Support NeoGAF

[Team Andromeda]

Not every purchase needs to be multi-billion dollar outlays. Hell, the Zenimax purchase is an outlier among outliers, there is no historic equivalent I believe in the industry.

The point is Sony are acquiring stuff, they are paying over a billion to AT&T for CrunchyRoll in cash. They aren't hurting for money, especially not on the Playstation side.

And no. MS don't care about internet chatter, they care about their bottom-line and shareholder value. They are spending big right now to bolster themselves for the fight against the other internet tech giants who have developed an interest in gaming as another vector for e-commerce and services.

Sony are not a threat to their ambitions because they are moving in a direction where rather than competing, their interests converge. Its pretty comical to me that there's a perception that Sony are a direct rival to MS whereas Nintendo are not, and people kinda go from there insofar as judging every move as a strike against the other.

Zenimax published on Nintendo too remember, bear that in mind.

Of course, MS care what is said on the forums and the internet. They didn't buy loads of development studios, look to make the most powerful console because of a discussion with the shareholders, so don't kid yourself on that one.
Forget about Zenimax MS allowed RARE to make games for Nintendo handhelds long after MS bought them out so spare us on that one. MS is playing hard to capture the market share dominated by SONY that's what it's playing hardball for

Nintendo hasn't bothered to compete in the High-end console AAA market since the GameCube

 

[K' Dash]

I feel like Rare could be Microsoft's "EAD".

Unless the Stamper brothers are back.

 

[Astorian]

Of course, MS care what is said on the forums and the internet.

Imagine believing this.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Imagine believing this.

imagine believing it was the shareholders that said we need more In-House teams and to make more powerful consoles.

 

[Clear]

MS is playing hard to capture the market share dominated by SONY that's what it's playing hardball for

No they aren't. You're delusional if you think that's the case.

MS have even explicitly stated as much. They no longer see Sony as their primary competition, Google it.

 

[Astorian]

imagine believing it was the shareholders that said we need more In-House teams and to make more powerful consoles.

I think I'd rather believe that than MS making their decisions based on forum dwellers.

 

[bxrz]

Imagine believing this.

I don’t know if they do but I know Phil Spencer lurks/looks at XboxEra. It was his birthday yesterday and he made a post saying thank you

 

[VAL0R]

I suspect that the initial wave of Bethesda games will for legal reasons have more general availability. We know this is true in some cases, such as DeathLoop and Ghostwire. I expect this to very quickly fold into "first and best" on MS platforms, and then finally outright exclusivity of major titles including Elder Scrolls and Fallout. MS wants tentpole GP icons you can never get anywhere else. Disney+ won't give seasons 1 and 2 of Mandalorian to Netflix in a few years, despite the fact that this would mint them many millions of dollars. Why? It's bad business for their service (their future) Disney+. Some people still don't realize how all-in MS is for Game Pass. This is not an experiment. This is the future of Microsoft Gaming Studious, period. They are spending many billions in acquisitions and studio growth explicitly "for Game Pass."

Yes, they could certainly make tens of millions of dollars selling Elder Scrolls 5 on Playstation 5. But does this hurt Game Pass? Yes. It will disincentivize users from staying with GP, as users fairly reason "that content will be available on another platform soon, why subscribe?" This is a trillion-dollar company. Trillion. They are spending billions to build GP, they won't hurt their golden baby for mere tens of millions. Anything is possible, but once all legal hurdles are clear I just don't see it.

 

[Clear]

I don’t know if they do but I know Phil Spencer lurks/looks at XboxEra. It was his birthday yesterday and he made a post saying thank you

Why take this as an article of faith, when in an official statement made in Feb 2020 Phil stated that Xbox no longer considers Sony and Nintendo to be its main rivals?

Amazon and Google as he stated are their new primary competition, two companies that don't sell gaming hardware but instead offer the infrastructure needed for hardware-agnostic streamed content and services.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I think I'd rather believe that than MS making their decisions based on forum dwellers.

remind us again why Halo is delayed?

 

[VAL0R]

I wonder if "first and best" was born out of a number of Bethesda titles being fairly late into PS5 development before the acquisition. Perhaps Bethesda asked that these games be allowed to be completed as a condition of sale or MS merely didn't want to waste years of dev time and risk demoralizing hundreds of their soon-to-be hired staff. So MS agrees, but the Xbox version has to be launch first, have dev priority, and be "best". Then after this phase, moving on it's Xbox only.

 

[Team Andromeda]

No they aren't. You're delusional if you think that's the case.

MS have even explicitly stated as much. They no longer see Sony as their primary competition, Google it.

LOL. No that's why MS looked not be outclassed by SONY in the Hardware battle and looking to build an In-House studio portfolio that even SONY will find it tough to complete. And spare us the PR line...
This is all about not be outclassed by SONY like last gen

 

[Shanomatic]

LOL. No that's why MS looked not be outclassed by SONY in the Hardware battle and looking to build an In-House studio portfolio that even SONY will find it tough to complete. And spare us the PR line...
This is all about not be outclassed by SONY like last gen

These companies are not making decisions so they can “outclass” their competition.

PS5 could sell quintuple what the Series X does and as long as it was making money and lining up with Microsoft’s goals as a whole, they would keep it around.

 

[Clear]

LOL. No that's why MS looked not be outclassed by SONY in the Hardware battle and looking to build an In-House studio portfolio that even SONY will find it tough to complete. And spare us the PR line...
This is all about not be outclassed by SONY like last gen

So Phil was lying when he outlined MS' position that Sony and Nintendo were "out of position" for the future?

You can look up the entire statement where he goes into some detail about the likely (lengthy) time-scale for transition, this is all about the long-term. Xbox hardware is planned not just for retail deployment but as back-end for Azure server racks.

To MS, Sony are just a future client in waiting. Sony aren't going to build their own cloud network, in the end they'll have to make a deal with one of the big providers: AWS, Google or MS. Hence the memorandum of understanding they co-signed back in March 2019, they want a strategic partnership ideally with Sony just being a content provider.

The point is from a tech and infrastructure standpoint Amazon and Google can easily go toe-to-toe with MS. Their achilles heel going forwards is that their content pipelines are still embryonic. This is why MS are locking down devs, its to slow their rivals progress by preventing them from simply buying-in mature, existing IP and their developers.

Sony and Nintendo already have their own internal teams providing blockbuster product. Starving them of third-party support is neither practical or realistic as a competitive tool, especially when the long view is taken into account.

 

[ksdixon]

I know it’s a meme at this point, but is SEGA’s arcade division separate to their gaming one?

Out of every major acquisition that Microsoft could make, SEGA would be the one to complete their portfolio quite nicely. I think Sonic as a mascot (especially in light of the Sonic film doing very well, and a second being greenlit) would do great things for Microsoft’s image. Also, Yakuza. And Atlus...

Probably won’t happen, but that’s the only one that would get me excited now, as I think they’re pretty much sorted for western devs (assuming Moon don’t want to be acquired).

I would believe so.

It's giving me PTSD of when Turner cancelled WCW's TV deal to clear the path for WWF's purchase. Without an arcade division anymore, it seems easier for MS to purchase the remaining games division.

 

[PhaseJump]

Everyone here spouting doom and gloom about consolidation or a bubble collapsing. The fallout of any collapse would shutter studios a lot sooner than if they were under Microsoft ownership.

The very idea of Microsoft buying and owning too many studios, and then also needing to cull them if the growth and success isn't there is kind of absurd to complain about. If the games being made aren't profitable against their budgets, the studios and IP become less important and should be shut down, and the resources moved to better projects.

What it comes down to for end users is whether or not Microsoft is more trustworthy, in how they deploy their product to Xbox or any platform; against the Google Stadia, Amazon Luna, and Apple Arcade platforms that are new and ultimately more threatening than Sony, just by them being able to bankroll and absorb the losses of acquisition and mandated exclusivity.

Half of you people are jerking off to Sony vs Microsoft rhetoric, while Google, Amazon, Apple and even Tencent are vague paradigm shifts that can rock the industry in a split second.

 

[Hezekiah]

Sony in buying mode? They've bought nothing apart from Insomniac who might as well have been 1st party anyway.

There is obviously an awful lot of complacency at the top of PlayStation management.

13 studios and quite a few of them have not produced anything commercial in quite a while... Mm and London Studio for instance and San Diego is going to have their MLB games published everywhere.

2nd party has lost Quantic Dream, Supermassive, RAD and others.

1st party lost Ueda, Evolution, Guerrilla Cambridge and a lot of staff have been poached too.

They have burned a lot of bridges in the last few years needlessly. I really do not understand it, it's like they are trying to undermine their own position in the market.

Quality over quantity. Plus some of Sony's studios have two teams.

The more studios Microsoft buys the sooner you will see price increases on GamePass too. There aren't really many that are realistic anyway. People talking about Sega or From Software are delusional.

 

[Clear]

Quality over quantity. Plus some of Sony's studios have two teams.

The more studios Microsoft buys the sooner you will see price increases on GamePass too. There aren't really many that are realistic anyway. People talking about Sega or From Software are delusional.

The issue is more that (if I'm correct in my assessment of what MS' plans are) they are pretty much bound to try to purchase any and all major IP holders that come up for sale as a defensive measure to keep Amazon and Google on the back-foot.

My judgement is that they really want to "own" gaming as a service platform because they see immense profit in the years ahead. The console market is just a piece, and they are looking to have the whole pie. Its the only way that the level of investment they are putting in can be justified, and to a large degree its going to hinge on their penetration into the lucrative mobile market.

 

[JLB]

Spiderman is a longstading Sony franchise bought decades ago.

Sony developped it`s movies way before comic books movies became mainstream.

Despite not being the ones who created spider man originally, today most people know spiderman from Sony perpective.

You cant compare Sony/Spiderman relation with disney/star wars or microsoft/bethesda.

Not sure how its related. Im talking that Sony also buys software development studios, like Microsoft.

 

[JLB]

imagine believing it was the shareholders that said we need more In-House teams and to make more powerful consoles.

oh, you really believe that MS cares about forums? I genuinely thought that you were trolling.
Are you trolling?

 

[Hezekiah]

The issue is more that (if I'm correct in my assessment of what MS' plans are) they are pretty much bound to try to purchase any and all major IP holders that come up for sale as a defensive measure to keep Amazon and Google on the back-foot.

My judgement is that they really want to "own" gaming as a service platform because they see immense profit in the years ahead. The console market is just a piece, and they are looking to have the whole pie. Its the only way that the level of investment they are putting in can be justified, and to a large degree its going to hinge on their penetration into the lucrative mobile market.

I just don't think they can keep spending billions buying studios when big profits aren't being realised. GamePass at the moment is already a money sink. You keep purchasing more studios, the more you need to up prices otherwise you fall way behind getting in terms of getting an ROI.

I can see Google spending big in the next few years, and they're never afraid to be quite experimental.

Remedy would be a good studio for Sony to buy imo.

 

[iJudged]

MS is about buy up everything...most money

 

[Astorian]

remind us again why Halo is delayed?

Halo being not ready and having a mediocre showing is not the same as MS spending billions on acquisitions because of internet chatter.

 

[Hezekiah]

No they aren't. You're delusional if you think that's the case.

MS have even explicitly stated as much. They no longer see Sony as their primary competition, Google it.

Didnt Microsoft also say that they don't care about selling more consoles than Sony?

Interesting that they are instead in competition with Amazon (Prime gaming) and Google (Stadia). Pretty much a no-lose situation huh .

 

[Clear]

Didnt Microsoft also say that they don't care about selling more consoles than Sony?

Interesting that they are instead in competition with Amazon (Prime gaming) and Google (Stadia). Pretty much a no-lose situation huh .

Its all about the long game for MS. Its not how these services are doing in 2021, its where they are likely to be in 2030.

On the face of it, it seems like a long way off but if you consider AAA development cycles are now in 3-5 year increments...

 

[cdthree]

Any chance Microsoft could buy SpaceTime Studios?

 

[Eanox]

I agree that allowing RAD to be bought out by FB was stupid, but I think you will see them buy more studios like Bluepoint, House and even Konami IPs.
They don't have the cash to buy out something like Zenimax, but they can buy studios one by one.
I really don't understand putting 250 million into Epic either. They could have bought another studio like Insomniac and it would have been alot more valuable for PlayStation owners.

Sony bought Crunchyroll recently and Bid to Leyou so they are willing to spend money especially SIE. I mentioned this in the other thread MS open the pandora’s box so you might see SIE getting aggressive with acquisition now.

FromSoftware makes sense for Sony. I think Sony may go after Kadokawa Corporation (which owns FromSoftware).

Isn't Kadokawa Corporation also involved in anime? Sony is creating an anime monopoly, and that could be the last big piece of the puzzle. FS will be a nice bonus for the PlayStation division.

Apart from that, I think Asobo for MS, and Bluepoint for Sony are just no-brainer deals.

My guess if their will be an acquisition it will be either Sony Music (aniplex) or Pictures that will acquire them and not SIE.
These 2 acquired a lot of companies recently lol.
Then Sony music will publish a game that will be released on all console lol.

 

[Team Andromeda]

Halo being not ready and having a mediocre showing is not the same as MS spending billions on acquisitions because of internet chatter.

Not what I asked. Why was HALO delayed because of a request by the shareholders or because of feedback from the internet?

 

[Team Andromeda]

oh, you really believe that MS cares about forums? I genuinely thought that you were trolling.
Are you trolling?

LOL remind us again why the Halo team have 'Craig' T- Shirts?

 

[Team Andromeda]

oh, you really believe that MS cares about forums? I genuinely thought that you were trolling.
Are you trolling?

I'll ask you, why does the Halo Team have Craig T-Shirts, since MS doesn't care about forums or social media.

 

[Team Andromeda]

I think I'd rather believe that than MS making their decisions based on forum dwellers.

Not the same shareholders that thought you didn't need In-House teams and it was better and cheaper to outsource games development, the same shareholders that thought it was better to release a more expensive and underpowered console because voice commands and TV into the console was going to win the day?

I wonder why Phil and the team have a joke about Cragi T-Shirts too since they don't care forum or social media feedback, one wonders why they've delayed Halo at all TBH

 

[JLB]

I'll ask you, why does the Halo Team have Craig T-Shirts, since MS doesn't care about forums or social media.

This thread is in the context of acquiring companies, just in case you miss that part.

 

[Clear]

This thread is in the context of acquiring companies, just in case you miss that part.

Yeah. There's PR and community relations (cheap) and there's strategic planning and investment where billions are on the line.
The mentality that they bought Zenimax to "stick it to the Sony ponies" is just... /facepalm.

Its the same thing as when they bought Mojang/Minecraft. That was an expensive acquisition to bolster their portfolio across the full spectrum of devices, not specifically so they could gain an advantage against Sony or Nintendo. Yet apparently we're supposed to think that they spent 3 times as much on Zenimax, just to do what they didn't do back then.

 

[Camreezie]

Buy fromsoft !! Do it!

It would be the most ridiculous drama that really won’t matter but to a few hardcore PlayStation only gamers.
It would be glorious

That would be delicious

 

[JLB]

Yeah. There's PR and community relations (cheap) and there's strategic planning and investment where billions are on the line.
The mentality that they bought Zenimax to "stick it to the Sony ponies" is just... /facepalm.

Its the same thing as when they bought Mojang/Minecraft. That was an expensive acquisition to bolster their portfolio across the full spectrum of devices, not specifically so they could gain an advantage against Sony or Nintendo. Yet apparently we're supposed to think that they spent 3 times as much on Zenimax, just to do what they didn't do back then.

Yeap, though actually, in the very specific case of Mojang/Minecraft acquisition, was speculated that the real reason was to prevent paying taxes.

 

[Kerotan]

I can't see Sony buying anyone too big. FromSoft and Bluepoint being the height of it. Sega is a waste of money and Capcom, Ubisoft and T2 are very expensive but more importantly they probably don't want to sell.

But if FromSoft or Capcom ever do they'll probably prefer a Japanese buyer which puts Nintendo and Sony in poll position.

Every year that goes by Sony's profits add to their potential war chest to buy these companies. I wonder are they still glad they shut down evolution studios?

 

[Bernkastel]

I can't see Sony buying anyone too big. FromSoft and Bluepoint being the height of it. Sega is a waste of money and Capcom, Ubisoft and T2 are very expensive but more importantly they probably don't want to sell.

But if FromSoft or Capcom ever do they'll probably prefer a Japanese buyer which puts Nintendo and Sony in poll position.

Every year that goes by Sony's profits add to their potential war chest to buy these companies. I wonder are they still glad they shut down evolution studios?

FromSoft is owned by Kadokawa.

 

[Kerotan]

FromSoft is owned by Kadokawa.

What else do they own? Didn't they guy them for a relatively cheap price a few years ago? I'd say Sony are kicking themselves. But they're pinching themselves they bought insomniac because MS would have probably doubled their offer in today's world.

 

[Twinblade]

Bioware buys EA and grants Sony exclusive publishing rights, all future games being developed by
bethesda

Don't know if Bioware has the money to outright buy EA though.

 

[BusierDonkey]

Microsoft should have bought Insomniac after they made Sunset Overdrive. There were rumors at the time that it might happen and Insomniac themselves were speaking very highly of Microsoft at the time. Instead Microsoft derped and let the opportunity pass them by. Insomniac went on to make the Spiderman games and Sony bought them instead. Great move.

Don't know if Bioware has the money to outright buy EA though.

You do realize Bioware has been part of EA since 2007, right? They have as much money as EA permits them to have, and EA can shit-can the entire studio at any time.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

Sony should buy SEGA and merge their Japanese studios into SEGA'S. The result would stronger studios.

 

[Fredrik]

Sony should buy SEGA and merge their Japanese studios into SEGA'S. The result would stronger studios.

Nintendo would be a better owner in that case. But even though lots of water has flowed under that bridge I still doubt that Sega would let Sony or Nintendo buy them.
I don’t think Microsoft has any chance either though, it’s just a fan fantasy.

 

[DarkMage619]

Microsoft should have bought Insomniac after they made Sunset Overdrive. There were rumors at the time that it might happen and Insomniac themselves were speaking very highly of Microsoft at the time. Instead Microsoft derped and let the opportunity pass them by. Insomniac went on to make the Spiderman games and Sony bought them instead. Great move.



You do realize Bioware has been part of EA since 2007, right? They have as much money as EA permits them to have, and EA can shit-can the entire studio at any time.

MS picking up Bethesda is a much bigger deal. They got several studios AND loads of great IP. Especially if they use their current studios like Obsidian to work on a new Fallout New Vegas.

 

[Team Andromeda]

This thread is in the context of acquiring companies, just in case you miss that part.

Such a lame comeback.

 

[MayauMiao]

MS picking up Bethesda is a much bigger deal. They got several studios AND loads of great IP. Especially if they use their current studios like Obsidian to work on a new Fallout New Vegas.

Well they picked Rare before and look how that turned out.

 

[DarkMage619]

Well they picked Rare before and look how that turned out.

Sea of theives is pretty popular and still gets regular engagement. That's a good point. Bethesda will be huge.

 

[The_Mike]

Buy fromsoft !! Do it!

It would be the most ridiculous drama that really won’t matter but to a few hardcore PlayStation only gamers.
It would be glorious

"Meh, From Software makes shit games anyway so good riddance." would be a reply that would be repeated many times.

Just like when Microsoft bought bethessa.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Sea of theives is pretty popular and still gets regular engagement. That's a good point. Bethesda will be huge.

Lol, sure Rare is as good as it was when they bought it .

 

[Zghia]

Sony should buy square enix or capcom, since they will not be outbid by competitors

 

[Bridges]

Lol, sure Rare is as good as it was when they bought it .

They definitely have a worse track record post buyout, but I strongly believe Viva Piñata is better than anything they ever made with Nintendo.