I'm really not sure how they should handle it. They really do need to combine promotion and marketing for their ips but Sony pictures, Sony Music, and Sony Playstation has been such a separate thing when it comes to marketing. I'm not sure if it is just Playstation needing more authority to make these movies, tv shows, and music albums for playstation. Such a weird situation.
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Sony is apparently in talks to buy Arc System Works
- Thread starter Craig of War
- Start date
- Rumor
009EspadaSageJay
Member
Rather have it on Nintendos "outdated hardware" Then on sonys censor station consoles but your the same person shilling for sony to purchase arc when you never played a single one of there games prior.
009EspadaSageJay
Member
Both deals fell through and the jp government hit sony with anti trust laws and with sony going on a censorship spree multiple anime studios in japan said they would not sign a contract with sony.
009EspadaSageJay
Member
yea with sub 200 people worst then any side tournament stream at any big fighting game convention
Javthusiast
Banned
The didn't fall through. Funimation is owned by sony and the crunchyroll deal can still go through once the anti trust investigation is done.
009EspadaSageJay
Member
Sonys not buying arc and if they were arc doesnt own the dragon ball ip like what alot of people keep saying in this thread the Dragon ball ip is owned by TOEI and the game rights are owned by Namco bandi Sony has 0 stake in any of those two companies Arc gets contracted out to do different games for different jp publishers they own 0 of the rights to those games Arc ownes Undernight, Guilty gear, Blazblue, Arcana hearts and a few beat em games and million arthur arcana. Sony doesnt even push goes games outside of japan let in there own country only reason why sony would buy arc is so they can hold the jp market hostage and censor games to oblivion.
009EspadaSageJay
Member
Who wants sony to own 60% of the anime licensing deals there not a single anime fan that wants the deal to go through let alone the studios behind the anime. Neither deal has gone through and there not going to beat the anti trust laws either since multiple prominent members in the jp government want nothing to do with the sjws that run these mediocre movie studios in the west netflix or anime is dead in japan there not signing anymore deals with them.
Unknown?
Member
It's funny how Disney can buy everything but this is under investigation.
GreetingsMortal
Member
Normally I'd let ignorance be bliss but holy shit this is some crazy misinformed take. MK11 is one of the highest selling fighting games of all time, MKX actually is, Tekken 7 IS the highest selling Tekken ever, GG Strive is the highest selling GG launch ever by a wild margin, Street Fighter 5, even with all its launch issues, is very very close to beating Street Fighter 2 series' record, Soulcalibur 6 is the highest selling since 2. Dragon Ball Fighterz (which arcsys also developed) is the highest selling Dragon Ball game ever. How is something bigger than it has ever been before "dying"?
Just because you don't play something doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
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Varteras
Gold Member
Yeah I'm not sure why this is a thing. Other streaming services have been expanding into anime. Netflix has plenty itself and even some exclusive shows. I doubt it will hold up.
Elbow Identity Shallow
Member
With the other 2 (1?) studio acquisitions this rumour sems to make more sense as Arc System Works must have been happy with the way things have been going in their relationship with PlayStation over the years.
Interestingly, Arc System Works publishes their own PlayStation games in Japan and America but uses third party publishers in Europe, possible in part due to the difficulty of releasing a product across multiple countries with different regulations and different languages and lets be honest, their Guilty Gear games don't usually even get dubbed from Japanese in other countries.
Instead of moving from publisher to publisher acros Europe it would actually be of benefit to Arc to be a part of PlayStation Studios to take advantage of Sony's international publishing facilities.
I'm still thinking of this as a rumour, as I do with anything that hasn't yet been confirmed but it really does seem like a good fit for both parties.
Interestingly, Arc System Works publishes their own PlayStation games in Japan and America but uses third party publishers in Europe, possible in part due to the difficulty of releasing a product across multiple countries with different regulations and different languages and lets be honest, their Guilty Gear games don't usually even get dubbed from Japanese in other countries.
Instead of moving from publisher to publisher acros Europe it would actually be of benefit to Arc to be a part of PlayStation Studios to take advantage of Sony's international publishing facilities.
I'm still thinking of this as a rumour, as I do with anything that hasn't yet been confirmed but it really does seem like a good fit for both parties.
Prof. Tivor Tontomo
Banned
Lol you are going to use a one time DBZ dad that was fronted with some one else's marketing budget that won't happen twice?
Again there's literally zero benefit to buying Arc System works outside them being cheap. They won't expand an audience.
AeonGaidenRaiden
Member
Highest selling compared to what? Their previous installment. Maybe because they are getting sold over 4-5 different systems versus just one or two like back in the day. How about the competition? Street Fighter 5 sold 5.5 mil while MK 11 sold over 9 mil. The reason why MK transcended this minority hardcore player base is because they were smart enough to add a proper single player story which grabbed even more casuals and are probably the only company pushing graphical achievements while the ones you mentioned are stuck in their arcade days. How long did it take for SF4 to come out, they couldn't get funding for ages. For SF5, SONY jumped in to fund it but making it a console exclusive. The biggest most well known fighting franchise in the world cant get funding for a sequel....at one point considered kickstarter. How pathetic is that? Just shows that the genre isnt as popular anymore. EVO is not something to judge the success of fighting games.
So as I said, unless you can buy Netherealm, buying any other fighting game studio is a waste of cash as the games themselves (besides MK) are for a minority niche hardcore players.
fersnake
Member
pretty sure because Disney is an american company.
xiseerht
Member
The world government is scared of Disney and pissing them off LOL
yurinka
Member
Arc System Works has a long tradition of making quality fighting games. Dragon Ball has a tradition of big selling games.
So all ASW needs is a huge anime IP and a big publisher backing them to be a great success. Sony (+ their partner Kadokawa) has access to a ton of top anime IPs they are interested to use in game and also to promote Sony's anime streaming services and anime. Sony stated collaborations between Sony divisions as one of their top short term priorities in a recent IR report.
Sony wants to expand on PC and Asia. ASW is making the fighting game of the game the made the biggest amount of money worldwide during the last decade, which is huge ass Korean F2P beat'em up MMO, which has been super huge in Asia for more than a decade. This game and the fighting game of League of Legends -being made by the former EVO owners, who are now also working with Sony overviewing the new EVO- will make the fighting genre grow and more than double its size if a small portion of the LoL and Dungeon Fighter fanbases get interested on their fighting games.
On top of that eSports are growing and becoming huge, and the most console centric genre is fighting games. Sony wanted to keep this genre under their umbrella by getting many 3rd party fighting games exclusives, buying EVO partnering with the UFC guys and patenting eSports related stuff like bets, making/funding tournaments, etc. But it's too rare to see them making all this efforts for games by other people, so would make sense to milk it themselves with their own fighting games, so they need to buy someone/some IP to have their own fighting game like Nintendo or MS has.
So yes, ASW would help them to grow directly and indirectly by banking their available top anime IPs, popularizing these IPs and the Sony's anime streaming services where they are, by making more money than a Kojima game with a small team (which in addition to work in that game also works in 2 or 3 more), reaching non very console friendly Asian markets like Korea and China thanks to the Dungeon Fighter IP, to make a huge growth on PC, to keep better positioned on eSports with their own games (as happens with GT in racing) etc.
The fighting game genre is better than it ever has been, with most of their top IPs performing great during this PS4+Switch generation:
- Smash Ultimate is the best selling game on its series with 23 million copies and counting
- MKX is the best selling MK ever (11 millions), and MK11 is on track to outsell it (~9 million)
- SFV is close to outsell SF2 and if we add the SFV DLC then if must pass it by a fair margin
- SFIV was also successful to the point it caused a second golden era in the genre that was pretty much dead outside a few exceptions, but Capcom needed money for SFV because of Capcom's financial issues back then (not due to SFIV, but due to other games and failed project), in the same way they needed MS money for Dead Rising or Nintendo's money for MH. Since then Capcom had many very successful games, so won't need Sony's money and SFVI is planned to be multiplatform and crossgen.
- Tekken 7 has sold over 7 million copies and is on track to outsell the biggest selling Tekken ever (Tekken 3, 8 million)
- Dragon Ball FighterZ is Arc System Work's best selling game with over 6 million copies
- Guilty Gear Strive just debuted with the biggest ASW launch sales ever
- All these mentioined games feature a ton of DLC and IAP split on seasons, which means they are generating way more money than previous entries on their series, that didn't feature DLC/IAP
- The two biggest and top grossing PC worldwide (League of Legends and Dungeon Fighter) will have a fighting game in the coming years, if only a small portion of their hundreds of millions of fans get interested on the fighting games the genre will grow a lot
- eSports viewship is growing a lot and the figthing genre is probably the most console centric eSports genre, so it's a strategic opportunity for people like Sony so this is why invest on it.
In addition to profit from it directly, they also would get indirect profit by making their anime IP/anime streaming services more popular, and to grow in the PC market, specially in those Asian countries where consoles aren't so big like Korea or China.
On top of that, Bandai Namco didn't make huge efforts regarding eSports with DBZ, but it generated interest specially in key PlayStation markets like France, UK and Spain, and Strive now getting a great netcode opens the door to increase the online tournaments.
Sony also downsized their Japan Studio, so they may want to buy some Japanese studio to compensate the amount of Japanese exclusives.
So for Sony not only makes sense to buy a fighting game studio, makes more sense to buy Arc System Works than Netherrealm because in addition to be cheaper and more profitable, it would make more sense becaue it also helps them strategically both inside and outside gaming.
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Prof. Tivor Tontomo
Banned
It's not happening twice, you can try to justify it all you want but Arc System is a niche anime fighting company that succeeded with one licensed game because of the brand combined with a massive marketing campaign. It's not even the first company to have a fad po I call it.
We have had DBZ games for years and only a few times it's been very big in sales numbers it's just a fluke. If this was any other franchise like Bleach, Cobra, Naruto it wouldn't have sold as much. Right place, right time, right brand.
EVO is also niche and so is the fgc in general. DBZ sold because it was a new experience relatively with a good marketing pull, and attracted a lot of casuals outside the genre and the ones playing MK SF and Tekken, you aren't getting those twice.
Arc System has no expansion for Sony outside a few thousands of people worldwide into GG and BB. If you like their games that's fine but dont insult me by pretending DBFZ isn't an outlier and buying a niche anime fighting company would benefit console adoption on any notable scale.
I mean just looking at the other part of your post, it shows a concerning disconnect with reality. SFIV golden age? Vanilla sold 3 million, same as Tekken 6, slightly more than MKDC, what golden age?
MKX 11 million? There's barely a shared audience with most other fighting series, same with Tekken. If those are your indications that fighting games are bigger than ever that just tells me that most of the genre is in trouble. You actually had more games selling at higher numbers commulatively last gen.
Fighting games in Esports are one of the smallest genres out there and the fgc makes up most of it. But doing good in the fgc doesn't man expansion. Most games brought would be lucky selling 1 million units. BB has videos on tube and social media with over 1 million views yet previously none of those games even sold as much.
I'm not even going to touch Smash, a game that's not even designed to be a fighter primarily with most of it's buyers playing it like a party game with large casual appeal, you think Guilty Gear will look attractive to Smash buyers? You seem to be trying really hard to defend this fiction that DBFZ is and will not be a one time thing. But it is. You have to be crazy to believe that an Arc System game will substancially benefit from Smash growth, a game with the exact opposite audience.
If Arc is lucky and there's a sequel to DBFZ maybe it will still sell 3-6 million but outside a radical change its not selling DBFZ again, and I think I'm being generous with 2-3 million.
Tekken 7 sold 7 million in 6 years with tons of deals and attracting players who decided to buy because they were tired of playing the other games they had over and over. You can use this same reasoning for SF5, which was below expectations for years then now is over 5 million copies. If the new consoles came out two years ago, or if there were more appealing fighters to hold people's time, I doubt Tekken or SF5 would be over 5 million.
But if you are vague and just throw numbers around like you do, you can fool people into believing fighting games are bigger than ever. But what's really going on is Mortal Kombat and Smash are bigger than ever, and everyone else in the top sellers benefitted from a long gen filled with weak releases which gave several games time to put out dlc, updates, fixes, and characters to add more content to buggy contentless base games.
We have had DBZ games for years and only a few times it's been very big in sales numbers it's just a fluke. If this was any other franchise like Bleach, Cobra, Naruto it wouldn't have sold as much. Right place, right time, right brand.
EVO is also niche and so is the fgc in general. DBZ sold because it was a new experience relatively with a good marketing pull, and attracted a lot of casuals outside the genre and the ones playing MK SF and Tekken, you aren't getting those twice.
Arc System has no expansion for Sony outside a few thousands of people worldwide into GG and BB. If you like their games that's fine but dont insult me by pretending DBFZ isn't an outlier and buying a niche anime fighting company would benefit console adoption on any notable scale.
I mean just looking at the other part of your post, it shows a concerning disconnect with reality. SFIV golden age? Vanilla sold 3 million, same as Tekken 6, slightly more than MKDC, what golden age?
MKX 11 million? There's barely a shared audience with most other fighting series, same with Tekken. If those are your indications that fighting games are bigger than ever that just tells me that most of the genre is in trouble. You actually had more games selling at higher numbers commulatively last gen.
Fighting games in Esports are one of the smallest genres out there and the fgc makes up most of it. But doing good in the fgc doesn't man expansion. Most games brought would be lucky selling 1 million units. BB has videos on tube and social media with over 1 million views yet previously none of those games even sold as much.
I'm not even going to touch Smash, a game that's not even designed to be a fighter primarily with most of it's buyers playing it like a party game with large casual appeal, you think Guilty Gear will look attractive to Smash buyers? You seem to be trying really hard to defend this fiction that DBFZ is and will not be a one time thing. But it is. You have to be crazy to believe that an Arc System game will substancially benefit from Smash growth, a game with the exact opposite audience.
If Arc is lucky and there's a sequel to DBFZ maybe it will still sell 3-6 million but outside a radical change its not selling DBFZ again, and I think I'm being generous with 2-3 million.
Tekken 7 sold 7 million in 6 years with tons of deals and attracting players who decided to buy because they were tired of playing the other games they had over and over. You can use this same reasoning for SF5, which was below expectations for years then now is over 5 million copies. If the new consoles came out two years ago, or if there were more appealing fighters to hold people's time, I doubt Tekken or SF5 would be over 5 million.
But if you are vague and just throw numbers around like you do, you can fool people into believing fighting games are bigger than ever. But what's really going on is Mortal Kombat and Smash are bigger than ever, and everyone else in the top sellers benefitted from a long gen filled with weak releases which gave several games time to put out dlc, updates, fixes, and characters to add more content to buggy contentless base games.
Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
Oh look, it's the "sony censors JP games" group, y'know opposite end of the spectrum. Different sides; same coin.
How so? Their outfits?
How so? Their outfits?
Kholinar
Banned
What part of Strive is ‘censored’?
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yurinka
Member
Most 'censored' games on PlayStation (and in every other console) platforms are only censored in specific countries like Japan, Australia, Germany or China due to local age ratings or government certifications, which means Sony isn't censoring them because they released these same games uncensored for the other countries in the same Sony platform.
In a few cases, some devs decide to 'censor' the game worldwide instead of releasing a localized version for these countries, or to don't release it on these countries. If the only 'censored' version for these countries is the Sony one, it's because it has been the only one released there (on retail, digital only versions like the Steam one can skip some of these local age ratings/certifications).
Kholinar
Banned
DBFZ a fluke? Lmao nah. There’s no such thing as flukes in this industry. If a game is shit, it’s shit. Marvel’s Avengers literally came off the back of Endgame and was preceded by a great Spider-Man game and still flopped hard, despite the brand buff. DBFZ was made by quality developers which is why the game sold 7 million. If Arc gets a handle of famous IPs - which they would if they were bought by Sony - then it’d no doubt they’d sell upward of 5 million again. They’d make more money of an Arc acquirement then they would of Housemarque.
Kokoloko85
Member
Im probably off topic here but I feel the late 90’s - 1994-2001 ( 7 years ) was the best time to be a fighting game fan. My Personal opinion and nothing really compares.
Even just counting 5 years 1995-2000 or 1996-2001.
Tekken 2/3
Tekken 4 (Arcade)
Tekken Tag
Virtual Fighter 2/3
Fighters Megamix
Street fighter Alpha 1/2/3
Xmen Children of the Atom - Marvel Super Heroes
Xmen VS Street Fighter - Marvel Vs Street Fighter
Marvel Vs Capcom 1 & 2 - These Marvel / Cross over games were special and unique at the time
Street Fighter EX -1-3
Street Fighter 3
King of Fighters 96/97/98/99/2000/2001
Garou Mark of the Wolves
Soul Blade
Super Smash Bros N64 - SSB Melee ( 2001 )
SNK vs Capcom - SNK Vs Capcom 2 ( 2001 )
Soul Calibur
Mortal Kombat Trilogy
WCW Revenge/ WWF NO Mercy Etc
Power Stone 1& 2
Plus more
Im not talking profit or anthing. And the last last gen has been a great comeback for fighting games, probably the most popular time etc
But those 6-7 years was a truly magical time for fighting games
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firegamer273
Member
would be great for sony .
Kokoloko85
Member
Apart from Winnie The Pooh Land. Disney Fears the Pooh
Prof. Tivor Tontomo
Banned
Lol? Are you saying none of the other DBZ fighting games were made by quality developers?DBFZ a fluke? Lmao nah. There’s no such thing as flukes in this industry. If a game is shit, it’s shit. Marvel’s Avengers literally came off the back of Endgame and was preceded by a great Spider-Man game and still flopped hard, despite the brand buff. DBFZ was made by quality developers which is why the game sold 7 million. If Arc gets a handle of famous IPs - which they would if they were bought by Sony - then it’d no doubt they’d sell upward of 5 million again. They’d make more money of an Arc acquirement then they would of Housemarque.
No disrespect but there's only one truth and it was a fluke. The casuals and mashers aren't going to buy DBZ games that much in that style twice. Arc will not start seeing GG sell millions of units, and DBFZ benefitted from a long gen with poor or bare bones releases an as people got tired playing the few stand outs they slowly went to DBFZ. Which got big due to a major marketing campaign and big brand up that had nothing to do with ASW.
They are a niche company. The pattern will continue as useful. If DBFZ gets a sequel it won't sell half as muchm it's nothing to do with the quality of the developer, it's just what they make isn't that appealing.
Prof. Tivor Tontomo
Banned
Might want to specify Tekken 4 in the arcades because it didn't come out on Sony platforms until 2002.
Dr. Kitty Muffins
Member
This means Arc owns the rights to Double Dragon which Sony should exploit. At least release the 2D Neo Geo fighting game on the PS5. No one got to play it!
Grumpy Toe Nail
Banned
But didn't that Ryan guy just say something about how they don't make "random acquisitions"?
yurinka
Member
Yep, regarding quality that age was better. I meant that now they are making more money with games+DLC+IAP/there is more people playing/more people following tournaments.
Hermen Hulst said it. He also said they like to buy people who have a long tradition of working with them making PS exclusives and that their purchases are very targeted. So for this and many other reasons ASW aquisition would make a lot of sense:
ASW has over two dozen PS console exclusives and fit many of their strategies: they need anime games to promote their anime and anime services, to use Kadokawa IPs following their deal with Sony, they need their own fighting game to take advantage of EVO, their online tournaments and eSports recent patents, they need games for Japan and Asia where they want to expand, games that help them expand (ASW is working on a fighting game of one of the two top grossing games worldwide, a big hit in Asia), with a big publisher and anime IP ASW sold over 6 million copies + lots of DLC even if their team has slightly above 100 people and work in like 3 games at the same time, etc.
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SLB1904
Banned
They bought evo my dude.
Faithless83
Banned
Evo+Funimation+Crunchyroll and the tech behind "3d anime done right".
It doesn't need to be just fighting games, it can be anything anime based since Arc System tech for it is unsurpassed.
There are a lot of collaboration between studios, it could be "Sony's Platinum" in the future.
It doesn't need to be just fighting games, it can be anything anime based since Arc System tech for it is unsurpassed.
There are a lot of collaboration between studios, it could be "Sony's Platinum" in the future.
Rhazer Fusion
Member
I truly think the primary reason DBFZ sold as well as it did was mostly because of the popular franchise it was based on and marketing. ARC has always been involved with quality fighting games like Guilty Gear, BB:Cross Tag, Granblue and BlazBlue, but to my knowledge none of those sold close to DBFZ. If GG Strive remotely approaches even one third of DBFZ sales, I will be very surprised.DBFZ a fluke? Lmao nah. There’s no such thing as flukes in this industry. If a game is shit, it’s shit. Marvel’s Avengers literally came off the back of Endgame and was preceded by a great Spider-Man game and still flopped hard, despite the brand buff. DBFZ was made by quality developers which is why the game sold 7 million. If Arc gets a handle of famous IPs - which they would if they were bought by Sony - then it’d no doubt they’d sell upward of 5 million again. They’d make more money of an Arc acquirement then they would of Housemarque.
Kholinar
Banned
Marvel's Avengers had a brand buff. MvC:I had a brand buff. Both failed because they were less than stellar titles. DBFZ excelled primarily because of its quality and graphics, not just marketing.
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Rhazer Fusion
Member
That’s true, but I don’t think it’s coincidence that this one particular fighter sold significantly more than the others Arc fighters when it is essentially using the same formula as the other fighting games. No denying the quality contributed to it, but I still think the mega popular license helped the game tremendously.
The Pleasure
Member
MvC:I played better then FighterZ though. But that e3 story demo sucked ass while people voosted the e3 demo that was multiplayer that people at home didn't play caused a communication error.
yurinka
Member
Arc System Works is working on a fighting game using the IP of the top 1/top 2 top grossing PC game of the last decade and beyond.
Sony has access to a lot of top tier anime IP, remember they own Sony Pictures, Aniplex, Funimation, Crunchyroll and so on, and a deal with Kadokawa to help them bring their IPs to a global market via games and anime.
Sony is a big ass publisher with multiple gaming industry record breaking social media numbers and now even bought the EVO partnering with the UFC guys and have onboard the previous owners, who are working on an upcoming League of Legends fighting game.
Yes, the IP and publisher was very important for its success, but Sony already would have that covered. Game quality and dev reputation also was important because this Dragon Ball was a big success while many other licensed games using top licensed IP tanked.
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Grumpy Toe Nail
Banned
When's the last time they made a competitive fighting game? I'm not actually hating on the acquisition, just trolling since Jim Ryan did lol.
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Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
So, we could get a cowboy bebop game?
yurinka
Member
They had many console exclusive PS4/5 fighting games. And those who are multi they have PS as their best selling platform. But I think Sony never made a fighting game other than PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, which was more a joke than a competitive game.
It would be great, I'd love to see Naughty Dog or Santa Monica making it. Or Arc System Works if it's a fighting game. Call Hermen, he may like it.
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The Pleasure
Member
Spike is a shoto. Faye Valentino is a shoto. Ed is a shoto. Vicious is a shoto. Everyone is a shoto.
Mobile Suit Gooch
Grundle: The Awakening
Wait. Doesn't Bandi own the property? Hell, I would love to see a proper Ghost in a shell game. It deserves a good game.
SSfox
Member
I was ban for that? for real? So we can't have and speaks our opinion anymore smh
I never used report button, but maybe it's time i start abusing it like some here.
What the Japanese government has to do with any of this ?
also, Sony fully owns funimation since 2017 and it never fell through
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MastaKiiLA
Member
A Cowboy Bebop RPG in the GG visual style would be fucking epic.