So is Sony, kind of. Sony got a stake in Kadokawa a couple years before Tencent did.
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So is Sony, kind of. Sony got a stake in Kadokawa a couple years before Tencent did.
It's not that it's impossible, it's just that in order for Square Enix or Capcom to be acquired by Sony they need to actually be willing to sell. We don't know that they are. And a few others in this thread have made a good point about a Capcom acquisition: Nintendo would fight pretty damn hard to prevent any form of Monster Hunter exclusivity on Sony/MS platforms.
Microsoft was able to acquire ABK because they were willing to sell.
EA is also aggressively expanding as well, so I think they're trying to make themselves self-sustaining in the midst of this consolidation.
Yes, I agree. I was just putting that out there for anyone who thinks its possible.
Maybe Sony can help the next Battlefield game be better?
Yes, they're big enough and they have their own subscription model, same as Ubisoft. Maybe there is a new partnership on the horizon with Sony?
You nailed it.
Ubisoft is really their best option
-Huge and diverse IPs (AC, Far cry, Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six, For Honor, The crew...)
-Tons of devs (15k+ IIRC)
Go for ubisoft first then if they can go after Square Enix or Capcom.
Sony is not in any financial situation to take on such a large publisher, if anything what could come about is a partnership between the two.
Ubisoft also has a solid presence in territories Sony wants to expand in, such as Southeast Asia, Canada, and Europe. They also have a good support structure which can help with first-party output.
Ubisoft has a market cap of 7.3 billion dollars, just a bit more than Square or Capcom. Even selling at a premium that'd be what, 12 or 13 billion? It'd be a much larger work force to take on, but what exactly is so impossible about Sony picking them up? Sony's got about 17 billion dollars in cash just laying about (actually more, but we'll go with 17 due to the way they're reporting things these days), not that they would be likely to do that entire deal in cash anyways. Ubisoft is easily within their means to acquire.
T2 has acquired Zynga for 12B$ and you still think Sony (a much much bigger company) with 45B$ in cash can't affoard that ?
Sony has lots of cash and they don't need to acquire with cash. It will create a decent amount of debt, but it won't bankrupt them and they could pay it off. However, Sony has never spent more than $10 billion on an acquisition before, so that would be very unprecedented for them, but not impossible.
Again let me repeat the example I gave earlier in this thread. In 2020 AMD bought Xilinx for 35 billion dollars when AMD had a market cap of around 100 billion dollars. Sony is a larger company than AMD and is far more cash rich. Anyone pretending that Sony doesn't have the ability to pick up a company worth 7 or 8 billion dollars is just talking crazy. Even in the unlikely scenario where Sony had to pay double their market cap, they would very, VERY easily be able to afford these companies.
We're also in an economic system where companies can paradoxically acquire companies larger than them. Bank loans are one hell of a drug.
I'm not saying they couldn't do it, I just don't foresee them taking on such a large purchase. To compare the two Microsoft is almost valued at 3 trillion dollars and this Activision deal was their largest purchase ever wasn't it? What is the market value of Sony?
We shall see since gaming is a very important sector for them and they don't want to reverse roles here.
Microsoft's head count is now much larger than Sony's as well now. According to a tweet I saw recently, the head count from Microsoft's 32 studios breaks down as:
Microsoft studios have about 2,500 employees (15 studios)
Bethesda studios have about 2,700 employees (8 studios)
Activision Blizzard have a little over 10,000 employees (9 studios)
Total head count is a little over 15,200 (mostly developers). I think the last employee count I saw for Sony's 17 studios is approximately 3,000.
Not that I think they will but Sony could buy Ubisoft with the cash they have on hand alone.
The only one that might be out of reach for Sony is EA, only because I can't see it being worth it for them to dilute their stock by large amounts to buy someone that would go for around the same as Activision, except a lot of their revenue comes from license deals.
Yeah, I would be shocked if they went for a company the size of Ubisoft, hence why I said it would be unprecedented as they never purchased a company for more than $10 billion, in *any* of their divisions, but this is the real test to see if Sony wants to break their piggy bank for one sector. Gaming is a very expensive industry, so Sony might accept the fact they will have to pay the premium if they want to stay big.
That's not what you said. You said:
"Ubisoft is way out of reach for Sony as well, they would have to borrow a ton of money if that were to happen."
and
"Sony is not in any financial situation to take on such a large publisher"
They most certainly are in a financial situation to take on such a large publisher. Very, VERY easily. If you think they won't that's another matter, but that doesn't negate the fact that they most certainly have the ability to do so.
Pretending that you need to be Microsoft sized to spend 10-15 billion dollars is silly. Was AMD Microsoft sized when they bought Xilinx for 35 billion dollars?? Was Nvidia Microsoft sized when they made a move to acquire Arm for 40 billion dollars? Was Disney Microsoft sized when they acquired Fox for 71 billion dollars?
You were incorrect with your earlier statements.
Very easily? Lol, yeah ok. Prove me wrong. When it happens I will change my avatar. Sony is not just a gaming company.
Can't admit that you misspoke and prefer to move goal posts. Nice.
It would be very easy for Sony to buy Ubisoft if Ubisoft wants to be owned by Sony. However this isn't close to reality and the company recently fought off an acquisition from Vivendi in 2018. It all comes down to mutual agreements between the two parties, not money.
Smaller developers can chase passion projects and get creative because of the low cost of entry on PC. Without that low barrier to entry, there would be no version to put on Game Pass.
Game Pass provides a check that frees developers from worrying about selling their games to players.
Just my feeling on it.
As for Nintendo, yeah - they know their shit and help studios release higher quality games. Microsoft can't do that at all.
Why the obsession with market value and market cap of Sony and Microsoft? That's obviously totally separate to their actual cash on hand and is based on market speculation etc. Its also only relevant here if you are talking about each company being bought.
BTW, there are examples of companies being bought out by companies with smaller market cap.
BTW, there are examples of companies being bought out by companies with smaller market cap.
Trying to beat a multi trillion dollar company by getting into massive bidding wars is not a winning option for Playstation. Right now Xbox isn't necessarily trying to make money, They're heavily subsidizing Gamepass and trying to shift the market into a completely new business model and move away from the dedicated gaming platforms that Playstation has been beating them at for 2 decades.
I think the best strategy is for Sony to move more towards a Nintendo like approach, At this point i think we have to assume that MS is going to continue making large publisher acquisitions, Sony can't assume they're going to get anything from Take Two, Ubisoft, EA, Warner Brothers, etc. Therefor they need to make the type of games they'll potentially be missing out on themselves.
They need to continue organically growing their own first party studios, make smart small, medium, and sometimes large acquisitions *Note, by large i mean Insomniac, not an entire AAA publisher*. Diversify your first party, fund every type of game you want on PS, insolate your platform from outside interference as much as possible.
Obviously a Nintendo like strategy is much easier said than done, they're the best publisher in the world and have some of the strongest IPs in any medium, not just gaming. But if there's anyone capable of replicating that strategy, It's Playstation.
This will not happen overnight, it would take 5-10 years for the fruits of this labor to begin appearing, thankfully PS isn't going to die overnight either even with these major acquisitions taking place.
I think the best strategy is for Sony to move more towards a Nintendo like approach, At this point i think we have to assume that MS is going to continue making large publisher acquisitions, Sony can't assume they're going to get anything from Take Two, Ubisoft, EA, Warner Brothers, etc. Therefor they need to make the type of games they'll potentially be missing out on themselves.
They need to continue organically growing their own first party studios, make smart small, medium, and sometimes large acquisitions *Note, by large i mean Insomniac, not an entire AAA publisher*. Diversify your first party, fund every type of game you want on PS, insolate your platform from outside interference as much as possible.
Obviously a Nintendo like strategy is much easier said than done, they're the best publisher in the world and have some of the strongest IPs in any medium, not just gaming. But if there's anyone capable of replicating that strategy, It's Playstation.
This will not happen overnight, it would take 5-10 years for the fruits of this labor to begin appearing, thankfully PS isn't going to die overnight either even with these major acquisitions taking place.
How are small teams in Obsidian pushing games like Grounded and Josh Sawyer working on his project with like 4 people because of the low cost of entry on PC? I'm not talking about small indie developers, I'm talking about studios within Microsoft Gaming.
How is this relevant to anything I ever said? Nintendo throws money at developers to release high quality games, same with Microsoft. You are placing Nintendo on a huge pedestal for spending money but shitting on Microsoft for doing the same. It's not worth getting into, clearly you have your leanings and gripes with Microsoft. That's fine, just weird to act like suits at Nintendo are any different than suits at Microsoft or Sony.
I'm arguing about the financial viability of Sony purchasing Ubisoft. Walken asserted, as per the quotes I provided, that such an acquisition was beyond Sony's financial capability and that they'd have to borrow a ton of cash to make it happen. I was refuting that.
Of course the whole feasibility of getting Ubisoft to agree is an entirely different matter, but that's not what I was arguing against.
Anyone can borrow against itself, I said they are not in a financial situation to take on such a large publisher. Ubisoft has a ton of employees and I cannot picture Sony taking on such a risk. Ubisoft has it's own subscription model and support the PC platform. Sony is not a company who moves quickly and pivots like that. The acquisition would change their whole structure on how they do things.
It's not gonna happen. To say they could is far from what will happen. This is not an arms race Sony can compete against the likes of Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft.
Era needs to understand there are multiple ways to acquire companies. They can buy the majority of the stock, take out a loan, pay in cash, pay it off in debt, and merge with the company. Having a lot of cash on hand is not the only way to acquire companies. I even think you can pay in debt which is something I can't understand lol.
I'd take a tlou2 remake over MGS from Naughty Dog.
Give that poopoo franchise to kojima productions or something.
I always do, thank you.
It also depends on the company as a whole, does Sony just want to mainly be in the gaming market? Sony used to be mostly a electronics company. The question is how much do they want to invest to protect it's PlayStation brand? AMD and NVidia can make big moves because that is the business they are in, Sony makes up a bunch of different departments, a 10 billion dollar game acquisition is far fetched imho.
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Some people seem to have a short memory but some of their best talents (ND, Mm, SP, GG, Insomniac) were acquired not built. And they won't be fine if they lose most of the major Third-party supports. Most of their revenue from last year came from their cut on 3rd party games, DLCs and MTX.
MS just spent 70B on a division of the company that made 15B revenue last fiscal year (~9% of total company). The operating expenses are going to heavily eat into that revenue, so watching the operating income in future financials (this Tuesday is Q2) will signal if they continue acquisitions.
One thing that should be noted is that just because other companies have a lot of money does not mean they would want to spend it. Just because Apple has $200 billion doesn't mean they are going to want to buy any thing that can be acquired.
Google apparently downsized it's gaming push when MS bought Zenimax. Just because they had the money to match that deal doesn't mean they are going to want to spend potentially 10's of billions on a potentially risky business.
Activision's studio count isn't quite right. It doesn't include Blizzard or King.
Google apparently downsized it's gaming push when MS bought Zenimax. Just because they had the money to match that deal doesn't mean they are going to want to spend potentially 10's of billions on a potentially risky business.
Activision's studio count isn't quite right. It doesn't include Blizzard or King.
Google came in unprepared and without much investment. They didn't have a bunch of studios prior to Stadia launching. That's why it's easy for them to just pull back. Apple is in a similar situation, they are not a gaming company. Yes they have the financial means to but that takes a lot of resources to get established. Netflix is apparently wanting to but how will they deliver their games? The titles Ubisoft make (and Square and EA...) play on traditional hardware. Microsoft is trying to get ahead of the game by being that Netflix of games but we are not there yet. In the meantime they still have PC and consoles to sell software. Nobody wants to spend $70 and be locked into Stadia.
This is what some also forget too, the amount being spent now each year for Microsoft is in the billions just to operate. Is that something Sony wants if they were to acquire Ubisoft? They have a lot of employees.
Ubisoft's About Us page says they have 19,000 employees WW.
About Us | Ubisoft
Ubisoft enriches players' lives by creating memorable and meaningful gaming experiences. Learn more about Ubisoft here.
www.ubisoft.com
That's true and not debatable. I simply don't want them to make a hasty decision based on MSFT's purchase. 3rd party support is definitely important.
This. People saying Sony doesn't need to acquire are being disingenuous. If Sony does nothing, and Microsoft or others buy up 3rd party publishers, that will leave Sony at a huge disadvantage.
On top of it, if Sony does buy a publisher with strong IPs, they get ammo to negotiate if they want.
What are the chances Sony buys Ubisoft for $10 billion (or whatever it costs) plus this operating expense that goes with it?Ubisoft's About Us page says they have 19,000 employees WW.
About Us | Ubisoft
Ubisoft enriches players' lives by creating memorable and meaningful gaming experiences. Learn more about Ubisoft here.www.ubisoft.com
I mean recently, Sony execs including the CEO himself said gaming will be one of their focuses as they continue to consolidate. Sony Pictures is largely diversified and has expanded a lot in India. Sony Music is teetering on the edge of becoming a monopoly, so I doubt they would make any more big acquisitions in the coming years aside from content acquisitions like the Springsteen purchase recently. SIE is the most valuable division for Sony Group and represents the largest part of their revenue and profits. It is reasonable to expect, especially after the Activision deal, that Sony will put a lot more resources behind SIE to expand its status in the gaming landscape. This includes their mobile gaming ambitions. Sony Pictures is the one responsible for the PlayStation film and television adaptations, with PS Productions being a supervisory label. I don't know, but I would be shocked if Sony doesn't at least try to spend a lot on an acquisition this year.
I think Ubisoft is prime Netflix acquisition honestly. If they're serious about gaming like their CEO claims they are. I can see Netflix going after Ubisoft and CDPR. Ubisoft has a lot of games and franchises that can be turned into movies/TV Netflix already makes a Witcher show, they're making a CDPR anime, and a Witcher anime. Not to mention CDPR just got Oxenfree developers as a mobile studio, which Netflix is also pushing for.
I would melt down like crazy if The Witcher became a streaming-exclusive IP for Netflix. I would have to request a temp ban for like a month.
Only way I see them buying pubs like Square and Capcom is if they get pressure from top investors, etc... or if they want to secure some long term I.P legacy library without the hassle of licensing contracts. With how this world is turning into a sub model war where content is becoming more and more important.
For Sony though they likely will go about securing smaller studios, ones that they can absorb quickly and have them work on titles relatively soon.
There are the obvious ones like Ember Labs after the success of Keena but then there are low key ones who are support studios with a history with PS such as WhiteMoon Dreams Studios.
In terms with genre diversification Sony could try their hand with Arc System Works. They partly own EVO so having a fighting game studio would make sense to fit in that market, etc... They published a game for Arc before, and Arc also basically makes most of their non licensed games for PS and PC anyways. Both platforms Sony has and is supporting for the future.
Then, and this is just me wishing for it, if they acquired a smaller JRPG studio to work on their old JRPGs such as Wild Arms then Media.Vision would be a great fit as well.
Beyond such small acquisitions they could also grow their current WWS. Sony has a lot of dormant I.Ps, they have a well connected development network and polish, they just need to increase their output, so making some studios bigger to handle two or even three projects would help such production a lot.
For Sony though they likely will go about securing smaller studios, ones that they can absorb quickly and have them work on titles relatively soon.
There are the obvious ones like Ember Labs after the success of Keena but then there are low key ones who are support studios with a history with PS such as WhiteMoon Dreams Studios.
In terms with genre diversification Sony could try their hand with Arc System Works. They partly own EVO so having a fighting game studio would make sense to fit in that market, etc... They published a game for Arc before, and Arc also basically makes most of their non licensed games for PS and PC anyways. Both platforms Sony has and is supporting for the future.
Then, and this is just me wishing for it, if they acquired a smaller JRPG studio to work on their old JRPGs such as Wild Arms then Media.Vision would be a great fit as well.
Beyond such small acquisitions they could also grow their current WWS. Sony has a lot of dormant I.Ps, they have a well connected development network and polish, they just need to increase their output, so making some studios bigger to handle two or even three projects would help such production a lot.
That's just capitalism. Final Fantasy is a PlayStation game because Square Enix wanted money and PlayStation paid it in big quantities. This isn't some Japanese companies taking on the world type situation. A dreamland where companies do things for perceived moral reward doesn't exist and isn't the way the world operates.
Microsoft converted half of their cash into an asset for a consumer space they explicitly said they want to be a leader in. The Washington Post article really clarifies their aim when Spencer said Microsoft can be to gaming as Amazon is to shopping or Google is to Search and Browsers.
This is a long game for them. There is no way they're done for good, but will probably cool it for now until Phil gets AKB on the right track culturally. There's only so much he can handle at once.
Sony is a leader and will want to stay one, so I expect they'll step up their investments to keep PlayStation in a strong position even as big tech shakes things up.
