than $6 billion. Bungie wasn't a quarter of Sony's reserve. They set aside $18 billion in 2021 for investments and acquisitions over 3 years. Sony's cash on hand for 2021 was $44 billion.

You're absolutely correct - my copy/paste notes must have gone astray, Square's cap is USD5.6b as of this post. I'll do better on taking notes in the future, apologies for the error. I had previously remarked that a Square Enix acquisition by Sony makes sense, given the history, and I'll stand by that remark. If Sony wanted to, they could acquire Square, and secure a strong RPG publisher to combat Microsoft's monopoly on WRPGs.

Sony's cash on hand reserves closing 2021 was USD$19.2b. Bungie set them back USD$3.6, roughly 1/5th of their on hand value. Keep in mind, that's Sony's entire buying power - not just for PlayStation. With that said, the bigger publishers like EA are still well outside of their reach without extensive debt - and I don't see it making sense. As I said in my previous post, I expect their moves to be strategic to fill gaps in their roster. I don't see a Konami, an EA or an Ubisoft doing that. I'd expect fenagling to get ahold of companies Digital Extremes, serving that GaaS goal, as far more likely.

 

[ksdixon]

It's probably been discussed to death already somewhere, but is the prevailing thought that both SE and CAPCOM do not want to sell?

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Spot on.


Which bring me right back to CD Projekt Red. A studio that can still sell 20m+ copies of a game and has substantial room for growth with a Sony co-sign. Sony said they are putting out 10 service games in the next 4 years, they aren’t buying more multiplayer-centric studios.

CDPR looks interesting at a glance, but the closer you look at the studio the more problems you see. They've had a serious exodus of staff through the last few years, so it's not really even clear what you're getting from a talent perspective. Ultimately they don't own either the Witcher or Cyberpunk. Not sure if the renewed license of the Witcher is permanent or if that extends to whether they are bought by another company. Ultimately anyone wanting to buy CDPR really needs to do their due diligence, which is what I think Sony largely does by courting/dating companies. Years and years of due diligence. Sony has spent more money on Bungie than any other company they've purchased and probably knows the least about them. We're going to see if that works out.

 

[Panajev2001a]

after his bullshit organic growth talk.

Letting the “oh let’s talk about MS in an unrelated thread” talk aside, the organic growth was not bullshit but you can keep on pushing that story… or recognising that hiring tons of developers at most of their studio is organic growth. Even Insomniac, Bluepoint, and Housemarque were essentially second party developers for ages and they all grew around the time or after Sony’s acquisition.

 

[Varteras]

You're absolutely correct - my copy/paste notes must have gone astray, Square's cap is USD5.6b as of this post. I'll do better on taking notes in the future, apologies for the error. I had previously remarked that a Square Enix acquisition by Sony makes sense, given the history, and I'll stand by that remark. If Sony wanted to, they could acquire Square, and secure a strong RPG publisher to combat Microsoft's monopoly on WRPGs.

Sony's cash on hand reserves closing 2021 was USD$19.2b. Bungie set them back USD$3.6, roughly 1/5th of their on hand value. Keep in mind, that's Sony's entire buying power - not just for PlayStation. With that said, the bigger publishers like EA are still well outside of their reach without extensive debt - and I don't see it making sense. As I said in my previous post, I expect their moves to be strategic to fill gaps in their roster. I don't see a Konami, an EA or an Ubisoft doing that. I'd expect fenagling to get ahold of companies Digital Extremes, serving that GaaS goal, as far more likely.

No worries on the SE portion. I knew there had to be some math or note error there. I thought maybe you were even calculating in Yen instead of Dollars.

As for Bungie, Sony's cash on hand to start 2021 was $44 billion. Which was up by about $13 billion from the start of 2020. As 2021 progressed, Sony made a lot of purchases in various areas of the company, including setting aside $18 billion for investments and acquisitions for their entertainment divisions. Earlier this year, after the Bungie acquisition, it was stated that Sony still had $10 billion left from that investment fund. That did not include the $19 billion Sony still had in reserve at the start of the year. Because there is no way Sony dropped $25 billion in cash on hand from the start of the year without that investment fund being part of it.

Sony announced that investment fund in Spring 2021. By March 31, 2021 Sony had $44 billion on hand. Suddenly, by June 30th, 2021 their cash on hand dropped to $19 billion. It was the first quarter of the new fiscal year and Sony was spending. The Bungie purchase was made with that investment fund. So not only does Sony still have, at least prior to buying Haven, $10 billion from that fund they set aside specifically to make purchases for their entertainment divisions but they also have the $19 billion they started the year with. That also does not include any money Sony makes this year to either stick back into their reserves or immediately use for additional investments. It should be noted that Sony's reserves dropped by another $3 billion by September 30, 2021 before jumping back up by $3 billion by December 31st, 2021.

Furthermore, Sony has plenty of room to take out loans. Their long-term debt at the end of 2021 was $8.5 billion. Their total asset value is $264 billion. Their debt to asset ratio is just over 3%. Sony could easily get loans for tens of billions of dollars if they wanted to make sudden big purchases. I doubt they'll do that but it's on the table and the CFO not long ago made the comment that they have no criteria for the scale of their investments at this point. Sony is willing to spend whatever they're capable of to stay in the game.

And yeah, I'm with you on Konami or EA or Ubisoft. I don't think any of those are worthy investments. For what Sony would get with EA's price they'd be so much better off buying a bunch of smaller companies that Sony can find a place for much easier and adapt them to Sony's culture much faster. Ubisoft is an absolutely bloated company and I seriously doubt the Guillermot family is truly willing to part with their independence. They fought off a hostile takeover from Vivendi already. Konami is just a bunch of decaying IP. Even if Sony could convince Konami to spin off its Digital Entertainment division, that's almost 2,000 people who haven't made a game worth shit in years. Sony is much better off being nimble and buying small. Only making big purchases where they truly align with Sony and they know their heavy investment will pay for itself ASAP.

 

[Badlucktroll]

Where do you get Square Enix costing $23 billion for half the company? Their net asset value was like $3 billion in 2020 and their market cap is less than $6 billion. Bungie wasn't a quarter of Sony's reserve. They set aside $18 billion in 2021 for investments and acquisitions over 3 years. Sony's cash on hand for 2021 was $44 billion.

Yes i am holding out hope that they get Konami or its IPs. I need Metal Gear and Silent Hill back now. But i could see someone trying to get approval for that on the Sony board and they be like "Hah! no way, thats 8 billion dollars!"

 

[Mibu no ookami]

You're absolutely correct - my copy/paste notes must have gone astray, Square's cap is USD5.6b as of this post. I'll do better on taking notes in the future, apologies for the error. I had previously remarked that a Square Enix acquisition by Sony makes sense, given the history, and I'll stand by that remark. If Sony wanted to, they could acquire Square, and secure a strong RPG publisher to combat Microsoft's monopoly on WRPGs.

Sony's cash on hand reserves closing 2021 was USD$19.2b. Bungie set them back USD$3.6, roughly 1/5th of their on hand value. Keep in mind, that's Sony's entire buying power - not just for PlayStation. With that said, the bigger publishers like EA are still well outside of their reach without extensive debt - and I don't see it making sense. As I said in my previous post, I expect their moves to be strategic to fill gaps in their roster. I don't see a Konami, an EA or an Ubisoft doing that. I'd expect fenagling to get ahold of companies Digital Extremes, serving that GaaS goal, as far more likely.

With the serious decline in Final Fantasy and the exodus of talent Square Enix has experienced in the last 20 years, I'm not entirely sure that makes for a sensible purchase. Making your own WRPG probably makes more sense. And even with a similar exodus of talent from CDPR, I think they make way more sense than Square Enix.

GOG gives you an immediate foot in the door as a PC storefront and expanding PlayStation to PC would be a large revenue stream, when it comes to selling other publishers' games.

EA is a husk of a company. I see absolutely no value in buying them at their price. Take2 makes WAY more sense and has way more potential for growth and is significantly cheaper.

I think Sony needs to keep in mind their portfolio and see where they can strengthen it strategically.

Imagine the average game takes 5 years to make (some take longer, some shorter, especially games with annual releases)

To release a game every month for 5 years, that would be 60 games in 5 years. I think with the current model a game a month is too much and you'll have diminishing returns. A subscription model on the other hand probably needs something along those lines and you have to prepare for that ahead of time not try and play catch up.

So ask yourself what it would take for Sony to get to 12 games per year.

For 2022 they have:

GT7
Horizon
GoW:R
MLB The Show
Uncharted Thieves Legacy
God of War PC

That's 6 games in a year, assuming they don't release anything else that is unannounced, which they probably will. They basically need to double in size this generation to be in good shape for next generation. Without significantly saturating their product. People are already complaining about the same-y feeling of many of the single-player experiences and the lack of evolution in God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West, which probably comes from being cross-gen. As Miles Morales and GT7 have similar issues there.

Multiplayer
Sports
Live Service
WRPG
PC
Mobile

These are the areas that are big that they currently lack a significant presence.

Buying Take Two gives you multiplayer, live, service, sports, mobile, and could probably help force your way into the PC market with a storefront. I think T2 makes more sense than any other company holistically. Really only way to expand in sports. They should have bought Visual Concepts when they had the chance. Really key for a multiplatform strategy. Also gives you Zynga.

Microsoft buying Bethesda and Blizzard, Sony really has only one choice when it comes to WRPG and that is CDPR and that is a similar position they were in with Bungie. Humanoid Studios is another one to put on the radar though.

 

[Shmunter]

Activision once MS gets blocked from it

 

[elcapitano]

It's interesting when we talk about consoles, then Microsoft is third like they don't sell any consoles, but when we talk about third party devs people are talking like Microsoft is right behind Sony and that's why Sony has to buy developers.

Must be easy for Jimbo to lose from fans that will always stand up to him with the "Microsoft does it as well" after his bullshit organic growth talk.

I'm not standing up for him though. The truth is it doesn't matter and people on video game forms get offended over a comment from years ago.

 

[Fafalada]

Which bring me right back to CD Projekt Red. A studio that can still sell 20m+ copies of a game and has substantial room for growth with a Sony co-sign. Sony said they are putting out 10 service games in the next 4 years, they aren’t buying more multiplayer-centric studios.

There's potential alignment here (especially with GoG as the PC publishing arm - most other companies would have no real value/interest there, but Sony would). The downside is that CDPR is a poison-pill not unlike Activision right now (just on smaller scale). So there's risks in an acquisition here - and they are pretty much a one IP outfit, meaning you better make sure whatever you pay for it is worth it.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

There's potential alignment here (especially with GoG as the PC publishing arm - most other companies would have no real value/interest there, but Sony would). The downside is that CDPR is a poison-pill not unlike Activision right now (just on smaller scale). So there's risks in an acquisition here - and they are pretty much a one IP outfit, meaning you better make sure whatever you pay for it is worth it.

I'm not certain that I'd say CDPR was a poison pill. I think the biggest problem is the talent lost there already. They're looking to right the ship by giving up on RedEngine and rebuilding around UE5. This is the right choice, but it's also an extremely expensive choice, that I think Sony would have avoided if they had bought them. It also suggests that they aren't in talks with Sony if that is their play.

I think CDPR is going to try and rebuild its talent pool and reputation with Witcher 4 and they're going to pay the heavy price of using UE5 to do it. Internal engines like REDEngine work out when you have internal resources that know how to use the engine, but when those resources leave and you have to start from scratch with new employees, your development will be slowed. Switching to UE5 let's them recruit a lot easier and onboard to projects a lot easier.

Why is this so expensive? Because you're going to pay Epic 5 percent in royalties on your game and you're going to pay Steam/Sony/Microsoft 30 percent in royalties.

So for a 70 dollar game you're only going to get 45.50 of the game and that doesn't include any other licenses.

Imagine Witcher 4 sells 20 million copies. That could be close to 50 million dollars just to use UE5... If Sony was in talks to buy them they would probably not have gone that route.

 

[Panajev2001a]

There's potential alignment here (especially with GoG as the PC publishing arm - most other companies would have no real value/interest there, but Sony would). The downside is that CDPR is a poison-pill not unlike Activision right now (just on smaller scale). So there's risks in an acquisition here - and they are pretty much a one IP outfit, meaning you better make sure whatever you pay for it is worth it.

I think Witcher and CyberPunk are IP’s that could be worth something if well nurtured… movies, tv series, anime, etc… on top of games and on top of supporting their PC expansion with GoG.

Similar to Kadokawa that would give them FROM as well as quite a lot of anime/manga production and publishing complementing the investments already made in that area (Crunchyroll, Funimation, etc…).

 

[yurinka]

This is a prime example for why arguing with rabid console fanboys is a waste of time and can degrade brain cells. What are you even rambling about ? Instead of replying to my point about the reason MS has stated (more like confirmed because everybody knows this) for their acquisitions, you spew unrelated list warz diarrhea like your corporate worship life depends on it. Not to mention all the tales-from-thy-ass involved that you probably tell yourself each night to sleep better.

By your logic, I can say Sony copied XBL with PSN, and slowly over many years copied the features XBL provided, copied the inclusion of an internal HDD in a console, straight up ripped off the idea for achievements (3 years later), copied their successful focus on digital monetization including XBLG (which is the most profitable part of among for Sony now), and now are following in Microsofts exact footsteps with the new GaaS, PC gaming and cloud initiative. And that's just an abridged, quick version.

Yuck, I feel stupider for having brought myself to your level, but I wanted to see what it was like. It's... like arguing with a petulant 12 year old, lmao. But please, keep exposing yourself.

Bullshit.

Before you started to quote and insult me we were discussing in a civil way about if Sony studio acquisitions were a defensive reaction or not to the MS acquisitions and GP strategy. I detailed the differences between what each one acquired and the different focus between both companies, on both global company strategy and acquisitions strategy explaining some facts.

All companies copy good, successul ideas from their competition to match or improve them, as Sony copied from MS some of these things like the trophies or now to have available worldwide a cloud-gaming free tier of their extensive game sub, or as MS copied Sony the monthly games expanding their online sub to become also and game sub, and later to release a separate, dedicated game service with an extensive library and cloud gaming. Or many other things like remote play, backwards compatibility or when recently MS bought a lot of top AAA IPs and dev teams to match Sony's exclusives output. These are reactions to match something cool or better their competition has.

Sony buying a couple of VR studios, a studio focused on remakes, a studio who until now made small games and just made their first AAA, an outsourcing company, a porting studio, a mobile gaming studio etc which in most cases already were working for them isn't a reaction to buy a lot of top AAA big IPs and dev teams. As I highlighted they are acquisitons of a very different scale and as I mentioned to address different purposes, plus one of them is the market leader making a smaller acquisitions effort and the other one the third in the market making a huge, historical acquisitions effort.

And yes, you should be stupid for insulting people who doesn't agree with you instead of providing facts to countrer other ideas or facts.

Even Sony would need to go on a crazy acquisition spree to release a minimum of one AAA game per quarter every single year. But I'm sure you'll find another way to spin things.

Go and count how many AAA exclusives per year PS and MS had during the last decade or generation. You'll understand better why MS made all these AAA acquisitions, specially if you also include 3rd party exclusives or if you limit it to internal 1st party exclusives.

Regarding Sony, we also have to remember that outside acquisitions or 3rd party stuff they also have been investing and will continue investing on growing on heavily growing all their internal teams to make them work in more games at the same time.

 

[Infamy v1]

And yes, you should be stupid for insulting people who doesn't agree with you instead of providing facts to countrer other ideas or facts.

You spent hours writing an essay (going off of you "liking" my post until now) that I'm not going to bother to give my full attention to because a) it's obvious you're completely brainwashed, b) you're starting to spew fanfiction again and c) you're going off in unrelated tangents relating to the above points.

What facts? You said MS are acquiring studios because they're behind Sony and are trying to catch up, when Microsoft themselves stated it is to feed and grow Game Pass, as content is vital for any and all media subscription services that exist. This is something that everybody already knows; MS is only solidifying what is common sense.

You, on the other hand, are injecting your own biased spin on this and then rambling about things MS copied from Sony, completely unrelated, whilst ignoring the plethora of shit Sony had copied from MS and continues to copy to this very day. Then you go ahead and say "of course Sony will copy some cool or better things," lmao...what?

You got presented a fact. You lost your absolute shit at that fact in what can only be described as a console warrior meltdown. Stop pretending like you know what you're talking about and playing a victim.

 

[remember_spinal]

I'm not certain that I'd say CDPR was a poison pill. I think the biggest problem is the talent lost there already. They're looking to right the ship by giving up on RedEngine and rebuilding around UE5. This is the right choice, but it's also an extremely expensive choice, that I think Sony would have avoided if they had bought them. It also suggests that they aren't in talks with Sony if that is their play.

I think CDPR is going to try and rebuild its talent pool and reputation with Witcher 4 and they're going to pay the heavy price of using UE5 to do it. Internal engines like REDEngine work out when you have internal resources that know how to use the engine, but when those resources leave and you have to start from scratch with new employees, your development will be slowed. Switching to UE5 let's them recruit a lot easier and onboard to projects a lot easier.

Why is this so expensive? Because you're going to pay Epic 5 percent in royalties on your game and you're going to pay Steam/Sony/Microsoft 30 percent in royalties.

So for a 70 dollar game you're only going to get 45.50 of the game and that doesn't include any other licenses.

Imagine Witcher 4 sells 20 million copies. That could be close to 50 million dollars just to use UE5... If Sony was in talks to buy them they would probably not have gone that route.

The loss of talent and outside investors is the main reason why i think they’d sign with sony. CDPR are in a tough spot and lot of their big financiers probably lost a lot of faith in them or just straight up walked away at this point. They are also gonna have an extremely tough time recruiting and growing the studio again, shit they already lost the witcher director.

The biggest confidence boost they could give to the consumers or anyone else looking to invest is being backed by Sony. I’m sure people would at least be confident that CDPR wouldn’t actually lie about the state of their game again and cover up a bunch of shit to get it out because they have the world on their shoulders again.

Signing with a platform holder takes a good amount of pressure off them. I think pre- Bethesda, if that hadn’t happened i could have easily seen Microsoft pick them up but now with activision scrutiny and already having a huge stable of WRPGS it would be a waste for them. I also think its telling that they haven’t announced or committed any platforms.

People underestimate the value for devs to only have to develop a game for one platform (and pc) rather than 4

 

[yurinka]

You spent hours writing an essay (going off of you "liking" my post until now) that I'm not going to bother to give my full attention to because a) it's obvious you're completely brainwashed, b) you're starting to spew fanfiction again and c) you're going off in unrelated tangents relating to the above points.

What facts? You said MS are acquiring studios because they're behind Sony and are trying to catch up, when Microsoft themselves stated it is to feed and grow Game Pass, as content is vital for any and all media subscription services that exist. This is something that everybody already knows; MS is only solidifying what is common sense.

You, on the other hand, are injecting your own biased spin on this and then rambling about things MS copied from Sony, completely unrelated, whilst ignoring the plethora of shit Sony had copied from MS and continues to copy to this very day. Then you go ahead and say "of course Sony will copy some cool or better things," lmao...what?

You got presented a fact. You lost your absolute shit at that fact in what can only be described as a console warrior meltdown. Stop pretending like you know what you're talking about and playing a victim.

What facts? Here you have somee related to this post:

• MS is behind Sony because in both main console market metrics and gaming revenue that I think isn't needed to repeat again. Also related to exclusives is also behind regarding GOTY awards of the last decade of regarding presence in sales rankings
• And also was behind because Sony historically had more AAA exclusives every year, both 1st party and 3rd party
• And also because MS had several internal development teams less than Sony before MS invested hard on acquisiions
• I mentioned multiple times MS's main focus is Gamepass and never claimed the opposite or that (obviously) the acquisitions aren't to feed GP
• I agreed on that MS and Sony copied/tried to match each other. Companies try to improve in areas where their direct competition perform better, or by implement missing features/services/etc their competition has and they don't. And I provided some examples for both sides
• You keep insulting me and calling what I say "fanfiction" etc without proving me wrong any in single point I mentoned. If there's a "rabid console fanboy" / "console warrior" who "lost his shit" here isn't me

The loss of talent and outside investors is the main reason why i think they’d sign with sony. CDPR are in a tough spot and lot of their big financiers probably lost a lot of faith in them or just straight up walked away at this point. They are also gonna have an extremely tough time recruiting and growing the studio again, shit they already lost the witcher director.

The biggest confidence boost they could give to the consumers or anyone else looking to invest is being backed by Sony. I’m sure people would at least be confident that CDPR wouldn’t actually lie about the state of their game again and cover up a bunch of shit to get it out because they have the world on their shoulders again.

Signing with a platform holder takes a good amount of pressure off them. I think pre- Bethesda, if that hadn’t happened i could have easily seen Microsoft pick them up but now with activision scrutiny and already having a huge stable of WRPGS it would be a waste for them. I also think its telling that they haven’t announced or committed any platforms.

People underestimate the value for devs to only have to develop a game for one platform (and pc) rather than 4

I agree that they had a huge shitshow with Cyberpunk and that to be acquired by a first party would benefit them, but I also think that Cyberpunk ended selling a shit ton of copies and that seems they fixed it to a pretty good state so if it ends being very successful regarding moneys many investors will be ok with it even if their confidence on them may have been damaged. And well, we have to remember it isn't their first controversial console release, not that big but I remember complains from The Witcher 3.

Regarding their relationship with Sony, I think Sony has a long story of good studios and project management so pretty likely could improve their workflow and so on plus offering many benefits on different areas (example: less budget issues to get more times and delays, so they would have less crunch) to ensure releases with the proper quality and polish. But remember Sony removed Cyberpunk from their store so that shitshow may have damaged hard their relationship with Sony so not sure if Sony would want to partner with them.

Regarding lost talent, I think everybody can be replaced. Even more seeing now they moved to Unreal Engine since it's easier to find devs used to it and they get more productive since need a shorter adaptation time than when using a custom engine.

I think they can be 'fixed'/'improved' and that a platform holder would help and that have potential to do it even by themselves and to continue releasing very successful games, but I also think that their market cap ($4.9B) is stupidly overvalued compared to several publishers of more or less similar value or even cheaper that don't need to be 'fixed', have a lo of IPs and a way bigger output.

But I think their shareholders may be in a position where after collecting and growing the value a bit more after some more Cyberpunk sales and next gen ports of The Witcher may be open to sell the company and even with a good discount. While the key shareholders of the other publishers I mentioned may not want to sell because everything is fine there and they see potential for growth.

 

[El Pistolero]

Thought he believed in growing studios organically? What happened jim?

Nope. He stated that growth would be done organically and via targeted acquisitions. Even if had not said it, and he had, he would have been foolish not to adjust his stance...

 

[harry mason 1989]

Sony bought take 2

 

[Panajev2001a]

Sony bought take 2

?

 

[Varteras]

Sony bought take 2

Probably the only major Western publisher that would make sense. T2 is clearly moving into the realm of live-service games. GTA Online just announced its optional subscription. Both GTA and RDR are huge franchises that win both universal acclaim and get tremendous commercial success. T2 as a whole has many notable franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Red Dead, Bioshock, Borderlands, Max Payne, X-COM, and Civilization. It would add around 14 to 15 development studios including the multiple Rockstar studios. Plus multiple mobile teams and the Zynga acquisition expected to finalize in a few months. However, if they did buy T2, I'm almost certain they took out a loan to do so. They have a market cap of $17.5 billion and I'm not sure how the $13 billion Zynga deal affects all that. Sony would probably be looking at more than a $30 billion price tag. Even with their reserves and the remainder of the investment fund they sat aside last year, that would take all of the spare cash they have for the entire company. Sony wouldn't risk that. It would have to be a loan or some other kind of deal like a merger.

EDIT: To be clear, I seriously doubt this would happen. T2 gives me the impression they're focused on growing on their own and will look to expand their third-party influence with the absence of Activision. I don't think Sony would be willing to spend $30+ billion on them when that would require them to go in much greater debt than they currently have. That is a ton of money that would probably be better spent going after many smaller companies.

 

[remember_spinal]

I dont see sony buying a publisher with over 4k employees much less well into the 10k+ range like ubi and take two

And any benefit you may get from the surplus of sony recruitment, tech, and management pretty much goes out the window once you get to that size. Publishers like that are most likely going to continue to be left to do their own bidding if they were ever acquired.

People underestimate the task microsoft is going to be put to in order to clean up Activision. They are twice the size of all their studios and bethesda put together. It’s a titanic of a ship to steer.

I don’t see sony doing something like that, already having such a well oiled machine running now where all their studios work together and put out good games in a timely fashion. They bought those support studios to aid their main studios after all.

And yeah, its a lot of money for what would essentially equate to GTA/GTA Online exclusivity

 

[MasterCornholio]

Sony bought take 2

Doesn’t really make sense to me. Something like Kadokawa (for example) is more sensible for them to do.

 

[DZ_b_EZ]

Can we even trust this Jim Ryan guy? He's more hit than miss?

/s

 

[remember_spinal]

Doesn’t really make sense to me. Something like Kadokawa (for example) is more sensible for them to do.

Its either Kadokawa or CDPR for me, maybe Warner bros.

Nothing else really make sense to me as far as “big” acquisitions go. I think if sony wanted to go “BIG’ they would buy Epic before ubi-T2-EA

 

[Varteras]

I dont see sony buying a publisher with over 4k employees much less well into the 10k+ range like ubi and take two

And any benefit you may get from the surplus of sony recruitment, tech, and management pretty much goes out the window once you get to that size. Publishers like that are most likely going to continue to be left to do their own bidding if they were ever acquired.

People underestimate the task microsoft is going to be put to in order to clean up Activision. They are twice the size of all their studios and bethesda put together. It’s a titanic of a ship to steer.

I don’t see sony doing something like that, already having such a well oiled machine running now where all their studios work together and put out good games in a timely fashion. They bought those support studios to aid their main studios after all.

And yeah, its a lot of money for what would essentially equate to GTA/GTA Online exclusivity

I could see Sony going after companies like Square Enix and Capcom. Both companies have a market cap of $5 billion to $6 billion. So both are well within Sony's price range without needing a loan, even if they paid a ridiculous 50% premium. They have franchises that have been heavily associated with PlayStation for a long time. They've worked together closely before. The company cultures seem as though they would mesh well together. They both have IP that lend themselves well to Sony's strategy of going beyond their typical offerings as well as others that would further reinforce what Sony is already great at.

Both have IP that they have expanded beyond video games. Something Sony is very keen on doing so it would be combined experience between them. Those companies also aren't so large that it would be unwieldly to bring them in. Capcom has maybe 3,000 people which is, I believe, a bit smaller than PlayStation Studios. Square Enix is a bit larger at around 5,500 or so. Though with SE, I could easily see Sony taking Crystal Dynamics, Eidos, Luminous, and Tokyo RPG, and sticking them under PlayStation Studios while Square Enix itself gets the Bungie treatment.

Now something like Ubisoft? Fuck that. They have over 18,000 people, a ridiculous company structure with 35 studios that have the name Ubisoft in them, a total of 50 studios where fucking 30 of them are in Europe, a very poor project management team, and continued accusations of toxic work environments. Assassin's Creed and Tom Clancy ain't worth that headache for anyone.

 

[mejin]

Konami or WB Games could be a potential next publisher.

 

[Captain Toad]

I plan to win the lottery at some point. Doesn’t mean I will.

Have you ready won several other lotteries over the last couple years?

 

[Barakov]

Konami or WB Games could be a potential next publisher.

Having Netherealm under the Playstation umbrella would make a lot sense since they bought EVO. Also there's a good chance that SFVI is PS console exclusive as well.

It seems like Playstation has been going pretty ham with their exclusive tournaments so that lends some credence to that supposition.

 

[Lognor]

Didn't

Having Netherealm under the Playstation umbrella would make a lot sense since they bought EVO. Also there's a good chance that SFVI is PS console exclusive as well.

It seems like Playstation has been going pretty ham with their exclusive tournaments so that lends some credence to that supposition.

Didn't Microsoft try to buy wb last year but we decided against selling? If it comes up for sale again I don't see how Microsoft doesn't go after them again. And Sony don't have that type of cash to compete.