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Sony says they plan to spend excess operating cash on investments in the entertainment space

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
More games and less anime please

I would buy Blupoint, Remedy, Team Kojima, From Software, and Konami IP if I were them and they were on the table to buy

they don’t need a huge publisher, just selectively intelligent purchases
oh god, a From Software bidding war will not be good for anyone. especially sony. MS has shown that they dont give a shit about budgets and will probably pay $2-3 billion for From. i have a feeling Elden Ring will be the next Skyrim or the next witcher. it will be a 25 million seller easily.

Sony do need to lock up Bluepoint and Kojima. I dont think Kojima will be a good fit at Microsoft, and Sony is probably the only publisher besides MS who are willing to give him complete autonomy. He needs to realize this and sell his company and his services. my guess is he knows that if he releases another big AAA game that actually sells this time, his studio could sell for hundreds of millions. So he might be waiting for a bigger paycheck 5 years from now.

Remedy is not worth the money imo. They are like Ninja Theory, talented but just dont have the talent to put out a TLOU or GoW quality title. Control makes a helluva first impression but it fizzles half way through the campaign and ends with a whimper. it felt like an indie single player campaign towards the end. QB and Alan Wake were a snoozefest despite great production values.

I think Sony needs to save those millions and go on a massive hiring spree within Sony santa monica and ND. Give Cory a 300 person team. Have someone else make Gow2 with another 300 person team. They need to find the next cory. the next Neil druckmann. the next kojima. sucker punch cannot take 6 more years to make another game. make them a two team studio as well. sony bend with a 100 employees clearly isnt enough. they need to be a 300 person team at the very least.

and its gonna cost them tens of millions to add new hires vs hundreds of millions acquiring third party companies. if not billions if they get into a bidding war with MS.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Here’s a rundown of some of Sony’s entertainment acquisitions over the past three years for context…


  • Awal - $430mm / February 2021
  • Crunchyroll - $1.2bn / December 2020
  • Pureflix Entertainment - Undisclosed / November 2020
  • Eleven Films - Undisclosed / June 2020
  • Whisper Films - Undisclosed / February 2020
  • Silvergate Media - $195mm / December 2019
  • Game Show Network - $380mm / November 2019
  • Insomniac Games - $229mm / November 2019
  • Manga Entertainment - Undisclosed / May 2019
  • EMI - $3.7bn / May 2018
  • Peanuts (Charlie Brown) - $178mm / May 2018
  • Funimation - $143mm / July 2017
A lot of TV and movies there.
 

Cornbread78

Member
More games and less anime please

I would buy Blupoint, Remedy, Team Kojima, From Software, and Konami IP if I were them and they were on the table to buy

they don’t need a huge publisher, just selectively intelligent purchases

Give all them animes.... please make them more accessible and away from Amazon/Netflix plz...
 

Eanox

Member
that's my concern, they just threw those billions out to buy some anime. not sure if you need an anime network to earn from gacha
Yes you do. Most of the most successful gacha games are anime. What is BandaiNamco specialize on?
Screenshot_20201023-1732432.png
 
oh god, a From Software bidding war will not be good for anyone. especially sony. MS has shown that they dont give a shit about budgets and will probably pay $2-3 billion for From. i have a feeling Elden Ring will be the next Skyrim or the next witcher. it will be a 25 million seller easily.

Sony do need to lock up Bluepoint and Kojima. I dont think Kojima will be a good fit at Microsoft, and Sony is probably the only publisher besides MS who are willing to give him complete autonomy. He needs to realize this and sell his company and his services. my guess is he knows that if he releases another big AAA game that actually sells this time, his studio could sell for hundreds of millions. So he might be waiting for a bigger paycheck 5 years from now.

Remedy is not worth the money imo. They are like Ninja Theory, talented but just dont have the talent to put out a TLOU or GoW quality title. Control makes a helluva first impression but it fizzles half way through the campaign and ends with a whimper. it felt like an indie single player campaign towards the end. QB and Alan Wake were a snoozefest despite great production values.

I think Sony needs to save those millions and go on a massive hiring spree within Sony santa monica and ND. Give Cory a 300 person team. Have someone else make Gow2 with another 300 person team. They need to find the next cory. the next Neil druckmann. the next kojima. sucker punch cannot take 6 more years to make another game. make them a two team studio as well. sony bend with a 100 employees clearly isnt enough. they need to be a 300 person team at the very least.

and its gonna cost them tens of millions to add new hires vs hundreds of millions acquiring third party companies. if not billions if they get into a bidding war with MS.

Obviously I want lots of organic growth

every major AAA studio at Sony should have two teams and release games every two years (4 year cycle per team)

but that’s going to take a long time and isn’t easy to staff up for

I threw out Remedy because they are cheap, efficient, and talented. Control wasn’t that memorable but with Sony’s resources and backing they could turn them into another legit AAA like Sucker Punch. The games they make fit in with Sony’s DNA
 

Eanox

Member
Obviously I want lots of organic growth

every major AAA studio at Sony should have two teams and release games every two years (4 year cycle per team)

but that’s going to take a long time and isn’t easy to staff up for

I threw out Remedy because they are cheap, efficient, and talented. Control wasn’t that memorable but with Sony’s resources and backing they could turn them into another legit AAA like Sucker Punch. The games they make fit in with Sony’s DNA
Yes I agree with you. Adding Remedy, bluepoint, kojipro or Housemarque will definitely expand their first party game portfolio.

So expand your current team but at the same time add more on your line-up.

Remedy would fit to Sony high cinematic gameplay. Allan wake 2 or their new ip could be a high seller for Remedy with Sony’s backing.

Bluepoint purchase and Sony can expand the team creating remakes and new ips 2 teams for Bluepoint. I mean I see efficiency with Bluepoint.

Sony needs to continually release a stream of games. Even though, some Sony fans may not admit it. Once Xbox starts rolling out those games from their acquisition the tides might change.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I also think Sony should start a gaming division under Yoshida. He's currently handling the Indies section, and I think he's played a big role in securing deals with several indies, such as Little Devil Inside, Kena, Disco Elysium, Godfall, etc.

If they acquire such studios or build similar teams under Yoshida, they can increase their output, "graduate" those studios, and then they can join the big leagues. That could be another path to organic growth -- hiring or acquiring small teams, give them expertise and experience, nurture them, and convert them into big AAA developers.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
If they bought EMI when they were broke for 3.1 billion, then there’s no reason they couldn’t spend 5 or 6 billion on a Japanese publisher to stay on top in their most profitable sector. Depends how much they want to spend really but they have the money to do that if they had to.
True. It all comes down to their approach (organic vs. acquisition) and how confident they think they are in the current situation and market landscape.
 

jakinov

Member
Insomniac cost 250 million...Remedy isn’t 500M dude..

their IP is worthless and they have far less staff than Insomniac
Value is subjective. Insomniac cost $250 million because that's how much Sony was willing to pay for them. Remedy cost $540M because that's how much people are willing to pay for them. Even if you don't think they are worth it, that's how much it would cost for you if you tried to buy them when I wrote my original post.

Like what the other guy said, unlike Insomniac, Remedy is a publicly traded company. You can go and google and see how much it cost to buy one fraction (share) of Remedy and how many fractions (shares) exist; or just see what the total value of the company is. Remedy value doesn't just come from how much we like their games. It comes from the fact that they millions in tangible assets on top of all the IP (engine, franchises, deals, patents, etc.). The fact that they make a profit and pay it to shareholders is another thing. Things like how much staff have an indirect effect on the price but it's not included as part of the price. What makes Remedy so valuable is that if you buy a share you know that this company is going to make a bunch of triple A games, that they are arguably good at making games, they have a bunch of deals in place with third party publishers, brand recognition (we're always talking about them here, and so does the gaming press, it's probably very popular in Finland too), they have their own engine (i.e. better margins and itself adds to the price) and that they have great revenue/profit potential because if you own a piece of them they aren't going to limit themselves to just one platform. Which brings me back to my other point, where if Sony buys them, they buy them for the price that takes into account all these profit generating potential , they are effectively paying a bunch of money for earning potential that aren't going to actually use which makes that acquisition even more expensive.



And again, they are likely going to have to pay a lot more than $540 million if they want to convince the major shareholders to sell.
 

NahaNago

Member
I also think Sony should start a gaming division under Yoshida. He's currently handling the Indies section, and I think he's played a big role in securing deals with several indies, such as Little Devil Inside, Kena, Disco Elysium, Godfall, etc.

If they acquire such studios or build similar teams under Yoshida, they can increase their output, "graduate" those studios, and then they can join the big leagues. That could be another path to organic growth -- hiring or acquiring small teams, give them expertise and experience, nurture them, and convert them into big AAA developers.
Yeah , I can see this working as well. Buy up a lot of indie studios since they would be cheap and give them the budget to make their games more polished. Then they can possibly grow these indie studios to either make more games quicker or raise their budget level until they reach AAA. Personally I think Sony should be making cartoons and anime from their IP that way they can keep these IPs continually in folks minds and grow the value of the IP until a live action makes sense. They can also use these shows as ways to give studios time to create sequels in that game. So in essence double or triple the size of current studios so they can make more than one game a gen, purchase smaller studios for either artsy stuff or to turn in to future AAA studios, and create tie in anime ,cartoons, and cg shows to keep IPs alive and help them grow.
 
Value is subjective. Insomniac cost $250 million because that's how much Sony was willing to pay for them. Remedy cost $540M because that's how much people are willing to pay for them. Even if you don't think they are worth it, that's how much it would cost for you if you tried to buy them when I wrote my original post.

Like what the other guy said, unlike Insomniac, Remedy is a publicly traded company. You can go and google and see how much it cost to buy one fraction (share) of Remedy and how many fractions (shares) exist; or just see what the total value of the company is. Remedy value doesn't just come from how much we like their games. It comes from the fact that they millions in tangible assets on top of all the IP (engine, franchises, deals, patents, etc.). The fact that they make a profit and pay it to shareholders is another thing. Things like how much staff have an indirect effect on the price but it's not included as part of the price. What makes Remedy so valuable is that if you buy a share you know that this company is going to make a bunch of triple A games, that they are arguably good at making games, they have a bunch of deals in place with third party publishers, brand recognition (we're always talking about them here, and so does the gaming press, it's probably very popular in Finland too), they have their own engine (i.e. better margins and itself adds to the price) and that they have great revenue/profit potential because if you own a piece of them they aren't going to limit themselves to just one platform. Which brings me back to my other point, where if Sony buys them, they buy them for the price that takes into account all these profit generating potential , they are effectively paying a bunch of money for earning potential that aren't going to actually use which makes that acquisition even more expensive.



And again, they are likely going to have to pay a lot more than $540 million if they want to convince the major shareholders to sell.

if that’s all true then they are wildly overvalued and Sony should not buy them
 
Sony should set their sights on From Software, Bluepoint, Housemarque and Kojima Productions. All of them are great fit for Worldwide Studios, with close working relations to Sony and strong connections to Playstation.
None of them are great choices. Bluepoint is the only one that would make sense if Sony hates cheap remasters.
 
Streaming is a load of bollox, it's not the future. I dunno why you're even bothering to talk about it. It's a failure from top to bottom.

Do you think that I will want to say to my son at Christmas 'Oh, I paid your streaming bill for the next year' or do I want to see them open a new Nintendo or PlayStation console... and their face light up in excitement?

If you think streaming is the future then you don't even know what gaming is about cause you have disregarded one of the best memories of being a gamer.
That was certainly an interesting take.

How many suicides do think were caused by the current state of VCR's, and DVD players?
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Streaming is a load of bollox, it's not the future. I dunno why you're even bothering to talk about it. It's a failure from top to bottom.

Do you think that I will want to say to my son at Christmas 'Oh, I paid your streaming bill for the next year' or do I want to see them open a new Nintendo or PlayStation console... and their face light up in excitement?

If you think streaming is the future then you don't even know what gaming is about cause you have disregarded one of the best memories of being a gamer.

You don't have to like it, but the consumer landscape is changing. Digital distribution has hit critical mass, and with it convergence with all forms of entertainment - not just gaming.

In that landscape brand identity is very important.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Streaming is a load of bollox, it's not the future. I dunno why you're even bothering to talk about it. It's a failure from top to bottom.

Do you think that I will want to say to my son at Christmas 'Oh, I paid your streaming bill for the next year' or do I want to see them open a new Nintendo or PlayStation console... and their face light up in excitement?

If you think streaming is the future then you don't even know what gaming is about cause you have disregarded one of the best memories of being a gamer.

Problem with streaming is that you can have three good days with it and then on the fourth day there’s lag and macro blocking, you try to fix it to no avail, contact support and they have no answer and suddenly you’ve wasted 2 hours trying to make something work like it was before.

It’s impossible to prevent problems with streaming, and it only takes a couple of times for you to realize it’s an unreliable form of enjoying videogames and really sours the experience.

It’s not going to take off anytime soon.
 
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Bryank75

Banned
You don't have to like it, but the consumer landscape is changing. Digital distribution has hit critical mass, and with it convergence with all forms of entertainment - not just gaming.

In that landscape brand identity is very important.
It's literally failing in front of our eyes.... the two most successful companies are the two that sell more physical copies than anyone else. You cannot assume that all the people that bought digital during the pandemic will continue to do so afterwards.

Streaming is not digital ownership either, there is no minimum quality bar, no local storage of game and save info, the only advantages are for the corporations that can lock your content behind a paywall they control. They can turn the service off or throttle you at will. They can put you in a queue to wait if a game is too popular, they can lie and say that your connection is not strong enough if they need an excuse and still charge you.

The two strongest brands are Nintendo and PlayStation and nobody gives a fuck what Amazon, Google or any of the rest do. They are an irrelevancy in gaming and creative endeavors, even in streaming Sony makes all the best shows on Amazon prime, including The Boys etc. for them.


Is everyone talking about PS5 or Amazons newly launched streaming service for games? just for instance.....

Did SNL make a parody about trying to get a PS5 or about some streaming service?

Out of sight, out of mind my man..... streaming has no mindshare and no connection to the consumer.
 
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Dabaus

Banned
Remedy is not worth half a billion dollars, period. Id rather see sony spend 500 million to start up an RPG team or 2 than spend that much on them. The only smaller studio to even consider is blue point because theyve proven themselves. Otherwise Japanese publishers that are rich in IP and not nearly as expensive as western ones.
 

Camreezie

Member
Bluepoint should be an absolute lock as far as purchasing studios goes. They have proven themselves many times and would be a great in house remake studio
 

jakinov

Member
if that’s all true then they are wildly overvalued and Sony should not buy them
They are valued for their assets, profits, recent growth and growth potential. Remedy is valued as a growing profit generating machine.

If Insomniac had 2.5 multi platform games lined up through deals, showed that they were interested in growing significantly and actually executed on it in the last few years. They’d probably be worth a lot. The value of owning this company is not about How much we like the games that they make it’s about the company as a business. Insomniac didn’t do that great with resistance so they stopped making those, they didn’t do well with the EA deal, and never got a new one. They didn’t do that well with sunset overdrive and so didn’t get new deal from that. They have Spider-Man and Ratchet but if Sony is the buyer they can’t use that as bargaining because Sony can just pull the rug from under their feet. Maybe if Insomniac had more EA deals, was making a lot of games for Sony, making for Microsoft, making games for Occulus, and made it clear they were planning on growing and actually did it. They could have sold for a lot more.
 
They are valued for their assets, profits, recent growth and growth potential. Remedy is valued as a growing profit generating machine.

If Insomniac had 2.5 multi platform games lined up through deals, showed that they were interested in growing significantly and actually executed on it in the last few years. They’d probably be worth a lot. The value of owning this company is not about How much we like the games that they make it’s about the company as a business. Insomniac didn’t do that great with resistance so they stopped making those, they didn’t do well with the EA deal, and never got a new one. They didn’t do that well with sunset overdrive and so didn’t get new deal from that. They have Spider-Man and Ratchet but if Sony is the buyer they can’t use that as bargaining because Sony can just pull the rug from under their feet. Maybe if Insomniac had more EA deals, was making a lot of games for Sony, making for Microsoft, making games for Occulus, and made it clear they were planning on growing and actually did it. They could have sold for a lot more.

valuations on the public markets, especially in this case, are not always a great measure of intrinsic value. Growth forecasts can be fairy dust.

Remedy’s games have historically been far less successful than Insomniac
 

Elbereth

Member
Capcom or Bust...

Honestly, they have a suite of top tier games in each respective genre, amazing technical chops(RE engine), etc.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
This is the time to spend some of the hard earned cash during the pandemic and prepare for tough competition ahead, this is something that should be clear to investors:

7FdXscc.jpg

PS4 Peak, PSN Store Peak, PS5 launch (in one Quarter they are making almost as much revenue as one of their biggest PS years ever)

P2qHeBf.jpg

Even profits wise you can see very nice growth there too.
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
This is the time to spend some of the hard earned cash during the pandemic and prepare for tough competition ahead, this is something that should be clear to investors:

7FdXscc.jpg

PS4 Peak, PSN Store Peak, PS5 launch (in one Quarter they are making almost as much revenue as one of their biggest PS years ever)

P2qHeBf.jpg

Even profits wise you can see very nice growth there too.
Absolutely agreed. And I think Sony is recognizing that as well. They clearly said that they will use their operating profits for investment.

What's most interesting to me is that Sony has made SIGNIFICANT strides in revenue and profits this year, but I think they aren't as visible. They will be by next year 'FY21. Note how every console launch year resulted in a loss for Sony, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. PS5's launch, on the other hand, Sony records its highest operating profit.

Take away those production costs + early loss on per console launch + tons of games releasing next year for many of which Sony bought exclusivity deals + a higher % of PS+ subscribers next year, '21 will be a fantastic year for Sony in terms of operating profit.

I see them buying at least 2 studios in the next financial year.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Absolutely agreed. And I think Sony is recognizing that as well. They clearly said that they will use their operating profits for investment.

What's most interesting to me is that Sony has made SIGNIFICANT strides in revenue and profits this year, but I think they aren't as visible. They will be by next year 'FY21. Note how every console launch year resulted in a loss for Sony, PS1, PS2, PS3, PS4. PS5's launch, on the other hand, Sony records its highest operating profit.

Take away those production costs + early loss on per console launch + tons of games releasing next year for many of which Sony bought exclusivity deals + a higher % of PS+ subscribers next year, '21 will be a fantastic year for Sony in terms of operating profit.

I see them buying at least 2 studios in the next financial year.
I hope so, it is also why some of their studios and third parties have pivoted on cross generation games for some games previously announced as PS5 exclusives as production pace for PS5 is still so difficult to ramp up... people are migrating to PS5 as fast as Sony can manufacture them, but they are hedging their bets.

Now it is the time to invest smartly but also a bit more aggressively than before.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I hope so, it is also why some of their studios and third parties have pivoted on cross generation games for some games previously announced as PS5 exclusives as production pace for PS5 is still so difficult to ramp up... people are migrating to PS5 as fast as Sony can manufacture them, but they are hedging their bets.

Now it is the time to invest smartly but also a bit more aggressively than before.
If Sony could produce more PS5s (it would have sold them all, even if they produced 20million units upfront), we'd have got games like Ratchet & Clank and Returnal by now. The games are getting delayed because of it.

And I think they will be more aggressive; I agree they should. Previously, the industry was relatively stable. Over the last couple of years, consolidation and acquisition have become significantly more prominent. Zenimax's deal was the biggest bolt that must have woken up Sony. Organic growth is always the preferable approach, but I think it should come second in this particular instance.

From Sony's POV, Sony would (should?) be more concerned about making sure that they don't lose high-profile multiplatform games first. And then increase their first-party output. Otherwise, that increased output from organic growth will only set-off the decreased output that would be caused by MS's buying.
 

Hudo

Member
Capcom or Bust...

Honestly, they have a suite of top tier games in each respective genre, amazing technical chops(RE engine), etc.
Nah, Capcom works best as third-party. If Sony were to acquire anything, they could try their hands at convincing Konami to license out their IPs to Sony for 10 years or so.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
If Sony could produce more PS5s (it would have sold them all, even if they produced 20million units upfront), we'd have got games like Ratchet & Clank and Returnal by now. The games are getting delayed because of it.

And I think they will be more aggressive; I agree they should. Previously, the industry was relatively stable. Over the last couple of years, consolidation and acquisition have become significantly more prominent. Zenimax's deal was the biggest bolt that must have woken up Sony. Organic growth is always the preferable approach, but I think it should come second in this particular instance.

From Sony's POV, Sony would (should?) be more concerned about making sure that they don't lose high-profile multiplatform games first. And then increase their first-party output. Otherwise, that increased output from organic growth will only set-off the decreased output that would be caused by MS's buying.

I think that it has been wildly under reported the growth they had in their first party studios where they have kept hiring and tackling bigger projects coupled with great experience in the studio still sticking around (although they had some departures of course). They seem to have hired in most of their studios, even in the recently acquired Insomniac they are seemingly supporting internal expansion... they did still close some studios (Evolution Studios... sigh).

They do prefer to try to avoid acquisition and massive devs departures by working with partners very closely before acquiring them so I am curious if they will go ahead with Bluepoint and other studios that could do really well as a fully fledged first party studio supporting PS5’s growth and informing PS6’s future too (same thing for MS if they let some of the Id tech wizards help inform XSX successors trajectory/R&D early on). I do wonder if they will try to go for more consolidation and if that will trigger counter punches from MS... not sure that would be desirable to have too much consolidation, but hopefully we will not have that extreme of a scenario.
 

jakinov

Member
valuations on the public markets, especially in this case, are not always a great measure of intrinsic value. Growth forecasts can be fairy dust.

Remedy’s games have historically been far less successful than Insomniac
It's not just about their forecasts, it's what they have in place now, what they are planning to do that gives them value, and that they have deals and actually grow their revenue and profit. Management and strategy is another aspect that brings value too, Remedy plans to use their engine to quickly develop multiple projects and optimize costs. They tout that control for example $30 million to make.

Companies like Blackberry don't get their old value for what they used to do or how much u liked their phones more than samsung phones back then. They get their value from what they are actually doing today, what they have and the deals they have in place.

Insomniac making some games that sold well over a decade ago doesn't mean much for their value today. And also Remedy has been fairly successful in the past with Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Quantum Break. Recently Spider-man was super successful but apart from that I wouldn't say Insomniac was far more successful. Especially after the PS2 days and before Spiderman. Rachet was basically in decline, Resistance declined, Fuse failed, Sunset didn't do that well didn't get a sequel and was outsold by Quantum Break and I don't think the VR games sold very well.
 

Ar¢tos

Member
This is the time to spend some of the hard earned cash during the pandemic and prepare for tough competition ahead, this is something that should be clear to investors:

7FdXscc.jpg

PS4 Peak, PSN Store Peak, PS5 launch (in one Quarter they are making almost as much revenue as one of their biggest PS years ever)

P2qHeBf.jpg

Even profits wise you can see very nice growth there too.
What happened in 2018?
So far after ps4 launch and so far from ps5 launch, I can't remember anything that would boost profit that much. Was it God of War and other 1st party games?
I don't think 2 or 3 1st party games alone would justify such a massive increase in profits.
 
oh god, a From Software bidding war will not be good for anyone. especially sony. MS has shown that they dont give a shit about budgets and will probably pay $2-3 billion for From. i have a feeling Elden Ring will be the next Skyrim or the next witcher. it will be a 25 million seller easily.

Sony do need to lock up Bluepoint and Kojima. I dont think Kojima will be a good fit at Microsoft, and Sony is probably the only publisher besides MS who are willing to give him complete autonomy. He needs to realize this and sell his company and his services. my guess is he knows that if he releases another big AAA game that actually sells this time, his studio could sell for hundreds of millions. So he might be waiting for a bigger paycheck 5 years from now.

Remedy is not worth the money imo. They are like Ninja Theory, talented but just dont have the talent to put out a TLOU or GoW quality title. Control makes a helluva first impression but it fizzles half way through the campaign and ends with a whimper. it felt like an indie single player campaign towards the end. QB and Alan Wake were a snoozefest despite great production values.

I think Sony needs to save those millions and go on a massive hiring spree within Sony santa monica and ND. Give Cory a 300 person team. Have someone else make Gow2 with another 300 person team. They need to find the next cory. the next Neil druckmann. the next kojima. sucker punch cannot take 6 more years to make another game. make them a two team studio as well. sony bend with a 100 employees clearly isnt enough. they need to be a 300 person team at the very least.

and its gonna cost them tens of millions to add new hires vs hundreds of millions acquiring third party companies. if not billions if they get into a bidding war with MS.
Buying From would be stupid just like Kojima productions. What happens once Miyazaki/Kojima leave?
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Buying From would be stupid just like Kojima productions. What happens once Miyazaki/Kojima leave?
FROM is slightly bigger and more established than Kojima’s new studio, but 1.) I doubt Sony would acquire a developer bit happy to join and build something as a first party dev and 2.) if the studio is well setup you are getting much more than a single great designer/producer.
 

Inanilmaz

Member
If they can not buy whole nintendo they should atleast buy licence from pokemon company so they can produce some quality Pokemon games
 

Dabaus

Banned
If they want to buy companies for IP then bluepoint, house marque, kojima productions, dont make much sense. Japanese publishers are significantly cheaper than western ones and in my opinion have better IP anyways. Maybe buy a few IP off konami and blue point?

Have they explicitly said they want to buy IP or just vague entertainment expansion?
 
It's not just about their forecasts, it's what they have in place now, what they are planning to do that gives them value, and that they have deals and actually grow their revenue and profit. Management and strategy is another aspect that brings value too, Remedy plans to use their engine to quickly develop multiple projects and optimize costs. They tout that control for example $30 million to make.

Companies like Blackberry don't get their old value for what they used to do or how much u liked their phones more than samsung phones back then. They get their value from what they are actually doing today, what they have and the deals they have in place.

Insomniac making some games that sold well over a decade ago doesn't mean much for their value today. And also Remedy has been fairly successful in the past with Max Payne, Alan Wake, and Quantum Break. Recently Spider-man was super successful but apart from that I wouldn't say Insomniac was far more successful. Especially after the PS2 days and before Spiderman. Rachet was basically in decline, Resistance declined, Fuse failed, Sunset didn't do that well didn't get a sequel and was outsold by Quantum Break and I don't think the VR games sold very well.

As mentioned, that's all a bunch of fairy dust to me - maybe the third party deals they have pan out, maybe not. I'm personally not overly impressed with what they have revealed. No doubt Remedy is an efficient studio, but so was Insomniac (insomniac, even moreso, always having multiple teams working games).

Max Payne and Alan Wake are in the distant past. Most of their games have been pretty lukewarm on the success scale. Max Payne arguably their only large success. You're right that Insomniac hasn't had great success with their own IP, but I'd argue they've always been able to deliver high quality games even if they couldn't manage to create an IP that felt unique and highly compelling. If we look at sales data, Resistance series outsold most of Remedy's titles. The recent Ratchet has also done surprisingly well compared to the PS3 titles.

This was seen with their release of Spider-man, the high quality game aspects came through in abundance, and when paired with a great IP they achieved massive success. This was certainly not a sure thing, as the Spider-Man IP has been attempted in gaming in the past with pretty terrible results.

Please note that Insomniac was acquired AFTER it was known Spider-Man was a big hit, so that was also baked into their price. I'm not saying Remedy isn't talented, I'm just saying that their current valuation seems a bit stretched at over 2x Insomniac. I don't see that, personally. Insomnic IS no doubt the better studio in my mind by a pretty significant margin. But perhaps this is a matter of Insomniac being undervalued rather than Remedy being overvalued, I guess time will tell in terms of how Remedy does in the future...
 
Sony should set their sights on From Software, Bluepoint, Housemarque and Kojima Productions. All of them are great fit for Worldwide Studios, with close working relations to Sony and strong connections to Playstation.
I'm still waiting for anyone to give me a compelling reason they should acquire Kojima Productions beyond "It's Kojima" or "MGS". Cuz Death Stranding was absolutely NOT it.

Also don't think outright owning From would do them much good, they stand to make more money with their Kadokawa investment rather than getting PC dudes to jump., plus their anime investments will benefit from that as well.
 
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Sony couldn’t pull off the TV streaming thing (vue) and I have zero interest in these deals. If you want to annihilate M$ do what you just did last gen.
You do realize Sony makes more than just PlayStations, right?

They're not going to invest in only one part of their business and not do anything to shore up the others.
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
Now it is the time to invest smartly but also a bit more aggressively than before.

In theory, Yoshida would be the man to give the PlayStation division the money to expand its production capacity, be it acquisitions or other, if we take into account his comments on entertainment being the number one priority. Unfortunately his focus on growing profits, his belief that PlayStation is niche, and his asinine decision to make a Sony car just because he wanted the company to make something that moves, tells me that we will go through a phase where PlayStation is used as a piggy bank for other divisions.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
In theory, Yoshida would be the man to give the PlayStation division the money to expand its production capacity, be it acquisitions or other, if we take into account his comments on entertainment being the number one priority. Unfortunately his focus on growing profits, his belief that PlayStation is niche, and his asinine decision to make a Sony car just because he wanted the company to make something that moves, tells me that we will go through a phase where PlayStation is used as a piggy bank for other divisions.

Sony needs to be growing profits still, they need to stay on the top of the cameras game and find other new breakthroughs like that, but I hope your conclusion is wrong and they do invest (not just use it as a piggybank to prop up other ventures inside the company).

It takes money to make money and I think the leadership knows that: they did not cheapen out with PS5 for sure.
 

NahaNago

Member
Do you think Sony could afford to buy a big publisher or choose not to?
They choose not to.
If they can not buy whole nintendo they should atleast buy licence from pokemon company so they can produce some quality Pokemon games
Nintendo is nearly worth as much as Sony and they will probably be worth much more in the future.
I'm still waiting for anyone to give me a compelling reason they should acquire Kojima Productions beyond "It's Kojima" or "MGS". Cuz Death Stranding was absolutely NOT it.

Also don't think outright owning From would do them much good, they stand to make more money with their Kadokawa investment rather than getting PC dudes to jump., plus their anime investments will benefit from that as well.
I do think grabbing Kojima makes some sense. Honestly makes more sense for Kojima than Sony after Deathstranding. He gets his game and possibly to make a movie which seems like he really wants to do. Owning From makes sense as well. They get a new series that is beloved. Getting PC dudes to jump shouldn't be the focus but to grab more xbox dudes. Plus Sony has needed to fix the Japanese first party exclusive situation for awhile and From would definitely be perfect.
 

jakinov

Member
As mentioned, that's all a bunch of fairy dust to me - maybe the third party deals they have pan out, maybe not. I'm personally not overly impressed with what they have revealed. No doubt Remedy is an efficient studio, but so was Insomniac (insomniac, even moreso, always having multiple teams working games).

Max Payne and Alan Wake are in the distant past. Most of their games have been pretty lukewarm on the success scale. Max Payne arguably their only large success. You're right that Insomniac hasn't had great success with their own IP, but I'd argue they've always been able to deliver high quality games even if they couldn't manage to create an IP that felt unique and highly compelling. If we look at sales data, Resistance series outsold most of Remedy's titles. The recent Ratchet has also done surprisingly well compared to the PS3 titles.

This was seen with their release of Spider-man, the high quality game aspects came through in abundance, and when paired with a great IP they achieved massive success. This was certainly not a sure thing, as the Spider-Man IP has been attempted in gaming in the past with pretty terrible results.

Please note that Insomniac was acquired AFTER it was known Spider-Man was a big hit, so that was also baked into their price. I'm not saying Remedy isn't talented, I'm just saying that their current valuation seems a bit stretched at over 2x Insomniac. I don't see that, personally. Insomnic IS no doubt the better studio in my mind by a pretty significant margin. But perhaps this is a matter of Insomniac being undervalued rather than Remedy being overvalued, I guess time will tell in terms of how Remedy does in the future...
The future is unknown. Spiderman-2 could not be as successful as Spiderman 2. Rachet and Clank PS5 could sell as well as PS4 ratchet or sell like PS3 Rachet. Everyone could go on Stadia next year and so Sony and Microsoft could lose a bunch of money. We don't know that but people value companies on the momentum and they value the deals. IT's worth money to have a bunch of companies paying you to make games and you get to reap the profits. You don't have to think Remedy is worth necessarily worth $540 million but I'm just saying you need to look at it more like a business today. Opposed to a group of people that make games you might not like. Again apart from their great financials like profits/growth, a lot of Remedy's value comes from Control and their deals and what they are working on which they have a lot of. Remedy is trying to be a games company not just a studio. What Insomniac seemed to want to do but I don't think panned out.

What Remedy has been doing or the deals that helped Remedy value go up so much:

- Control DLC, ultimate, and constant marketing/promotion to increase lifetime sales
- Deal with Smilegate that includes creating content for CrossFireHD and creating the entire game CrossfireX
- Two profit sharing (50/50) fully backed game deals with Epic Games
- A GaaS game (Vanguard)
- I believe 1-2 other small projects
- They are also expanding their publishing business so that they can publish some of their own games in the future to be more.

Not everyone can land all the deals or are operating at this scope. They could all fail but again that can be said about anything Insomniac or any other company has lined up. I don't think they've done anything in the past where you'd expect them to fail either. They have recent success (and past success) and have shown recent efficiencies. That they can be like if you own us we can directly give some of your money back.

I only bring up Max Payne and Alan Wake, because I disagree with "Insomniac being far more successful than remedy historically". "Deliveirng high quality" is highly subjective and not how companies are evaluated. In the same way that Sony was not really evaluated for being known for creating high quality electronics it was evaluated for how much money it actually made and what it's future outlook like at the time.

I haven't been able to find any reliable sales data on Resistance but I'd be interested to know how much it sold.

Spiderman's success helps but doesn't make Insomniac worth that much more as business. From what I understand in these deals it's generally safer but generally not as lucrative as owning the IP and just getting someone else to publish. They are basically a contractor/subcontractor. The deal has value, and could have brought them more value if they sold to someone else. But at least to Sony its not great for bargaining because they control the deal. Maybe Insomniac could have sold higher to another buyer because the volume was pretty good for Spiderman. But I still think Remedy with what they have in place that they are worth more as a business today.

And as a side note, the more I read up on them the more I like them. Even though I'm an a lot bigger fan of Insomniac's games than Remedy's games as a gamer.
 
The future is unknown. Spiderman-2 could not be as successful as Spiderman 2. Rachet and Clank PS5 could sell as well as PS4 ratchet or sell like PS3 Rachet. Everyone could go on Stadia next year and so Sony and Microsoft could lose a bunch of money. We don't know that but people value companies on the momentum and they value the deals. IT's worth money to have a bunch of companies paying you to make games and you get to reap the profits. You don't have to think Remedy is worth necessarily worth $540 million but I'm just saying you need to look at it more like a business today. Opposed to a group of people that make games you might not like. Again apart from their great financials like profits/growth, a lot of Remedy's value comes from Control and their deals and what they are working on which they have a lot of. Remedy is trying to be a games company not just a studio. What Insomniac seemed to want to do but I don't think panned out.

What Remedy has been doing or the deals that helped Remedy value go up so much:

- Control DLC, ultimate, and constant marketing/promotion to increase lifetime sales
- Deal with Smilegate that includes creating content for CrossFireHD and creating the entire game CrossfireX
- Two profit sharing (50/50) fully backed game deals with Epic Games
- A GaaS game (Vanguard)
- I believe 1-2 other small projects
- They are also expanding their publishing business so that they can publish some of their own games in the future to be more.

Not everyone can land all the deals or are operating at this scope. They could all fail but again that can be said about anything Insomniac or any other company has lined up. I don't think they've done anything in the past where you'd expect them to fail either. They have recent success (and past success) and have shown recent efficiencies. That they can be like if you own us we can directly give some of your money back.

I only bring up Max Payne and Alan Wake, because I disagree with "Insomniac being far more successful than remedy historically". "Deliveirng high quality" is highly subjective and not how companies are evaluated. In the same way that Sony was not really evaluated for being known for creating high quality electronics it was evaluated for how much money it actually made and what it's future outlook like at the time.

I haven't been able to find any reliable sales data on Resistance but I'd be interested to know how much it sold.

Spiderman's success helps but doesn't make Insomniac worth that much more as business. From what I understand in these deals it's generally safer but generally not as lucrative as owning the IP and just getting someone else to publish. They are basically a contractor/subcontractor. The deal has value, and could have brought them more value if they sold to someone else. But at least to Sony its not great for bargaining because they control the deal. Maybe Insomniac could have sold higher to another buyer because the volume was pretty good for Spiderman. But I still think Remedy with what they have in place that they are worth more as a business today.

And as a side note, the more I read up on them the more I like them. Even though I'm an a lot bigger fan of Insomniac's games than Remedy's games as a gamer.

Like I said, I guess we will see what happens to Remedy. Their deals with CrossfireX seem a bit generic to me, and most GaaS attepts fail. I worry that they are spreading themselves too thinly. Insomniac tried something similar with their EA deal back in the day and some VR initiatives.

It's nice to show initiative, but sometimes just being really good at delivering on a smaller basket of projects.
 
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