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[Bryank75]

The From Soft rumor was that after Elder Ring they will go exclusive to make Super Knack 3





Square and Capcom have several fertile top IPs and more than capable teams to keep milking them in addition to potential to grow and improve under a new management, and loads of great catalog games for PS Now & Plus. IPs they can milk in cinema and anime too.

Unfair to Nintendo? Other than the two recent Monster Hunters, as I remember for Switch and WiiU they mostly released old ports and some small games most of them also available (sooner or later) in the other consoles.

I think both would be a great acquisition, but I think Square and Capcom won't want to sell because they are in a good shape and are doing fine, and that non-PS consoles are a good chunk of their revenue so to lose the other consoles would drop their value.

I don't see Sony buying them because they already release almost all their important games on PS, in many cases even as exclusive worldwide, and when not they are de facto console exclusives in Japan due to almost non-existant Xbox there. I think they only would buy them as a defensive move if they see MS is making moves to acquire them.

Same goes for Sega and Kadokawa but in a smaller way, but in these case with publishers whose exclusives in the recent years more focused on exclusives for PS, with smaller? size but in Kadokawa's case with the plus of having the anime stuff and tons of related IPs. The weird part in Kadokawa or Sega is that they have a huge chuck of these companies that wouldn't interest Sony, so they should separate it and sell it to reduce the cost of the acquisition.

If you ask me, if I was Jimbo I'd buy them all: Square, Capcom, Sega and Kadokawa. But I think they won't buy them and instead they will continue getting 2nd and 3rd party exclusive games from therm unless MS or Nintendo tries to buy them.

Well, if I was Sony... I would be talking to all of them. See who was most willing and least willing to sell. Buy 51% of anyone who was most willing to sell and control them as a non-wholly owned subsidiary.

It protects the companies from takeover and gives them full say on what happens in the company. It also costs less and the shares can be sold off later.

If nobody is going to sell, they could bring that money west for a publisher... maybe buy a chunk of TTwo to protect them from takeover.

Or buy a few very high quality studios.

The issue is, they have a lot of cash just sitting there and it's not doing any work for them if not invested now.

 

[EDMIX]

Well, if I was Sony... I would be talking to all of them. See who was most willing and least willing to sell. Buy 51% of anyone who was most willing to sell and control them as a non-wholly owned subsidiary.

It protects the companies from takeover and gives them full say on what happens in the company. It also costs less and the shares can be sold off later.

If nobody is going to sell, they could bring that money west for a publisher... maybe buy a chunk of TTwo to protect them from takeover.

Or buy a few very high quality studios.

The issue is, they have a lot of cash just sitting there and it's not doing any work for them if not invested now.

I don't disagree with you, but for all we know that is what they are currently doing and they are in those talks right now.

MS was in talks to buy Zenimax for years apparently.

 

[DrAspirino]

Which is why I think its valve

Gabe doesn't really give a fuck anymore, employees say he doesn't even do shit anymore

And Steam + Gamepass is a monopoly in the PC gaming space

In fact, COVID-19 pandemic gave Gaben the perfect excuse to retire to New Zealand and don't do shit anymore. In his recent interview he clearly states that Valve are the ones working on a new game, not him, since he's been "attending motorsport races and pursuing an interest in neuroscience".

Also, Steam + Gamepass isn't a monopoly on PC space, since PC has GoG, EPIC, Humble Bundle and several other marketplaces to choose from.

But yeah... Valve seems like a plausible option. Sega is just so improbable that it's a fun meme to laugh at every now and then.

Though it MAY happen "next wednesday"...

 

[dotnotbot]

I wonder what's more imminent - this purchase or update for Abandoned app

 

[Bryank75]

In fact, COVID-19 pandemic gave Gaben the perfect excuse to retire to New Zealand and don't do shit anymore. In his recent interview he clearly states that Valve are the ones working on a new game, not him, since he's been "attending motorsport races and pursuing an interest in neuroscience".

Also, Steam + Gamepass isn't a monopoly on PC space, since PC has GoG, EPIC, Humble Bundle and several other marketplaces to choose from.

But yeah... Valve seems like a plausible option. Sega is just so improbable that it's a fun meme to laugh at every now and then.

Though it MAY happen "next wednesday"...

I agree, the Valve move makes most sense... I actually made a thread about the possibility a year or two ago and it got locked.

 

[Nobody_Important]

*checks watch*


Well......we're waiting.....

 

[JerryinSoCal]

I agree, the Valve move makes most sense... I actually made a thread about the possibility a year or two ago and it got locked.

Valve is valued at around $10 billion, that seems like too much for either company to want to invest. MS over spent on Bethesda but at least they release games almost yearly, does valve make anything anymore? What titles do they have that would appeal to console gamers these days? Looking at their output they've made a VR game and some kind of card game and a chess game in the last 5 years, you have to go back to 2014 to find anything that would do even remotely well on console and that was Left 4 Dead. They haven't released a game on a PlayStation console in 9 years. It would make more sense for xbox to pick them up as some kind of investment since they are involved in the PC gaming space pretty heavily too but even then I don't see why they'd do it.

 

[Three]

-Outriders wasn't a critical darling by any means, is it still alive? Does someone care about it?

Yes! Our resident Bernd Lauert he is even adamant that it is somehow a huge success.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

Square is obviously not OPTIMALLY managed

But the cost of their IPs is still astronomically high. And Sony would need the desire to actually go in and restructure. It's not always easy. Strategic partnerships on titles like FFXV and Forspoken seems like the better move.

Yeah square isn't doing a great job but picking them up seems to be a console war dream for some people. Why would Sony or MS for that matter want to buy a company with over 5,000 employees? a company who has a lot of IP but most of them aren't really worth all that much these days. As you and I have both said Sony already benefits from their close partnership on FF etc so why spend billions more to own them? they won't make that money back, a lot of SE games don't even get released on competitors platforms and the ones that do don't perform anywhere near well enough to worry about.

 

[Witchilich]

Valve is valued at around $10 billion, that seems like too much for either company to want to invest. MS over spent on Bethesda but at least they release games almost yearly, does valve make anything anymore? What titles do they have that would appeal to console gamers these days? Looking at their output they've made a VR game and some kind of card game and a chess game in the last 5 years, you have to go back to 2014 to find anything that would do even remotely well on console and that was Left 4 Dead. They haven't released a game on a PlayStation console in 9 years. It would make more sense for xbox to pick them up as some kind of investment since they are involved in the PC gaming space pretty heavily too but even then I don't see why they'd do it.

Dude its valve. Nothing screams more monopoly than owning Steam, that Karak and SKULLZI keep mentioning. Microsoft has been very generous in putting everything on Steam Day 1 ever since they made this post.
Our Approach to PC Gaming - Xbox Wire
I would assume this is when they started talks of buying Valve or atleast Steam from them.

 

[James Sawyer Ford]

Yeah square isn't doing a great job but picking them up seems to be a console war dream for some people. Why would Sony or MS for that matter want to buy a company with over 5,000 employees? a company who has a lot of IP but most of them aren't really worth all that much these days. As you and I have both said Sony already benefits from their close partnership on FF etc so why spend billions more to own them? they won't make that money back, a lot of SE games don't even get released on competitors platforms and the ones that do don't perform anywhere near well enough to worry about.

The only way I see Sony buying someone like Square is if Microsoft is going to buy them instead and Square is willing to be acquired by Microsoft, but that seems very unlikely. It's really nowhere near the same situation as Bethesda.

Bethesda sold quite a bit on Playstation, so it took a really good deal for them to sell out to Microsoft. Microsoft saw a huge gap in their first party and needed to go for it. There's no such desperation from Sony, and no matter how unexciting it is for the fanboys online, Sony's best moves are NOT to go out and spend $10B on someone like Square....in fact, it's in gamers best interest for Sony to grow mostly organically or with smaller partners that they can turn into AAA (like FireSprite).

 

[Mobile Suit Gooch]

The only way I see Sony buying someone like Square is if Microsoft is going to buy them instead and Square is willing to be acquired by Microsoft, but that seems very unlikely. It's really nowhere near the same situation as Bethesda.

Bethesda sold quite a bit on Playstation, so it took a really good deal for them to sell out to Microsoft. Microsoft saw a huge gap in their first party and needed to go for it. There's no such desperation from Sony, and no matter how unexciting it is for the fanboys online, Sony's best moves are NOT to go out and spend $10B on someone like Square....in fact, it's in gamers best interest for Sony to grow mostly organically or with smaller partners that they can turn into AAA (like FireSprite).

They could buy Arc System works tho. Heh.

 

[Heisenberg007]

The only way I see Sony buying someone like Square is if Microsoft is going to buy them instead and Square is willing to be acquired by Microsoft, but that seems very unlikely. It's really nowhere near the same situation as Bethesda.

Bethesda sold quite a bit on Playstation, so it took a really good deal for them to sell out to Microsoft. Microsoft saw a huge gap in their first party and needed to go for it. There's no such desperation from Sony, and no matter how unexciting it is for the fanboys online, Sony's best moves are NOT to go out and spend $10B on someone like Square....in fact, it's in gamers best interest for Sony to grow mostly organically or with smaller partners that they can turn into AAA (like FireSprite).

I totally agree. If Sony buys a big publisher (Square, Capcom, Sega), it will only give Sony fanboys some ammo for celebration on internet forums and rub it in Xbox fans' faces, just as it was with MS/Bethesda, but it won't necessarily be good for Sony.

The same applies to Xbox. I still believe that the Bethesda acquisition has created more problems for Xbox than it solved.

The best course of action would be to NOT buy a big publisher and increase your operating expenses by 20-30%. Sustainable profits make you strong and help you grow. Paying $7-$10 billion and then onboarding 3,000+ employees can seriously halt growth.

What Sony is currently doing is the perfect strategy. They just need to be more aggressive if they can afford to do so (which I think they do, especially now that PS5 Standard is now profitable):

• Grow your portfolio by buying smaller but talented studios and help them grow and increase their output. Insomniac at $229 is now looking like a robbery, compared to Bethesda's per studio cost of roughly $900 million.
• Identify big IPs that these big publishers have, e.g., Final Fantasy (SE), Street Fighter and Sonic (Sega), Monster Hunter (Capcom), and look them as timed or full exclusives. You get the good part, without having to deal with the bad part (employee management, poor IPs, overhead expenditures, etc.)
• Grow your internal studios and invest in new IPs (e.g., Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.). They are already working on at least 12 new IPs, which is great.

 

[Heisenberg007]

This post got people so triggered they bringing out their alt-accounts @Personik

Don't know about personnel and alts, but instead of presenting counterarguments, some have been leaving "laugh" emojis as a passive-aggressive response. It is so stupid and hilarious lol.

Well, I guess they aren't saying anything because deep down they know I am right. They just don't want to say that "Xbox has more employees/studios and more games in development, but their expenses are 50% of PlayStation's" because everybody would make fun of them then.

 

[cdthree]

They only companies that would draw monopoly review for Microsoft is EA or Take 2, IMHO. Vavle really doesn't strike me as owning a monopoly for Microsoft when Apple and Google makes as much if not more thru their storefronts. Ubisoft already said they aren't selling and were actively moving to protect itself from a hostile takeover, awhile back. Not sure what Activision's financial and corporate stability is like. The two most shocking announcements I could think of would be if Microsoft and Nintendo teamed up or Microsoft bought Tencent. Tencent really doesn't seem to have much of a gaming operation, so with their future in doubt in China someone could pick them up as a whole in the future.

 

[Heisenberg007]

They only companies that would draw monopoly review for Microsoft is EA or Take 2, IMHO. Vavle really doesn't strike me as owning a monopoly for Microsoft when Apple and Google makes as much if not more thru their storefronts. Ubisoft already said they aren't selling and were actively moving to protect itself from a hostile takeover, awhile back. Not sure what Activision's financial and corporate stability is like. The two most shocking announcements I could think of would be if Microsoft and Nintendo teamed up or Microsoft bought Tencent. Tencent really doesn't seem to have much of a gaming operation, so with their future in doubt in China someone could pick them up as a whole in the future.

Doesn't Tencent have a market cap of $550 billion? Or is that in another currency?

 

[reksveks]

Still trying to figure out how Microsoft is making 44bn revenue off 5bn cost if we are assuming that costs are scaling linearly with number of studios.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Still trying to figure out how Microsoft is making 44bn revenue off 5bn cost if we are assuming that costs are scaling linearly with number of studios.

I took a quick look but couldn't figure out where these numbers come from. Can you please share and highlight what these numbers mean? (disclaimer: as I mentioned earlier, I am not very familiar with their non-gaming divisions and operations, so please keep it ELI5).

 

[reksveks]

I took a quick look but couldn't figure out where these numbers come from. Can you please share and highlight what these numbers mean? (disclaimer: as I mentioned earlier, I am not very familiar with their non-gaming divisions and operations, so please keep it ELI5).

FY21 Q4 - Press Releases - Investor Relations - Microsoft

Last 12 reported months
Revenue: 54,093m
Operatinng Income: 19,349m
Difference = 34,744m

Last 3 reported months
Revenue: 14,086m
Operatinng Income: 4,874m
Difference = 9,212m


Summary
If you assume xbox operating cost is 30bn for the year and the revenue is 15.4bn, you are getting for the last 12 months; revenue of 38,693 off cost 4,744 which would make a margin roughly 87.7%
If you do it for 3months; roughly 10bn revenue off 1.5bn cost which is a margin of 85%.


Additional Notes
The whole division contains:
- Windows (annual revenues seems to be around 23billion but need to double check for sources, margin is unknown)
- Xbox
- Surface (Profiit margins on Laptop's which is small generally max being around 30-40% for Apple's, 1.36bn for q4 2021 so roughly 5bn for the year)
- Search Advertising (generally you can get some good margin in search advertising from personal experience but the higher range is 60-70%)

 

[kyliethicc]

.

 

[SaucyJack]

Well, if I was Sony... I would be talking to all of them. See who was most willing and least willing to sell. Buy 51% of anyone who was most willing to sell and control them as a non-wholly owned subsidiary.

It protects the companies from takeover and gives them full say on what happens in the company. It also costs less and the shares can be sold off later.

If nobody is going to sell, they could bring that money west for a publisher... maybe buy a chunk of TTwo to protect them from takeover.

Or buy a few very high quality studios.

The issue is, they have a lot of cash just sitting there and it's not doing any work for them if not invested now.

This level of shareholding would, of course, trigger an obligation for a mandatory offer for the remainder of the shares under securities laws in most jurisdictions.

 

[Warablo]

Buying Valve/Steam would be Microsoft's wet dream. They would have the PC space lockdowned.

 

[Little Chicken]

Xbox Steam? Outrageous, delusional, surreal, yet somehow more believable than Microsoft acquiring Take 2.

 

[MrFunSocks]

FF already seems to be exclusive. Why buy square?

Why buy insomniac? Why buy firesprite?

 

[MrFunSocks]

Valve is valued at around $10 billion, that seems like too much for either company to want to invest. MS over spent on Bethesda but at least they release games almost yearly, does valve make anything anymore? What titles do they have that would appeal to console gamers these days? Looking at their output they've made a VR game and some kind of card game and a chess game in the last 5 years, you have to go back to 2014 to find anything that would do even remotely well on console and that was Left 4 Dead. They haven't released a game on a PlayStation console in 9 years. It would make more sense for xbox to pick them up as some kind of investment since they are involved in the PC gaming space pretty heavily too but even then I don't see why they'd do it.

Valve would be an incredible buy for MS or any of the big gaming companies. Steam prints money. It’s the de facto pc game platform. Can’t believe what I’m reading lol.

 

[Jemm]

Buying Valve/Steam would be Microsoft's wet dream. They would have the PC space lockdowned.

Yeah, I could see Valve happening:

• Strengthen the PC space
  • Some PC players will always avoid MS Store, no matter what
• Get better 1st party margins from Steam and all the 3rd party income
• Lot's of material for PC's Game Pass
• Get to the VR business
• Wouldn't hurt Sony/PS as much (they'd just move their PC-versions to Epic Store)

 

[Corndog]

Why buy insomniac? Why buy firesprite?

Because they weren’t exclusive.

 

[MonarchJT]

Well, if I was Sony... I would be talking to all of them. See who was most willing and least willing to sell. Buy 51% of anyone who was most willing to sell and control them as a non-wholly owned subsidiary.

It protects the companies from takeover and gives them full say on what happens in the company. It also costs less and the shares can be sold off later.

If nobody is going to sell, they could bring that money west for a publisher... maybe buy a chunk of TTwo to protect them from takeover.

Or buy a few very high quality studios.

The issue is, they have a lot of cash just sitting there and it's not doing any work for them if not invested now.

they have lots of other thing where to invest ...Sony ain't just playstation ...and they are in fact investing in other thing

 

[El Pistolero]

Well, I hope this is legit cause it has me a little more hopeful.

Would still be terrible to lose another publisher or big studio to this endless acquisitions stuff.

Let me get this right: You are angry at Sony on account of purchases made by Microsoft? ...
How old are you again?

 

[Clear]

I highly doubt they could buy Steam, even if they promised regulators that they'd continue to run it as an independent business they'd get heat from every side in regards to monopoly and anti-competitive practice. Its simply too large a chunk of the overall entire online PC-gaming commercial space not to raise a load of red flags.

Valve, just the development side, is possible I guess given their output has never been particularly high. But by the same token I'm not sure if that'd be worth their while because of that.

Said it before, but I'd be more inclined to suspect that Activision may consider off-loading Blizzard given the ongoing legal kerfuffle.

 

[AV]

The amount of money you'd need to buy Valve would be absolutely staggering. Yeah, obviously Microsoft have it, but if it ever happened that figure would be fucking bananas because Steam is a licence to print money. 10 billion wouldn't be nearly enough. It's not like buying Zenimax where every future product is a potential failure, Steam just shits money daily without Valve lifting a finger.

 

[megreotsugua]

Critical thinking, folks!

If the purchase was really "HUGE"... it would imply a publisher.

Practically every remaining AAA publisher is publically traded.

Therefore, any offer by MS to buy the company would have to be made public by law.

So if there was a big publisher purchase being negotiated, we'd already know about it.

So if it's even true and not just shitty twitter rumour-mongering, it's a privately-owned developer and not a publisher.

Valve it is then.

 

[lh032]

they have lots of other thing where to invest ...Sony ain't just playstation ...and they are in fact investing in other thing

Well the same could be said to Microsoft.

https://www.videogameschronicle.com...s-says-he-expects-more-games-company-buyouts/

Sony has aware the importance of video game companies acquisition, I have a feeling FireSprite (or bluepoint if the rumor is true) is not the last acquisition by them in this year.

 

[owandeseis]

I totally agree. If Sony buys a big publisher (Square, Capcom, Sega), it will only give Sony fanboys some ammo for celebration on internet forums and rub it in Xbox fans' faces, just as it was with MS/Bethesda, but it won't necessarily be good for Sony.

The same applies to Xbox. I still believe that the Bethesda acquisition has created more problems for Xbox than it solved.

The best course of action would be to NOT buy a big publisher and increase your operating expenses by 20-30%. Sustainable profits make you strong and help you grow. Paying $7-$10 billion and then onboarding 3,000+ employees can seriously halt growth.

What Sony is currently doing is the perfect strategy. They just need to be more aggressive if they can afford to do so (which I think they do, especially now that PS5 Standard is now profitable):

• Grow your portfolio by buying smaller but talented studios and help them grow and increase their output. Insomniac at $229 is now looking like a robbery, compared to Bethesda's per studio cost of roughly $900 million.
• Identify big IPs that these big publishers have, e.g., Final Fantasy (SE), Street Fighter and Sonic (Sega), Monster Hunter (Capcom), and look them as timed or full exclusives. You get the good part, without having to deal with the bad part (employee management, poor IPs, overhead expenditures, etc.)
• Grow your internal studios and invest in new IPs (e.g., Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.). They are already working on at least 12 new IPs, which is great.

I don't think Sony buying a big publisher is comparable to MS's acquisition of Bethesda since they are already in a good spot for next years and already have a big first party team (also they are pretty much moneyhatting every project Square works on so the difference wouldn't be too big).

About the Bethesda acquisition i can kinda agree that it could end up creating problems in a mid-long future, like, if Gamepass numbers dont end up in like 50m+ this generation or Xbox doesn't end up selling like at least on Xbox360 numbers i don't think we'd be surprised at all if MS simply gets done with gaming after all, or just becomes a third party publisher or whatever.

This said, acquiring Bethesda, in the short-mid run, it's not like it created problems or solved them, it simply was absolutely necessary to keep their momentum up for next year until the rest of first party developers start showing up in 2023+.

Gamepass numbers were under 10 mills in the 2020's first quarter, went to 18 mills by January 2021 and it won't be surprising to see high 20's or even 30 millions by the end of this christmas, but then, how do you keep this up if your 2022 lineup (other than multi/temp exclusive deals) is Forza Motorsport and that's it? Now if instead of that you also have Redfall from Arkane and the "Space Skyrim", that's another level.

 

[prinz_valium]

Valve is valued at around $10 billion, that seems like too much for either company to want to invest. MS over spent on Bethesda but at least they release games almost yearly, does valve make anything anymore? What titles do they have that would appeal to console gamers these days? Looking at their output they've made a VR game and some kind of card game and a chess game in the last 5 years, you have to go back to 2014 to find anything that would do even remotely well on console and that was Left 4 Dead. They haven't released a game on a PlayStation console in 9 years. It would make more sense for xbox to pick them up as some kind of investment since they are involved in the PC gaming space pretty heavily too but even then I don't see why they'd do it.

Overspent on Zenimax?
Zenimax was the by far cheapest publisher with a great IP catalog out there and top talent / studios.

Zenimax was just $7.5bn
Ubisoft would cost ~$12bn
Take 2 is ~$25bn
EA is $50bn+
Activision is close to $100bn

Only WB would be comparably cheap, but they don't own many ISPs, they have license IPs primarily.


What on earth would've been a better and cheaper deal?
Ubisoft is the only games company, that is still "cheap" for what they have. But they don't want to be bought.

 

[prinz_valium]

FY21 Q4 - Press Releases - Investor Relations - Microsoft

Last 12 reported months
Revenue: 54,093m
Operatinng Income: 19,349m
Difference = 34,744m

Last 3 reported months
Revenue: 14,086m
Operatinng Income: 4,874m
Difference = 9,212m


Summary
If you assume xbox operating cost is 30bn for the year and the revenue is 15.4bn, you are getting for the last 12 months; revenue of 38,693 off cost 4,744 which would make a margin roughly 87.7%
If you do it for 3months; roughly 10bn revenue off 1.5bn cost which is a margin of 85%.


Additional Notes
The whole division contains:
- Windows (annual revenues seems to be around 23billion but need to double check for sources, margin is unknown)
- Xbox
- Surface (Profiit margins on Laptop's which is small generally max being around 30-40% for Apple's, 1.36bn for q4 2021 so roughly 5bn for the year)
- Search Advertising (generally you can get some good margin in search advertising from personal experience but the higher range is 60-70%)

You get gross margins of 60-70% on search, but not operating margins.

Just have a look at Google financials for what you can expect.
Makes no sense to believe Microsoft has a negative OI income margin of 100% in Gaming when Sony has a positive 20% and Nintendo is at 30%+

 

[Bernd Lauert]

The amount of money you'd need to buy Valve would be absolutely staggering. Yeah, obviously Microsoft have it, but if it ever happened that figure would be fucking bananas because Steam is a licence to print money. 10 billion wouldn't be nearly enough. It's not like buying Zenimax where every future product is a potential failure, Steam just shits money daily without Valve lifting a finger.

It would cost 20 billion dollars minimum. Huge chunk of money for sure.

 

[Heisenberg007]

FY21 Q4 - Press Releases - Investor Relations - Microsoft

Last 12 reported months
Revenue: 54,093m
Operatinng Income: 19,349m
Difference = 34,744m

Last 3 reported months
Revenue: 14,086m
Operatinng Income: 4,874m
Difference = 9,212m


Summary
If you assume xbox operating cost is 30bn for the year and the revenue is 15.4bn, you are getting for the last 12 months; revenue of 38,693 off cost 4,744 which would make a margin roughly 87.7%
If you do it for 3months; roughly 10bn revenue off 1.5bn cost which is a margin of 85%.


Additional Notes
The whole division contains:
- Windows (annual revenues seems to be around 23billion but need to double check for sources, margin is unknown)
- Xbox
- Surface (Profiit margins on Laptop's which is small generally max being around 30-40% for Apple's, 1.36bn for q4 2021 so roughly 5bn for the year)
- Search Advertising (generally you can get some good margin in search advertising from personal experience but the higher range is 60-70%)

Oh okay. Thanks for the info. My point was that Xbox's cost will be > $30B. Since Bethesda's acquisition was finalized in March 2021, the impact may not be fully visible in financial reports yet.

But again, I am not at all familiar with the non-gaming part of the division, so can't really comment on that.

 

[reksveks]

Oh okay. Thanks for the info. My point was that Xbox's cost will be > $30B. Since Bethesda's acquisition was finalized in March 2021, the impact may not be fully visible in financial reports yet.

But again, I am not at all familiar with the non-gaming part of the division, so can't really comment on that.

I think in theory, you could have seen the initial impacts in the numbers for the previous 3 months as those cover April - June.

I don't think you have to be too familiar to think an 85% margin is unusual. We see the updated numbers in 5 weeks time so should be able to get some more insights. What do you think the operating cost of Bethesda is on a quarterly basis?

 

[Bryank75]

It would cost 20 billion dollars minimum. Huge chunk of money for sure.

Yeah but they would never really need to acquire ever again.... cause Stream just has so many games published to it by default and is the main PC store.

 

[Woopah]

Well there's a reason SOny still has it's stake in Square stock wise. Same goes for From Software's parent company. Would not be surprised if instead of an acquisition it's a stock buying proposal.

More like a joint effort, where both work independently but stock options are shared/converted. There is a difference between merger and takeover.



you are correct with the merger gargin, but if you own a lot of stock of said company you can have a none take over setup if both party's agree to terms.

The key point here is "relatively equal". Sony is way bigger than SE so it would be a takeover not a merger.

This level of shareholding would, of course, trigger an obligation for a mandatory offer for the remainder of the shares under securities laws in most jurisdictions.

Exactly what I was going to say. I'm not a expert on the law in Japan but I imagine it's similar to what it is in the UK.

 

[SaucyJack]

The key point here is "relatively equal". Sony is way bigger than SE so it would be a takeover not a merger.

Exactly what I was going to say. I'm not a expert on the law in Japan but I imagine it's similar to what it is in the UK.

Exactly, in a merger between Sony Corp ($140 bn) and Square Enix ($7.5 bn) Sony shareholders would have about 95% of the combined entity.

Even a Sony/Nintendo ($50 bn) merger would see Sony have about 70%.

 

[MrLove]

The From Soft rumor was that after Elder Ring they will go exclusive to make Super Knack 3

That would be the worst case scenario for Xbox gamers, but Sony has a capital alliance with Kadokawa. I would be surprised if they weren't developed exclusively

 

[Woopah]

That would be the worst case scenario for Xbox gamers, but Sony has a capital alliance with Kadokawa. I would be surprised if they weren't developed exclusively

Owning shares in another company is something to take note of but we shouldn't overstate it's importance. Nintendo owns shares in Bandai Namco but that doesn't mean they only make games for Switch.

 

[MrLove]

Owning shares in another company is something to take note of but we shouldn't overstate it's importance. Nintendo owns shares in Bandai Namco but that doesn't mean they only make games for Switch.

iI's more than owning a few shares, its a capital partnership. Where things will go for certain remains to be seen, but as i said, I would be really surprised if they weren't developed exclusively

 

[Woopah]

iI's more than owning a few shares, its a capital partnership. Where things will go for certain remains to be seen, but as i said, I would be really surprised if they weren't developed exclusively

I would be very surprised if that did happen. Yes some of Kadokawa's studios may make PlayStation exclusive games, but others will make multiplats or Switch exclusives.

 

[SaucyJack]

The key point here is "relatively equal". Sony is way bigger than SE so it would be a takeover not a merger.

Exactly what I was going to say. I'm not a expert on the law in Japan but I imagine it's similar to what it is in the UK.

It seems that the threshold for a mandatory offer in Japan is 1/3 of shares. Most of Europe has a 30% threshold. US does not require mandatory offers.

 

[MrFunSocks]

Because they weren’t exclusive.

They were for all that mattered. Final fantasy isn’t exclusive either.

 

[Little Chicken]

Have any other "insiders" commented on the supposed huge Microsoft acquisition, or is it just bullshit?

 

[Woopah]

It seems that the threshold for a mandatory offer in Japan is 1/3 of shares. Most of Europe has a 30% threshold. US does not require mandatory offers.

Interesting! Thanks for sharing.