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A huge purchase is imminent within 1 month from now

So im going to try and list off most major publishers or studios and just where their at, all from the top of my head. Im sure theres alot im missing. I may have missed a few so let me know. All of this is my opinion.

Activison/ Blizzard: No one will buy them. Too expensive, too big, and has alot of bad press lately

Bungie: There were rumors that MS was looking into them. Bungie CEO said twice they have no interest of being bought. Destiny is their only major IP. Netease also invested 100 million into them.

Capcom: Japanese Publisher with alot of IP. Only 10 percent of sales come from xbox as a platform. Monster hunter and resident evil has made them alot of money recently. Has good relations with both sony and nintendo, where most of their business comes from.

EA: Humongous, expensive, mildy healthy thanks to fifa. Alot of licensed games and already has a deal with gamespass ultimate. A buyout would be a long, expensive process. Does have alot of IP though.

Sega: A smaller Japanese publisher best know for yakuza and persona games. Recently yakuzas creator and director left and atlus has shown zero interest in even porting games to xbox, up until this point,

Square Enix: Japanese publisher with really close ties to sony and to a lesser extent nintendo. Used to have Okay relations with xbox during the 360 heydays but after the rise of tomb raider timed exclsuive fiasco hasnt had much of anything to do with xbox. Has alot of exclsuive games and marketing deals with playstation at the moment. Also has business in anime, cell phone games, and has the most successful MMO in the world right now.

Take 2: Another huge publisher with healthy financials thanks to GTA 5. Has a few Big IP that all sell really, really well when they release a new one. CEO recently made a diss at gamepass saying he doesnt think the kind of games they make fit the gamepass model. Worth noting that almost all take 2 games have a marketing deal with playstation at the moment.

Ubisoft: Has alot of valuable IP. Seems to be doing pretty well business wise as well. Located in Europe. Has fought off multiple attempts of a hostile take over.

WB Games: Wayyy too many licensed games to be taken seriosly. Netherealm would be a good get but after the MK movie i doubt WB wants to part with that IP.

So going over this list and some of the things i described, the only companies I could see MS going for is Sega because they dont have alot going for them except Persona at the moment. The problem with that though is that atlus, at least on the surface, want nothing to do with xbox.

Your Sega take is completely wrong. They have their PC catalogue such as the Football Manager series (a huge-selling franchise in its own right particularly in Europe), Creative Assembly's games, various partnerships for games like Streets of Rage 4 (which has done extremely well), and even Sonic is still doing pretty decently especially outside of games, like with the recent film. That's not even touching on everything, and they have even more legacy IP (and some I would argue, higher quality) than Capcom.

I mean they won Best Publisher of 2020 going by review aggregate averages, and they've won that title a few other years as well, so they must be doing something right in terms of quality even if they don't have any mega-bangers or don't do too much with classic IP outside of Sonic (tho that has been slowly changing).

EDIT: Looks like K Kenshin775 bet me to the punch. But yeah, I guess just adding onto what they already posted.
 
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yurinka

Member
So im going to try and list off most major publishers or studios and just where their at, all from the top of my head. Im sure theres alot im missing. I may have missed a few so let me know. All of this is my opinion.

Activison/ Blizzard: No one will buy them. Too expensive, too big, and has alot of bad press lately

Bungie: There were rumors that MS was looking into them. Bungie CEO said twice they have no interest of being bought. Destiny is their only major IP. Netease also invested 100 million into them.

Capcom: Japanese Publisher with alot of IP. Only 10 percent of sales come from xbox as a platform. Monster hunter and resident evil has made them alot of money recently. Has good relations with both sony and nintendo, where most of their business comes from.

EA: Humongous, expensive, mildy healthy thanks to fifa. Alot of licensed games and already has a deal with gamespass ultimate. A buyout would be a long, expensive process. Does have alot of IP though.

Sega: A smaller Japanese publisher best know for yakuza and persona games. Recently yakuzas creator and director left and atlus has shown zero interest in even porting games to xbox, up until this point,

Square Enix: Japanese publisher with really close ties to sony and to a lesser extent nintendo. Used to have Okay relations with xbox during the 360 heydays but after the rise of tomb raider timed exclsuive fiasco hasnt had much of anything to do with xbox. Has alot of exclsuive games and marketing deals with playstation at the moment. Also has business in anime, cell phone games, and has the most successful MMO in the world right now.

Take 2: Another huge publisher with healthy financials thanks to GTA 5. Has a few Big IP that all sell really, really well when they release a new one. CEO recently made a diss at gamepass saying he doesnt think the kind of games they make fit the gamepass model. Worth noting that almost all take 2 games have a marketing deal with playstation at the moment.

Ubisoft: Has alot of valuable IP. Seems to be doing pretty well business wise as well. Located in Europe. Has fought off multiple attempts of a hostile take over.

WB Games: Wayyy too many licensed games to be taken seriosly. Netherealm would be a good get but after the MK movie i doubt WB wants to part with that IP.

So going over this list and some of the things i described, the only companies I could see MS going for is Sega because they dont have alot going for them except Persona at the moment. The problem with that though is that atlus, at least on the surface, want nothing to do with xbox.
Good analysis.

But you forgot to mention Sega Sammy has many business like pachinkos, pachislos, toys, animation (Tokyo Movie Shinsha, meaning tons of anime), arcades, amusement centers, theme parks, resorts or call centers. Plus licensed the highest-grossing video game film adaptation of all time in North America that is getting now a sequel. A lot of fat to cut, and seems more appealing for Sony if they would be interested to sell all or part of the company.

So, who purchased what after all?

Bird Popcorn GIF
People says MS buying Sega next Wednesday or something like that.
 
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Loope

Member
-All consoles are and had been walled gardens
-Both MS and Sony had 2nd and 3rd party exclusives since their first generation
-XCloud is MS's version of PS Now, which was released before, performs better and has a bigger catalog
-At least until now Gamepass doesn't have more subscribers or generate more money than Sony's subscriptions.
-Zenimax game sales on PlayStation are less than 3% than the total PS4 game sales
-Sony continues releasing more exclusives than MS every year and Jimbo said they plan to have more exclusives for PS5 than they ever had in their previous consoles
-Half of the years of the last decade had a PS exclusive as the game that won more GOTY awards that year vs 0 MS exclusives. 10 PS exclusive games more were between the top 5/top 6 games of that year with more GOTYs
-PS exclusives not only win more GOTY awards than with Kaz, they also sell more than ever
-MS continues being the distant 3rd on generating money, selling consoles and selling games
-Sony continues being the console platform holder that generates more money, has the fastest selling console ever (breaking the gaming history record of their previous console), continues being the console platform holder that makes more money with game subscriptions and the one that sells more games for their consoles
-PlayStation makes more revenue, sell more consoles, sell more games, their exclusives get better MC, win more GOTY awards and sell more and gets more money from subs with Jimbo than with Kaz
-Plus Kaz released 2 Knack games and Jimbo restructured Japan Studio to make sure they don't make more Knacks and focus instead on developing games like Astro and publishing 2nd party games like Death Stranding or Bloodborne.


PS has more exclusives, that get higher reviews/MC, better sales and earn more GOTY awards than the Xbox ones.

Even if it doesn't feature day one the 1st party published games, in console and PC performs better than xcloud, it has a way bigger catalog and is coming soon to smartphones and tablets (in the past it was limited to Vita and a few Sony phones), so soonish you'll be able to play it anywhere too.
What does that have to do with what i asked? How is MS worst by having exclusives when you can access them through PC, while Sony just doesn't. PSNow is shit, i tried it.
 
The sad part of acquisition "thirst" is that its not about making the platform stronger directly, its about denying the opposition games.
That's just weak. No other word for it.
I can't speak for others, but I'm interested in news about MS acquisitions because it would mean those studio\publisher's games would come to GamePass, which adds value to a service I'm already paying for. I don't care if Microsoft puts games on Sony or Nintendo or any other platform, but I know those games will be on GamePass, which is good for me personally.

I can't be alone in this.
 

Forsythia

Member
130 million people want to play on PlayStation.... that is why they bought them. They don't want to be forced to play on a damned tablet or PC.


Most of these people will never buy an xbox.... you're just taking games away from them and limiting sales.

You guys really hate playstation don't you?
So much that you want to actively limit the enjoyment of people that play there....

130 million is a lot of people to hate.
This just sounds like entitlement. You are so used to almost every game coming to PlayStation you just cannot grasp the idea of competing platforms having exclusive games of their own.
 
No, I'm saying Sony dropped the ball. They could have done everything MS has done minus the cloud direction. However, Sony didn't see the need for any of that so, now they're paying the price!

You mean, having Playstation make more money than Xbox still, which they would not have accomplished with a subscription based approach? You realize that MS is able to do what it has been doing because of its ocean deep pockets, and not because of some genius moves?
 
I can't speak for others, but I'm interested in news about MS acquisitions because it would mean those studio\publisher's games would come to GamePass, which adds value to a service I'm already paying for. I don't care if Microsoft puts games on Sony or Nintendo or any other platform, but I know those games will be on GamePass, which is good for me personally.

I can't be alone in this.

You almost had me there. MS could have enticed many Zenimax Studios to drop their games day and date on the service at a tenth of the acquisition money. I am not buying it, buddy...
 

Dabaus

Banned
One thing about acquisitions that is always risky is talent retention. Just because some suit on the board agrees to a buyout doesnt mean the team or talent behind that team wants to be bought. Xbox is dead in every territory except the US and UK, the latter of which its losing ground in rapidly. If youre a talented developer you want as many people as you can to play your game, you dont want to be limited to just a US audience on a subscription service. Talent can and will leave.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
One thing about acquisitions that is always risky is talent retention. Just because some suit on the board agrees to a buyout doesnt mean the team or talent behind that team wants to be bought. Xbox is dead in every territory except the US and UK, the latter of which its losing ground in rapidly. If youre a talented developer you want as many people as you can to play your game, you dont want to be limited to just a US audience on a subscription service. Talent can and will leave.

Just for the record xbox does have pretty good success in bigger euro countries like spain and France. They do well in Mexico and Canada to.

People seem to think that countries are intrinsically aligned to a particular gaming platform.

While there is some truth to this, like in japan, but elseware its not the case. People buy something because it is a good product, the 360 was competitive in Europe. Playstation and xbox are very similer, the brand is not important, its the hardware, price, services, games and marketing which influence people to buy them.

And uk is losing ground rapidly, lol. You could not be more wrong. The gen is not even a year old and just because sony has managed to allocate more stock does not mean xbox is loosing ground.

Both platforms are great and both are going to do great, no need to console war.
 

Wulfer

Member
Lol, really. Anything but PlayStation, eh?

Last I checked Microsoft's walled garden just includes Microsoft Windows in addition to Xbox, how does the Xbox app and Gamepass work on Mac? Or Linux?
Just ignore those games that came to the Nintendo Switch when it's convenient right? Say what you want but, how many PS first party titles are on Nintendo Switch or Mac/Linux (for that matter)? I'll wait while you count.
 
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Dabaus

Banned
Just for the record xbox does have pretty good success in bigger euro countries like spain and France. They do well in Mexico and Canada to.

People seem to think that countries are intrinsically aligned to a particular gaming platform.

While there is some truth to this, like in japan, but elseware its not the case. People buy something because it is a good product, the 360 was competitive in Europe. Playstation and xbox are very similer, the brand is not important, its the hardware, price, services, games and marketing which influence people to buy them.

And uk is losing ground rapidly, lol. You could not be more wrong. The gen is not even a year old and just because sony has managed to allocate more stock does not mean xbox is loosing ground.

Both platforms are great and both are going to do great, no need to console war.
We're seeing it in sales charts everytime we get hard data, even last months NPD was a blowout with over 50 percent of all software sold being sony and nintendo first party. Xbox is irrelevant in virtually every single market worldwide and hanging on by a thread in the US, their best market. This what happens when you youre entire brand is dead world wide except 2 markets and then you go all in on a subscription service. People just arent ready for or want gaming to be like that and xbox certainty doesnt have cache to make that the new standard.
 
So im going to try and list off most major publishers or studios and just where their at, all from the top of my head. Im sure theres alot im missing. I may have missed a few so let me know. All of this is my opinion.

Activison/ Blizzard: No one will buy them. Too expensive, too big, and has alot of bad press lately

Bungie: There were rumors that MS was looking into them. Bungie CEO said twice they have no interest of being bought. Destiny is their only major IP. Netease also invested 100 million into them.

Capcom: Japanese Publisher with alot of IP. Only 10 percent of sales come from xbox as a platform. Monster hunter and resident evil has made them alot of money recently. Has good relations with both sony and nintendo, where most of their business comes from.

EA: Humongous, expensive, mildy healthy thanks to fifa. Alot of licensed games and already has a deal with gamespass ultimate. A buyout would be a long, expensive process. Does have alot of IP though.

Sega: A smaller Japanese publisher best know for yakuza and persona games. Recently yakuzas creator and director left and atlus has shown zero interest in even porting games to xbox, up until this point,

Square Enix: Japanese publisher with really close ties to sony and to a lesser extent nintendo. Used to have Okay relations with xbox during the 360 heydays but after the rise of tomb raider timed exclsuive fiasco hasnt had much of anything to do with xbox. Has alot of exclsuive games and marketing deals with playstation at the moment. Also has business in anime, cell phone games, and has the most successful MMO in the world right now.

Take 2: Another huge publisher with healthy financials thanks to GTA 5. Has a few Big IP that all sell really, really well when they release a new one. CEO recently made a diss at gamepass saying he doesnt think the kind of games they make fit the gamepass model. Worth noting that almost all take 2 games have a marketing deal with playstation at the moment.

Ubisoft: Has alot of valuable IP. Seems to be doing pretty well business wise as well. Located in Europe. Has fought off multiple attempts of a hostile take over.

WB Games: Wayyy too many licensed games to be taken seriosly. Netherealm would be a good get but after the MK movie i doubt WB wants to part with that IP.

So going over this list and some of the things i described, the only companies I could see MS going for is Sega because they dont have alot going for them except Persona at the moment. The problem with that though is that atlus, at least on the surface, want nothing to do with xbox.
What about Konami?
 

SaucyJack

Member
Just ignore those games that came to the Nintendo Switch when it's convenient right? Say what you want but, how many PS first party titles are on Nintendo Switch or Mac/Linux (for that matter)? I'll wait while you count.

Thats hardly the point being made ……. but now that you raise it how many Xbox first party titles are on Switch? Not counting pre-acquisition commitments.
 

Corndog

Banned
We're seeing it in sales charts everytime we get hard data, even last months NPD was a blowout with over 50 percent of all software sold being sony and nintendo first party. Xbox is irrelevant in virtually every single market worldwide and hanging on by a thread in the US, their best market. This what happens when you youre entire brand is dead world wide except 2 markets and then you go all in on a subscription service. People just arent ready for or want gaming to be like that and xbox certainty doesnt have cache to make that the new standard.
Maybe sales are low because people are using game pass. I know it’s a difficult concept to grasp.
 

yurinka

Member
MS will buy Twitter next Wednesday confirmed, all future new tweets to be included in Gamepass at no extra cost!

Montreal HQ. Quebec, Canada. With studios all over the world
Not that this matters a lot…
No, Ubisoft's HQ is in Montreuil (Paris, France). Ubisoft is a French, European, company. They also have other offices and gamedev studios in Paris.

That Montreuil is not the same than Montreal (Quebec). They have their biggest gamedev studio (not HQ) in Montreal. And have dozens of gamedev studios and publishing/PR offices more around the world.
 
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Wulfer

Member
You mean, having Playstation make more money than Xbox still, which they would not have accomplished with a subscription based approach? You realize that MS is able to do what it has been doing because of its ocean deep pockets, and not because of some genius moves?
This is good stuff so, MS has no reason to fear continuing with more acquisitions because A) they're not making as much money as Sony B) nothing they can do or company they purchase can change this. You just bellyached about losing Bethesda yet, you continue with the "MS has no games for you" line? Really good food for thought you've got there.


Also, you're wrong about Bethesda MS now controls when and what Bethesda titles are on GamePass and there is no duration or extended fee's to control that presence. Why would MS want to continue to payout millions of dollars year after year just so, you could have PlayStation titles? Who does that benefit Sony or MS? Also, if you feel this way about MS why don't you feel this way about Sony tiles that are locked away behind a PlayStation wall? Where's all this outrage about all these timed exclusives Sony sign's? What it's just good business because that's all Sony can afford? It's actually comical cause when I think about Sony's courting of SquareEnix's and the special treatment/arrangement they get this levels playing field even now.
 
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Dabaus

Banned
There are around 20 mio. Gamepass users (including PC subscriptions...), what are the other ~30 mio. Xbox users doing?
Xbox ones actual user base is probably closer to the gamepass numbers than hardware numbers. There were like 4 xbox revisions for the same console. Xbone, Xbone S, Xbone X, and Xbone Sad edition. I think xboxes core audience just upgraded consoles when they came out. Thats my theory anyways.
 

yurinka

Member
You mean, having Playstation make more money than Xbox still, which they would not have accomplished with a subscription based approach? You realize that MS is able to do what it has been doing because of its ocean deep pockets, and not because of some genius moves?
Sony did their own cloud gaming service before MS, and generate more money with their game subscripsions than MS. And this is a small part of the money that their gaming division generates, which is also makes more money than the MS one.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Xbox has between a 5% to 10% marketshare in Spain, the rest is all PlayStation and Nintendo. The difference between that and the <5% marketshare they have in regions such as Japan is not much.

However one wants to define xboxs sales, it hyperbole to say they are dead everywhere apart from usa and uk.
Aknoledging the current state of xboxs hardware, services and first party I see no reason why they cant be successful in Europe and other countries.

Elder scrolls and fallout games are huge in Europe along with other xbox ip, these games will increase sales, people are not attached to companies. Games are the main driver.
 
You almost had me there. MS could have enticed many Zenimax Studios to drop their games day and date on the service at a tenth of the acquisition money. I am not buying it, buddy...
1. No one has any idea how much it costs to get games on GamePass day 1, certainly not games that would otherwise sell potentially tens of millions of copies.

2. I wanted to provide the perspective that one could be interested in MS acquisitions without hoping for negative consequences for Playstation gamers. This was a counterpoint to the post I quoted.

3. Why would someone bother to make something like that up, and why do you think anyone is trying to convince you of anything?
 

Dabaus

Banned
However one wants to define xboxs sales, it hyperbole to say they are dead everywhere apart from usa and uk.
Aknoledging the current state of xboxs hardware, services and first party I see no reason why they cant be successful in Europe and other countries.

Elder scrolls and fallout games are huge in Europe along with other xbox ip, these games will increase sales, people are not attached to companies. Games are the main driver.
Those games WERE huge is what you mean. Being tied to a console with 5 percent market share means those games have a significantly smaller audience to reach. It’s not like Sony is just going to rollover and take at around the time these games launch either. They could have their own big game around then or do a price cut and a bundle or something. I really don’t think you understand how dire it is for Xbox outside of the US at the moment.

And yes those games will always be big on pc but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
 
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Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Those games WERE huge is what you mean. Being tied to a console with 5 percent market share means those games have a significantly smaller audience to reach. It’s not like Sony is just going to rollover and take at around the time these games launch either. They could have their own big game around then or do a price cut and a bundle or something. I really don’t think you understand how dire it is for Xbox outside of the US at the moment.

And yes those games will always be big on pc but that’s not what we’re talking about here.

Oh here we go, so are u going to apply that logic to sony first party too?
First party are judged by there previous games and like or not, xbox first party has an excellent track record overall.
No sony wont rollover, but people buy playstation because they have great games, I wonder why you cant apply that logic to xbox.
If you think xbox is not going to improve in all territories this gen its going to be a very long gen for you.
 
We're seeing it in sales charts everytime we get hard data, even last months NPD was a blowout with over 50 percent of all software sold being sony and nintendo first party. Xbox is irrelevant in virtually every single market worldwide and hanging on by a thread in the US, their best market. This what happens when you youre entire brand is dead world wide except 2 markets and then you go all in on a subscription service. People just arent ready for or want gaming to be like that and xbox certainty doesnt have cache to make that the new standard.
The level of misinformation in this post and your post history is annoying to read. All 3 major platforms are doing brilliant. Is that hard to accept? In the times of Covid all platforms have gone mental. You can admit they're all doing well. It won't hurt you or change the games you play. Subs are a big thing going forward, music and movies did it. Now gaming is heading that way too.
 
Xbox: Selling every single unit they can produce:

SonyGAF: Xbox is dead! Xbox sales are dead! UK physical game sales prove it!
Xbox posts their best financial year ever, sells the most consoles ever, and people call Xbox dead and irrelevant and that's apparently fine :lollipop_hushed:
The level of misinformation in this post and your post history is annoying to read. All 3 major platforms are doing brilliant. Is that hard to accept? In the times of Covid all platforms have gone mental. You can admit they're all doing well. It won't hurt you or change the games you play. Subs are a big thing going forward, music and movies did it. Now gaming is heading that way too.
Dude already got banned several times for console warring. He'll never learn.
 

Thebonehead

Banned
The level of misinformation in this post and your post history is annoying to read. All 3 major platforms are doing brilliant. Is that hard to accept? In the times of Covid all platforms have gone mental. You can admit they're all doing well. It won't hurt you or change the games you play. Subs are a big thing going forward, music and movies did it. Now gaming is heading that way too.
Just report, block and move on.

Idiocy like that displayed, alongside so much blatant falsehood and inaccuracy makes this forum hard to read at times..
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Honestly stop with the one idiot says = SonyGAF says. It’s just as idiotic as the posters you’re whining about.

“GAF” (Sony or not) is NOT saying “Xbox is dead”, give it a fucking rest.
I think some people think SonyGaf = nice people who enjoy 3rd person story driven games and aren't insane fanboys.

I think some other people think Sonygaf = insane fanboys who will say anything to present Sony as the "winners"

We all just need to agree on terms, I think.
 
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SaucyJack

Member
I think some people think SonyGaf = nice people who enjoy 3rd person story driven games and aren't insane fanboys.

I think some other people think Sonygaf = insane fanboys who will say anything to present Sony as the "winners"

We all just need to agree on terms, I think.

I think too many people think that individual posters represent some sort of hive mind.
 
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