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Sony investor opines SIE in growth mode and could have a budget of $13-$18B for acquisitions

Sorry, I should have clarified that I mean this besides the "organic growth" aspect. Obviously a company already closely working with Sony would not sell out to MS, but I was having the impression that this thread was talking more about third party developers for both Sony and MS.

They usually only care for money, sadly.

Insomniac was a third party

This isn't an auction house that's going on
 
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bitbydeath

Member
Sorry, I should have clarified that I mean this besides the "organic growth" aspect. Obviously a company already closely working with Sony would not sell out to MS, but I was having the impression that this thread was talking more about third party developers for both Sony and MS.

They usually only care for money, sadly.
Maybe for western studios but Japanese would likely rather be bought by a Japanese company.
 
Sorry, I should have clarified that I mean this besides the "organic growth" aspect. Obviously a company already closely working with Sony would not sell out to MS, but I was having the impression that this thread was talking more about third party developers for both Sony and MS.

They usually only care for money, sadly.

Stop and think about this for a moment to see if it makes any logical sense.

You cannot really think that the only factor of concern to any company considering an M&A is the ticket price to be paid.

Would a green energy company agree to be bought out by an oil and gas company simply because they're offering the largest bid? Of course not.

"Corporate synergies" in their many forms, are the single most important factors for M&A. Usually price paid comes in a close second.
 

Dabaus

Banned
Stop and think about this for a moment to see if it makes any logical sense.

You cannot really think that the only factor of concern to any company considering an M&A is the ticket price to be paid.

Would a green energy company agree to be bought out by an oil and gas company simply because they're offering the largest bid? Of course not.

"Corporate synergies" in their many forms, are the single most important factors for M&A. Usually price paid comes in a close second.
This is why i dont think MS will acquire a japanese studio or company.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Buying a big publisher for the workforce is stupid. You buy it for the IP, so only publishers with big IP and a manageable workforce size would be of interest to Sony.

Capcom would be the smarter get. Street Fighter, Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Devil May Cy. These could be huge opportunities for cross media.
 

Dabaus

Banned
You got a list of employees whom have left and dates?
2 weeks ago head of arcane left
Last week undead labs studio founder left to do his own thing
Director (Drew murray) and the producer left the coalition to go back to sony
343 had multiple studio heads leave throughout development
Rod fergusson and the head of gears online gameplay left for activision.

Thats off the top of my head
 

reksveks

Member
2 weeks ago head of arcane left
Last week undead labs studio founder left to do his own thing
Director (Drew murray) and the producer left the coalition to go back to sony
343 had multiple studio heads leave throughout development
Rod fergusson and the head of gears online gameplay left for activision.

Thats off the top of my head

- October 6th
- October 11th
- February 2021
- need more people to define the dates
- February 2020

I would like to see to see the number of people whom leave after getting acquired as a general baseline, they typically get paid off well and that gives them extra freedom. Secondly, not sure that counts as weekly.
 

yurinka

Member
We're seeing heads of studios and directors leaving xbox studios on an almost weekly basis now so if this happening to western studios I cant imagine what itd be like for a japanese studio.
It's normal to see some top bosses running away with the money after an acquisition. They can be replaced and their influence is pretty relative since these are studios have hundreds of people, who most of them almot never personally talked with these guys.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Random thoughts from a gaming blog...

Interesting convo to have but not sure why this guy's opinion matters? Sony "investor"? Meaning he owns some stock?

Who is even making that claim in the first place? The guy says he's a manager at a tech company in Sweden:

Regarding who I am, and why I’m doing this: I’m basically a pretty social, and happy guy from Sweden. My interests consist of 4 key pillars: Gaming, Marvel, Hockey, and One Piece. In other words; I’m a pretty nerdy guy. Aside from gaming, I’m a full-time employee (and manager) at a tech company in Sweden.
 
Could sony eventually move and takeover kadokawa? They have worked closely with them many times and there are rumours of them working together again on an exclusive game. I could see it happening eventually.
 

IntentionalPun

Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
2 weeks ago head of arcane left
Last week undead labs studio founder left to do his own thing
Director (Drew murray) and the producer left the coalition to go back to sony
343 had multiple studio heads leave throughout development
Rod fergusson and the head of gears online gameplay left for activision.

Thats off the top of my head
This is all normal shit other than how messy 343 has been. Also you aren't even particularly accurate here.
 

Dabaus

Banned
Oh ok my bad. I didnt realize it was normal for studio heads and directors and developers to leave studios shortly after being purchased because outside of xbox, it doesnt seem to happen all that often to sony or nintendo but i guess its no big deal. My mistake.
 
So you have an inside track on Shinji Mikami leaving Tango Gameworks? Got the scoop on Microsoft shutting Tango down? Big insider news if true.

Tango GameWorks was bought by and integrated into Zenimax. Zenimax leadership structure and corporate culture is very different to Microsoft Game Studios.

If MS leaves Zenimax alone, then yeah Tango will probably be fine. If they don't... well... it probably won't end well.
 
Tango GameWorks was bought by and integrated into Zenimax. Zenimax leadership structure and corporate culture is very different to Microsoft Game Studios.

If MS leaves Zenimax alone, then yeah Tango will probably be fine. If they don't... well... it probably won't end well.
Right, so why assume the worst of those two outcomes as the more likely scenario, since that's the one seemingly being focused on? None of the teams they've acquired so far (as in the past 3 years) have been shut down or downsized.

Of course there is the stuff with Rare and Lionhead which are stains on Microsoft's record, but Rare were already in a bit of a decline tbh (DK64 wasn't as good as the BK games and didn't have the sales boost DKC did for SNES; Jet Force Gemini wasn't as polished as previous Rare games, Star Fox Adventures was having dev problems, the original owners left well before Microsoft came into the picture to purchase Rare IIRC, etc.).

The Lionhead closure was when MS were cutting back budget funding for Xbox division as a whole, so it was one of the casualties (as well as Scalebound and Phanton Dust remake, tho PG screwed up with Scalebound and were taking advantage of/exploiting MS's financial support). And it's not like Sony hasn't closed down its fair share of studios as well, including those they've purchased in the past (Psygnosis). I mean there's not just Psygnosis, but Liverpool, Evolution, and more recently Japan Studio (you can argue they've been restructured as Team Asobi but then we could make that argument for a lot of studio closures).

I wouldn't be too concerned with Tango getting shuntered; I think MS know what a talent a guy like Mikami is and they would want to respect their needs. It could almost be argued they are maybe too general in giving certain teams complete creative freedom i.e look at the struggles 343i have had with Halo Infinite for example, but as a policy it's a great one and they're not going to jeopardize that anytime soon. They are also probably realistic in knowing what sales/revenue potential various projects may bring in and can justify teams staying around for the content diversity they bring to the ecosystem even if some of those games might not end up being big sales/revenue movers.
 
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Right, so why assume the worst of those two outcomes as the more likely scenario, since that's the one seemingly being focused on? None of the teams they've acquired so far (as in the past 3 years) have been shut down or downsized.

Of course there is the stuff with Rare and Lionhead which are stains on Microsoft's record, but Rare were already in a bit of a decline tbh (DK64 wasn't as good as the BK games and didn't have the sales boost DKC did for SNES; Jet Force Gemini wasn't as polished as previous Rare games, Star Fox Adventures was having dev problems, the original owners left well before Microsoft came into the picture to purchase Rare IIRC, etc.).

The Lionhead closure was when MS were cutting back budget funding for Xbox division as a whole, so it was one of the casualties (as well as Scalebound and Phanton Dust remake, tho PG screwed up with Scalebound and were taking advantage of/exploiting MS's financial support). And it's not like Sony hasn't closed down its fair share of studios as well, including those they've purchased in the past (Psygnosis). I mean there's not just Psygnosis, but Liverpool, Evolution, and more recently Japan Studio (you can argue they've been restructured as Team Asobi but then we could make that argument for a lot of studio closures).

I wouldn't be too concerned with Tango getting shuntered; I think MS know what a talent a guy like Mikami is and they would want to respect their needs. It could almost be argued they are maybe too general in giving certain teams complete creative freedom i.e look at the struggles 343i have had with Halo Infinite for example, but as a policy it's a great one and they're not going to jeopardize that anytime soon. They are also probably realistic in knowing what sales/revenue potential various projects may bring in and can justify teams staying around for the content diversity they bring to the ecosystem even if some of those games might not end up being big sales/revenue movers.

MGS track record of mismanaged studios is known and encompasses more than just Rare and Lionhead. You know this very well.

The acquisitions they've made in the last 3 years are simply too young to show the impact yet since 3 years isn't even sufficient time to make a AAA game in this day and age.

If you're looking for a recent example, however, of MGS's poor studio management, you need to look no further than MGS's studio responsible for the Xbox's single biggest flagship franchise, 343i. Halo: Infinite's development has been a mess and the game is 1.5 months from release with yet no footage at all of the single-player campaign.

Sure we can pretend that everything's going rosy over there, close our eyes and bury our heads in the sand, but to try to make an argument that it's not sensible based on MGS's historical poor studio management to expect that things haven't really changed all that much without any evidence to suggest it so, simply isn't a logical position.
 
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yurinka

Member
Could sony eventually move and takeover kadokawa? They have worked closely with them many times and there are rumours of them working together again on an exclusive game. I could see it happening eventually.
Kadokawa is a huge corporation that includes several publishers and gamedev studios that published dozens of exclusive PS games since PS1. But in addition to this, it also includes many manga, book or magazine publishers (like the one that publishes Famitsu), plus movie and anime production studios and other stuff that may not interest Sony like real estate leasing or an advertising company.

It's possible, but would be also very complicated to integrate it into Sony and expensive. Being Japanese I highly doubt they would simply buy Kadokawa an shut down and fire everyone from the areas they don't want. I think it would be more likely to see them buying a ton of Kadokawa shares to control it and make sure Sony always get exclusive deals for the games/anime/movies they may want while keeping Kadokawa as an 'independent' company.

And well, this is if Kadokawa and main investors want to sell. You may ask, who has Kadokawa's shares? Well, these are the ones you may know:

Kadokawa Corporation: 7.18% of the shares
Nobuo Kawakami (Kadokawa's CEO): 6.35%
Bandai Namco: 2.16%
Sony Group Corporation: 1.93%
CyberAgent (CyGames' parent company) :1.93%
Nintendo: 0.75%

The other known big shareholders aren't related to gaming, and the biggest one is Kakao: 7.30%
 
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Kadokawa is a huge corporation that includes several publishers and gamedev studios that published dozens of exclusive PS games since PS1. But in addition to this, it also includes many manga, book or magazine publishers (like the one that publishes Famitsu), plus movie and anime production studios and other stuff that may not interest Sony like real estate leasing or an advertising company.

It's possible, but would be also very complicated to integrate it into Sony and expensive. Being Japanese I highly doubt they would simply buy Kadokawa an shut down and fire everyone from the areas they don't want. I think it would be more likely to see them buying a ton of Kadokawa shares to control it and make sure Sony always get exclusive deals for the games/anime/movies they may want while keeping Kadokawa as an 'independent' company.

If Sony does have any interest in Kadokawa, their manga, anime and book publishing businesses boast the greatest value to a company like Sony.

If you haven't noticed already, Sony has been slowly buying up all anime and Manga publishing/streaming outlets that serve international markets. There's a clear ambition there. And I could see Sony wanting to integrate Kadokawa's anime and manga interests to increase their control over the entire content value stream for anime and Manga in the west.

I could easily see them wanting to become the Disney of anime and manga.

And well, this is if Kadokawa and main investors want to sell.

This part is the easiest to overcome. You simply offer to use Sony shares to pay for part of the cost of Kadokawa. That way the latter's investors lose nothing, but move from being Kadokawa investors to investors in the larger resultant conglomerate.
 
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yurinka

Member
If Sony does have any interest in Kadokawa, their manga, anime and book publishing businesses boast the greatest value to a company like Sony.

If you haven't noticed already, Sony has been slowly buying up all anime and Manga publishing/streaming outlets that serve international markets. There's a clear ambition there. And I could see Sony wanting to integrate Kadokawa's anime and manga interests to increase their control over the entire content value stream for anime and Manga in the west.

I could easily see them wanting to become the Disney of anime and manga.
I know Sony would be interested on their anime (and movie) IPs and studios and the manga IPs that use some of their animes. And their game studios and IPs. These parts can be easily integrated into Sony.

But do Sony publishes manga? And magazines? And books? And is Sony a Japanese ISP? Do they want stuff like real estate, advertising companies and other random stuff? What would Sony do with all these things?

This part is the easiest to overcome. You simply offer to use Sony shares to pay for part of the cost of Kadokawa. That way the latter's investors lose nothing, but move from being Kadokawa investors to investors in the larger resultant conglomerate.
The part of buying the company I see it very doable since Sony has more than enough money and I think most shareholders could be ok with selling it in general. The problem I see are the parts of Kadokawa -which are many companies, big ones and very well known in Japan- that I don't see fit inside Sony since Sony isn't interested in these areas.

So I think that the best and easiest thing for all parts would be Sony buying a huge chunk of Kadokawa shares without integrating it into Sony and to keep them as a separate, 'independent' company: doing that Sony could contol Kadokawa to make them sign exclusivity for games, movies and anime and to let Kadokawa continue handling everything else. And well, as major shareholder Sony would also get a portion of Kadokawa's profits.
 
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MGS track record of mismanaged studios is known and encompasses more than just Rare and Lionhead. You know this very well.

The acquisitions they've made in the last 3 years are simply too young to show the impact yet since 3 years isn't even sufficient time to make a AAA game in this day and age.

If you're looking for a recent example, however, of MGS's poor studio management, you need to look no further than MGS's studio responsible for the Xbox's single biggest flagship franchise, 343i. Halo: Infinite's development has been a mess and the game is 1.5 months from release with yet no footage at all of the single-player campaign.

Sure we can pretend that everything's going rosy over there, close our eyes and bury our heads in the sand, but to try to make an argument that it's not sensible based on MGS's historical poor studio management to expect that things haven't really changed all that much without any evidence to suggest it so, simply isn't a logical position.
I already mentioned 343i, but you're just completely ignoring Playground, Turn 10, The Coalition etc., not to mention studios like Rare having turned things around. You're also completely ignoring the fact that different people were in charge during the period where various projects were cancelled and certain studios like Lionhead were shut down.

No one's pretending things are peachy clean and rosy over at MGS, in fact I'm sure there's some degree of issue with certain studios at all three platform holders (the workplace allegations against some of Insomniac for example), but I'm not going to pretend like they are literally doing nothing right, either, because multiple studios are doing well under Microsoft as well and there are no immediate signs of drastic turmoil happening with the studios they purchased in 2018.

Essentially, all you're doing is fearmongering based on past incidents that have clear factors behind them which are mostly absent now, and ignoring the multiple examples that run counter to the ones that fit your point (which aren't necessarily that many, or at least aren't a lot more than what we've seen with Sony over the years, via a lot of the examples I listed that you seem to also conveniently ignore).
 
I know Sony would be interested on their anime (and movie) IPs and studios and the manga IPs that use some of their animes. And their game studios and IPs. These parts can be easily integrated into Sony.

But do Sony publishes manga? And magazines? And books? And is Sony a Japanese ISP? Do they want stuff like real estate, advertising companies and other random stuff? What would Sony do with all these things?

Continue to run them as is.

The whole point of buying a company isn't to replicate the business units you already have, rather to expand into new business areas, thus reducing risk and diversifying your portfolio.

Sony wouldn't be buying Kadokawa because it will boost Sony's pre-existing media publishing, ISP and advertising enterprises. They'll be buying them to own interests in those fields Sony currently doesn't exist in. And it's not as if print manga publishing, book publishing, advertising and real-estate doesn't have any value to Sony. Sony's already a very diversified company with many fingers in many pots in many very different industries.

That said, there's nothing to say post-merger/acquisition, Sony wouldn't just sell off any Kadokawa businesses they don't see as a good fit for them, e.g. Japanese ISP. The prevailing majority of Kadokawa, however, would hold a lot of value for a company like Sony for sure.

The part of buying the company I see it very doable since Sony has more than enough money and I think most shareholders could be ok with selling it in general. The problem I see are the parts of Kadokawa -which are many companies, big ones and very well known in Japan- that I don't see fit inside Sony since Sony isn't interested in these areas.

With respect, I don't think either of us is qualified to really speak on what Sony's leadership is interested in investing in.

Sony's very unpredictable as a company overall (Playstation too, to a lesser extent). And think that demonstrates that the board of directors of Sony HQ in Japan have a very different perspective on their vision for the future of Sony as a corporation than either of us do.

So I think that the best and easiest thing for all parts would be Sony buying a huge chunk of Kadokawa shares without integrating it into Sony and to keep them as a separate, 'independent' company: doing that Sony could contol Kadokawa to make them sign exclusivity for games, movies and anime and to let Kadokawa continue handling everything else. And well, as major shareholder Sony would also get a portion of Kadokawa's profits.

This is also possible. Although I'm not sure to what extent this might trigger Japanese anti-trust laws if the two continue as two separate legal entities.

I already mentioned 343i, but you're just completely ignoring Playground, Turn 10, The Coalition etc., not to mention studios like Rare having turned things around. You're also completely ignoring the fact that different people were in charge during the period where various projects were cancelled and certain studios like Lionhead were shut down.

I'm not ignoring them at all. I just consider that a small handful of successful studios run under MGS doesn't erase the history of numerous terrible ones.

I'm not arguing that everything MS touches turns to shit. Just that a LOT of what they do seems to do so, and the 343i example shows that they haven't quite seemed to overcome this stochastic anti-Midas touch.

No one's pretending things are peachy clean and rosy over at MGS, in fact I'm sure there's some degree of issue with certain studios at all three platform holders (the workplace allegations against some of Insomniac for example), but I'm not going to pretend like they are literally doing nothing right,

Good. Because neither am I.

Essentially, all you're doing is fearmongering

Lol, this is absurd. No I'm not. Are you afraid of what I'm saying? I'll paypal you a twenty if you can find a single person in here who is.

based on past incidents that have clear factors behind them which are mostly absent now,

Er, you clearly don't have the visibility of the inner workings of MGS to conclude this. Let's not pretend that either of us do.

and ignoring the multiple examples that run counter to the ones that fit your point (which aren't necessarily that many, or at least aren't a lot more than what we've seen with Sony over the years, via a lot of the examples I listed that you seem to also conveniently ignore).

Already addressed above. This is a strawman.
 
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Bryank75

Banned
Continue to run them as is.

The whole point of buying a company isn't to replicate the business units you already have, rather to expand into new business areas, thus reducing risk and diversifying your portfolio.

Sony wouldn't be buying Kadokawa because it will boost Sony's pre-existing media publishing, ISP and advertising enterprises. They'll be buying them to own interests in those fields Sony currently doesn't exist in. And it's not as if print manga publishing, book publishing, advertising and real-estate doesn't have any value to Sony. Sony's already a very diversified company with many fingers in many pots in many very different industries.

That said, there's nothing to say post-merger/acquisition, Sony wouldn't just sell off any Kadokawa businesses they don't see as a good fit for them, e.g. Japanese ISP. The prevailing majority of Kadokawa, however, would hold a lot of value for a company like Sony for sure.



With respect, I don't think either of us is qualified to really speak on what Sony's leadership is interested in investing in.

Sony's very unpredictable as a company overall
(Playstation too, to a lesser extent). And think that demonstrates that the board of directors of Sony HQ in Japan have a very different perspective on their vision for the future of Sony as a corporation than either of us do.


Agree....just have a look over all the things Sony owns and is into and you get just an idea how absolutely massive they are and how diversified.

 

TheGrat1

Member
I’d like to see them expand San Diego and make more multi-platform sports titles.

Slowly pushing EA out of that market.
They would have to wrest the exclusive licenses away from EA first to make it viable. The NFL is completely locked down and I believe the majority of major clubs are exclusive to FIFA.

God, I wish NFL Gameday would come back.

Edit: I just learned that FIFA is opening up. There is light at the end of the tunnel!!!!
 
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yurinka

Member
Btw Bryank75 Bryank75 , I have more news from your romantic interest Jimbo: Sony bought Warner Media stake in GSN for 500M USD. Now they are selling the game division to Scopely for 1B USD.


They mention 'Scopely will pay half the $1 billion purchase price in cash and the remainder in preferred equity, which will give SPE with a minority interest in Scopely.'

I have no idea of what 'prefered equity' and 'minority interest' means, but considering Scopely makes successful mobile games of big IPs like Marvel, Walking Dead, Star Trek, Looney Tunes and Sony wants to make mobile games of their PS IPs, I think Sony may be interested to acquire them.

With respect, I don't think either of us is qualified to really speak on what Sony's leadership is interested in investing in.
Sony mentions in their IR reports their strategy, goals and areas and markets where they want to grow. Basically they plan to grow gaming existing teams, acquire new ones, collaborate more between divisions (like using Sony Music artists in games, the project with Pixel Opus and Sony Pictures Animation working together, using gaming IPs in movies and IP movies in games etc), focus more on their own stores and online subscription services strengtening them (next gen PS Now improvements, expanding PlayStation Direct to more countries, getting more stuff for Funimation and Crunchyroll etc.) and also to improve in social (I assume in gaming this means Discord, EVO and the online tournament features they recently implemented and have been using for the fighting games online tournaments they stream on youtube).

Regarding gaming they also mentioned they want to grow in Asia (the biggest gaming region of the world thanks the mostly China, Korea and Japan), which means to grow in mobile and PC. They also mentioned want to use their PS IPs in mobile gaming.

They mentioned stuff like that, I don't remember them mentioning to want to expand to new business areas like publishing comics/magazines/books, real estate, ISP or similar.

Agree....just have a look over all the things Sony owns and is into and you get just an idea how absolutely massive they are and how diversified.

I didn't know Dimps is a joint venture of Sony, Bandai Namco and their CEO (the designer behind the creation of SF1, Neo Geo and many SNK fighting series). These are the folks who developed the Street Fighter IV, V, VI series plus Street Fighter x Tekken for Capcom, several Dragon Ball games for Bandai Namco like the Xenoverse ones and co-developed Freedom Wars, Soul Calibur VI. In additon to ARC and Capcom, they should consider these guys too if want to grow in fighting games.
 
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WitchHunter

Member
Blablalblalbllbla

Time to expand into VR porn. That's where the money will be if that godforsaken POS garbage tech ever takes off the ground. Imagine what game protagonists could do. : DDD What ppl already make them do in this space... Imagine the backlash : DDD.
 

IDKFA

I am Become Bilbo Baggins
Knew this would happen.

Sony are about to purchase Konami, Capcom and Square.

Probably be announced in the next few months.
 

XXL

Member
You're also completely ignoring the fact that different people were in charge during the period where various projects were cancelled and certain studios like Lionhead were shut down.
"Spencer served as general manager of Microsoft Game Studios EMEA, working with Microsoft's European developers and studios such as Lionhead Studios and Rare until 2008, when he became the general manager of Microsoft Studios, eventually becoming the studio's corporate vice president a year later.[5][6] He has participated in Microsoft's E3 conferences since 2010.[7][8][9][10]

In late March 2014, Satya Nadella announced in a corporate e-mail that Spencer was to "lead the Xbox, Xbox Live, Groove Music and Movies & TV teams, and Microsoft Studios" as part of the Windows and Devices division.[6][11]

In September 2017, Spencer was promoted to the Senior Leadership Team, gaining the title of Executive Vice President of Gaming and reporting directly to CEO Satya Nadella.[12]"

Let's not rewrite history here.
 

Kokoloko85

Member
I understand Sony prefers the "organic growth" , but i hope they acquire reputable studios/publishers with existing IP as well, new IP is riskier and needs more time for growth imo.

Yeah the organic growth has been working for them but since MS bought Zenimax/Bethesda and will probably buy more gaming IP’s they had nothing to do with building, I think Sony has to do the same just to protect some popular IP’s for themselves.

Unfortunately I don’t see Sony doing it, they seem cheap lol and not use to this kind of spending when it comes to studios/publishers.

It would be wise for them to pick up something like Square, Sega, Capcom or Konami IP. There more likely to spend something close to SNK or Arc System Or some unknown korean or Chinese studio. They really should be buying Kojima Studio and Quantum Dreams too.

If not it be smart for them to maybe just part own or invest like Nintendo has 10% in Namco. So they won’t lose these IP’s to MS or Nintendo.

Personally I think Sega or Capcom would be smart.
Sega will give them JRPG’s which Playstation 1st party is missing like Persona, Valkyrie Chronicles, Phantasy Star, Yakuza, Disgae, SMT, Shining Force etc plus fighting games and other popular IP’s like Virtua Fighter, Judgement/Yakuza, Jet Set Radio, Sonic, Shen mue, Panzer Dragoon and loads more

Its sad that this is what is gonna happen to gaming companies. Would suck that Nintendo or Playstation can’t have access to certain IP’s they have been working with for 3+ decades
 

zedinen

Member
Again, using the excellent Macrotrends website, we can see that Sony deposited around $24B this summer. Some people seem to believe that this is because a large acquisition is in motion, this isn’t true. This is essentially Sony taking from their “Cash on Hand” to essentially create their first M&A Focused budget.

bild.png



As I both own stock within Sony and have a good point of view on their plans, budgets, and stuff like that
I feel very comfortable in talking about the subject, and in the process hopefully learn a few people about their supposed strategies and plans.


:messenger_tears_of_joy:

Sony has adopted International Financial Reporting Standards starting in the three months ended June 30, 2021. As a result, short-term marketable securities held by Financial Services (2.9 trillion yen) have been reclassified.


"Cash on hand" has remained stable under IFRS . Not to mention that lending between Financial Services and the other companies within Sony Group is "strictly limited".


Try using the excellent 20-F

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and the excellent quarterly securities report

n4Vs89T.jpeg



1. First Time Adoption (Sony has adopted IFRS)

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2. Reconciliation (U.S. GAAP - IFRS)

1Y99OMl.jpeg


3. Marketables securities (2,902,438) have been reclassified into Investments and advances in the Financial Services Segment under IFRS

uloyQbV.jpeg



4. "Cash on hand" has remained stable under IFRS


vVpUdSs.jpeg



5. That said, Sony defines its liquidity sources as the amount of cash and cash equivalents and the unused amount of committed lines of credit


JzR6c7q.jpeg

Why would you need $18 billion to lock up a couple VR devs and Indies?

I expect whatever Sony is looking to acquire probably isn't gaming related and will end up being something weird like an insurance company or a memory manufacturer

Despite gaming producing the most for Sony they give back very little to it for mergers and acquisitions


But if they are going to go wild and buy something big then Square Enix would be a good fit. They already produce a lot of exclusive content for Sony so it wouldn't be taking too much from gamers on other platforms and would make a nice RPG war between Xbox and PS

Also feels like a lever they really need to pull if they want to stay relevant in Japan. Locking up Dragon Quest would be an auto 3-4 million console sales

Yoshida (Sony CEO) and Totoki (Sony CFO) are using PlayStation's free cash flow to rebuild Sony's empire. They will never allow Sony to turn into PlayStation Corporation.

Jim Ryan, appointed to execute their strategy, is doing a heck of a job. You can't do more with less.



Sony Pictures India agrees to invest $1.6bn in merger with Zee Entertainment (September 22, 2021)

Sony closes $1.175 billion deal to buy Crunchyroll from AT&T (August 9, 2021)

Sony to Acquire Full Control of Financial Unit for $3.7 Billion (May 19, 2020)

Sony to Buy Out EMI Music Publishing for About $2 Billion (May 21, 2018)
 

Stuart360

Member
I honestly think they will buy Square Enix, possibly Capcom too, but i'm cert on Square. And i'll be fine with that to be honest as the only Square games i have played in recent years was the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, and after 'Shadow', i could care less.

Capcom would hurt a bit though, although i'm sure the games would come to PC at some point.
 
I honestly think they will buy Square Enix, possibly Capcom too, but i'm cert on Square. And i'll be fine with that to be honest as the only Square games i have played in recent years was the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy, and after 'Shadow', i could care less.

Capcom would hurt a bit though, although i'm sure the games would come to PC at some point.
If Sony could buy these companies they would have already.
 

Stuart360

Member
If Sony could buy these companies they would have already.
I dont know why you think that, unless you think these 'warchest' numbers are fake. I mean Microsoft didnt suddenly become a trillion dollar company yesterday, they could of bought Activision years ago but they didnt.
 

Inviusx

Member
Acquisitions for the sake of acquisitions are bad news. Sony have done well to foster the growth of their internal team and make small but meaningful acquisitions along the way.

Microsoft couldn't do any of that so they just grabbed daddies credit card and bought half the industry.

I dont think Sony will flinch at the Activision purchase. They're in a pretty strong position where they stand at the moment. Their only potential issue is Microsoft gobbling up more and more publishers.
 
I dont know why you think that, unless you think these 'warchest' numbers are fake. I mean Microsoft didnt suddenly become a trillion dollar company yesterday, they could of bought Activision years ago but they didnt.
What reason does Sony have to bide their time? If they’re going to buy studios, they should have done it already. It makes no sense to hesitate now.
 

MadPanda

Banned
Sony should buy Bamco, Konami, Capcom, SE, and Sega, then Take 2 in few years.



So Microsoft could've bought Sega, ubisoft, Square enix, take 2 and Capcom for actiblizz money 😲😳

of course, I'm aware that's not how it works but it's staggering how much they paid for Acti Blizzard.
 
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