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Jim Ryan confirms Sony ‘has more studio acquisitions planned’ (VGC)

kingfey

Banned

PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has confirmed that Sony has more acquisitions planned, beyond its recent buyouts of Bungie and Haven.

Sony announced the acquisition of Monreal, Canada-based Haven last month, which takes PlayStation’s internal studios to more than 18 developers.

The move follows the company’s recent acquisitions of Destiny creator Bungie, Demon’s Souls studio Bluepoint Games, Returnal developer Housemarque, PC port specialist Nixxes Software, and Firesprite, a UK-based developer established by former members of SIE Studio Liverpool.

And speaking on the latest PlayStation podcast, SIE president Ryan confirmed that the platform holder is working on further deals to buy developers.

“We’re in a really good place with PlayStation Studios and have been for the past few years. The critical success and the commercial success of the games that they’ve been making… that has given us permission to invest heavily in content creation.”

He added: “We’re growing our studios organically and we’re growing through acquisition. We acquired five studios during the course of 2021, we’re in discussions with Bungie and we have more planned. This is getting us into a virtuous cycle where success begets success.”

The exec went on to reiterate why Sony has decided not to include day one releases in its new subscription offering, like Xbox Game Pass does, claiming that such a setup would damage the quality of its games.

“The games that we make are getting bigger; they’re getting better, they’re getting more beautiful, they’re getting richer, the narrative is getting stronger… this is really great and gamers tell us this is what they really want from PlayStation.

“Now, I have to say, putting these games into a subscription service immediately upon their release would break this virtuous circle, and we wouldn’t be able to invest in the way that we’re currently able to. So we’re not doing it. We’re going to stick to the approach that we have and has served us well under many years now.”

M&A activity in the games industry hit a record $85 billion in 2021 and has been forecast to reach $150 billion this year, with huge deals such as Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and Take-Two’s buyout of Zynga having already been announced in 2022’s opening months.

Outside of studio acquisitions, Sony has been investing in PS5 exclusives through partnerships with several promising independent studios.

It has signed an original multiplayer project from Firewalk, a new studio founded by Bungie veterans, and will publish the debut title from Deviation Games, a studio headed up by former Call of Duty veterans Dave Anthony and Jason Blundell.
 

T-Cake

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


1jxAN2n.gif
 

vivftp

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

They've been growing all their studios for the past 3 years and many of them are now multi-project. That's the organic part. The thing that many people miss is that each time they've said "organic growth" it was immediately followed by "and select acquisition". The internet seems to have selective amnesia when it comes to that which is why we keep seeing this nonsense being brought up over and over.
 

yurinka

Member
Thought he believed in growing studios organically? What happened jim?
They continue growing them organically: all their internal teams have a lot of job positions open and have been hiring a lot of people in the recent months or years. Their goal is allow their studios work in more games at the same time.

Other than this, most of the recently acquired teams like Housemarque, Firesprite (+Fabrik), Blue Point, Nixxes, Valkyrie, Bungie or Lasengle also have a long tradition of partnering with / working for them.

What does he mean “in discussions with bungie”? That’s a done deal isn’t it?
Means that during months they have to do paperwork and regulatory approvals, as happens with any big acquisition.
 
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They continue growing them organically, all their internal teams have a lot of job positions opens and have been hiring a lot in the recent months or years.
both GIF


I believe that’s the main issue. Some think it’s one or the other but it really isn’t that way. You can buy studios and grow internal ones at the same time. I’m pretty sure both Sony and a Microsoft have been doing both.
 
I can't believe there are people and JOURNALISTS who think Sony must put new God Of War and all future games
day one on PS+ so that gamers can buy it for 15$. because a lot of people would do that.
how many people would need to buy it for 15$ so that Sony could actually earn any money from that game ?
we are talking about 150-200 million dollar games, right ?
two games cost 120$. you pay 120$ a year for this service and get like 5 exclusives in one year. what sense does that make

btw. I would buy Capcom or Ubisoft. Ubisoft has a lot of teams around the world.
Deviation Games guys sound very positive and happy about their project. I have faith in that team. Sony should grab them while they are cheap
 

vivftp

Member
How about they invest in the studios they already have so they can become bigger? 1 or 2 games per generation is not good, Mr. Ryan.

They've been doing that for the past 3 years. Every single one of their teams (maybe with the exception of PixelOpus, I'm unsure how they've grown recently) has grown considerably. Some of them are now multi-project like Santa Monica, Guerrilla and Naughty Dog. Studios like Insomniac and Firesprite are also multi-project. They've also helped brand new companies get off the ground like Haven and Deviation, and recently acquired Haven.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
Thought he believed in growing studios organically? What happened jim?
Well when the competition starts buying IP’s it had nothing to do with building because they cant create any new decent ip’s themselves. Sony had to start shopping before ms buys everything…. does that explain it any better?

The last time sony bought an ip or studio it hadnt worked with exclusively for awhile ( growing organically ) was wipeout and lemmings. Since then its mostly been “organic”
 
What does he mean “in discussions with bungie”? That’s a done deal isn’t it?

It hasn't closed. The deal was announced pending closing conditions and regulatory approval, so you can expect it could take some time. They can't really do business with them until the deal closes, which is why you won't see anything announced by SIE for Bungie until it does.
 

vivftp

Member
so he should sit and wait while Microsoft and other major corporation gobbling up everything?

And isnt firesprite, housemarque, bluepoint, Haven are all considered organic growth?

Insomniac, Housemarque, Bluepoint and Firesprite should fall under "organic" to a degree considering the vast majority of each studios output has been for SIE. I recall many people expressing surprise that those studios weren't already owned by Sony when their acquisitions were announced.

Haven is as organic as you can get with Sony funding them from day 1 for an exclusive game and then recently acquiring them. Deviation is almost certainly going to be the same story, it's just a matter of time. Firewalk is a bit harder to judge as I don't think we know what shape their team was in or what they may have been doing before Sony signed them for an exclusive, but there's always the possibility that Sony buys Firewalk from ProbablyMonsters, or maybe even offers to buy all of ProbablyMonsters with their 2 other teams.
 

Arioco

Member
They've been doing that for the past 3 years. Every single one of their teams (maybe with the exception of PixelOpus, I'm unsure how they've grown recently) has grown considerably. Some of them are now multi-project like Santa Monica, Guerrilla and Naughty Dog. Studios like Insomniac and Firesprite are also multi-project. They've also helped brand new companies get off the ground like Haven and Deviation, and recently acquired Haven.


Insomniac has proven capable of amazing productivity, no doubt about it, in only a few months they released Miles Morales, Spider-Man Remastered and Ratchet and Clank RA. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case for other studios, Santa Monica and Polyphony have developed just one game last gen and others like Sucker Punch, Guerrilla and Naughty Dog just two. All of them very high quality titles that I really enjoyed, and of course I know quality takes time, but come on...
 

vivftp

Member
Jim wouldn't just say in a random pr statement that they are looking for a publisher. It wouldn't make sense.

When you buy a publisher it's because of the studios they have. That's what you want to get...

And IP. Sony's CEO noted in January that they're on the lookout for IP that can be utilized across Sony's entertainment divisions (games, film, TV, anime, music) and acquiring a publisher with a long list of IP would help further those goals. The interview in question was referring to large scale acquisitions on the Sony Pictures side of things, but no reason that doesn't hold true for SIE as well.
 

vivftp

Member
Insomniac has proven capable of amazing productivity, no doubt about it, in only a few months they released Miles Morales, Spider-Man Remastered and Ratchet and Clank RA. Unfortunately that hasn't been the case for other studios, Santa Monica and Polyphony have developed just one game last gen and others like Sucker Punch, Guerrilla and Naughty Dog just two. All of them very high quality titles that I really enjoyed, and of course I know quality takes time, but come on...

Santa Monica did have a second game alongside God of War 2018 but that project got scrapped. Shit happens and projects get scrapped all the time that we never hear about. Now we know that alongside GoW Ragnarok that Cory has a separate game he's working on.

My speculation is that much like how Sony acquired Bungie to gain their knowledge of GaaS titles to use across their other projects, I think the acquisition of Insomniac has given them a lot of knowledge of how to run a multi-project studio. Insomniac cracked the code on that to great success and I don't think it's a coincidence that some of Sony's other studios went multi-project around the time of the Insomniac acquisition. I think they may be using Insomniac as a template so their other studios can become more productive and work on multiple projects at the same time.
 

lh032

I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
Insomniac, Housemarque, Bluepoint and Firesprite should fall under "organic" to a degree considering the vast majority of each studios output has been for SIE. I recall many people expressing surprise that those studios weren't already owned by Sony when their acquisitions were announced.

Haven is as organic as you can get with Sony funding them from day 1 for an exclusive game and then recently acquiring them. Deviation is almost certainly going to be the same story, it's just a matter of time. Firewalk is a bit harder to judge as I don't think we know what shape their team was in or what they may have been doing before Sony signed them for an exclusive, but there's always the possibility that Sony buys Firewalk from ProbablyMonsters, or maybe even offers to buy all of ProbablyMonsters with their 2 other teams.
yea alot of their studios were actually organic growth, well except bungie, but then bungie is not under WWS
 
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Santa Monica did have a second game alongside God of War 2018 but that project got scrapped. Shit happens and projects get scrapped all the time that we never hear about. Now we know that alongside GoW Ragnarok that Cory has a separate game he's working on.

My speculation is that much like how Sony acquired Bungie to gain their knowledge of GaaS titles to use across their other projects, I think the acquisition of Insomniac has given them a lot of knowledge of how to run a multi-project studio. Insomniac cracked the code on that to great success and I don't think it's a coincidence that some of Sony's other studios went multi-project around the time of the Insomniac acquisition. I think they may be using Insomniac as a template so their other studios can become more productive and work on multiple projects at the same time.
No template is needed, it's all about resources.

There are many times during a game's development when resources aren't being utilized and people have a lot of downtime. As games become more and more expensive, this is prohibitive.

By having multiple projects happening at a time, you can best utilize resources in a studio, especially as they grow.

I think this is another reason why Sony has invested in acquiring some support studios, who can help get games across the finish line without having to crunch.

With Valkyrie and Nixxes, Sony can maximize returns on their games, while keeping resources focused on what they do best.

I'm sure even Bluepoint can help some studios tremendously.
 
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