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Your game plan as Sony executive to counterattack Microsoft's latest strategy

Aquire all those except EA
They actually should acquire especially EA, and then shoot it down after a year, just because…

season 1 starz GIF by Ash vs Evil Dead


(And then reinstate all killed studios like Maxis, Bullfrog, Westwood etc. etc. etc.)
 
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//DEVIL//

Member
If i had to take measures ( which is not how business work )

I am going to merge my gaming division with another big company for exclusive content.
Dream company would be Nintendo. Imagine Sony and Nintendo as one. their games will be on both PS5 and Switch. mario on PS5 and god of war on switch ( same game but one portable one 4k ) . then future console to be hybrid called "Playstation Swtich"

However I do not think Nintendo is interested in this ideal. so I would merge with Capcom. which technically makes capcom happy as they now and PlayStation is one company and the profit for them will increase. same for Sony when they gain all those HUGE IPs exclusive to them from DMC to REsident evil to street fighter to mega man.
 
I don't want anymore publishers picked up by a platform holder but if I were Sony as a defensive move I'd probably look long and hard at Take Two before that other deal goes through and increases their value. I'd even go as far as trying to just buy Rockstar along with GTA/RDR away if TT would part with them, it would still cost billions but it would be cheaper long term than taking on every employee that Take two has. I'd also look at capcom as a second purchase.
 
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FrozenFlame

Member
Sony doesnt need to do anything drastic. Just make a game to replace COD if it comes to that.
If it was that easy to make something at same level of COD, wouldn't we have it by now? And maybe I'm forgetting something but I don't remember any Sony first party title being a multiplayer hit (besides GT Sport?), so, what changed that now we would have something that could compete with COD?
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Sony is not a company that often acquires developers
Lol stopped reading right there. Almost all of their studios over the years have been acquired.

In reality there’s not much Sony can do against a Microsoft that goes “all in” on Xbox. Sony literally could not even dream of doing what MS just did with Activision. Everything up until recently has just been a little side project for Microsoft funded with spare change they found in the lounge cushions. Now they’ve opened the warchest that has been made fun of and memed hard for at least a decade.

Sony need to branch out their first party titles into categories that they now lack, like FPS, especially online multiplayer ones, and RPGs. Come holiday seasons when they’re coming up against COD on Xbox exclusively and they have cinematic single player game #28, or even worse just have nothing, they’re not going to fare well.

Gaming is basically the entire Sony business now, so they need to really knuckle down and step it up. They just need to pray that cloud gaming doesn’t explode because they just don’t have the infrastructure to compete. PS Now is how many years old and still barely available worldwide?
 

SteadyEvo

Member
Continue making the best games with in house developers. People acting like COD is on the MtRushmore of gaming.

Worst case scenario I believe Sony could be self sufficient similar to Nintendo. To me their games are that good.

If money bought talent the best games would’ve been on MS consoles. Not the case so I don’t see the cause for concern.
 
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tmlDan

Member
How’s that working out for DICE?
Sony is not DICE, with the internal resources and input they can make a game that is as big as COD, it's a massive risk and it's going to be extremely difficult but its possible. - why does everyone think COD fame will last forever? they just don't have ANY legitimate competition.

Before you say other BR's they're not even close to the same and BF is not even close tot he same style of game - it also doesn't have a competitive or BR scene.
 

Sygma

Member
Buy off Rockstar from Take Two, somehow manage to get decent Pro Evolution Soccer games all over again, buy exclusivity from EA for sports games. Let there be blood like in PS2 era. Also get Codemasters to do an awesome Colin Mc Rae only on ps5 like 2 was on ps2, and get Atlus to do some truly amazing new rpgs only for ps5

Like, come on now. Sure Microsoft have a ton of very talented studios and ips and everything but its been ages since they got their studios and the only good titles haven't been that scary (Ori, Horizon, etc etc). They're good games, some are great but none, strictly none have been outstanding since xbox 360 era. Majority of generation defining games these last years came from Japanese studios and there's still road to cover for microsoft to ever offer something around the likes of TLOU, Monster Hunter, Souls Clone, you name it. I'm very very very interested at the next offering from MachineGames (Indiana Jones / Wolfenstein), Avowed from Obsidian even tho it looks to be in development hell, and of course the next ID game

Bethesda have been trash since Oblivion, Ninja Theory's games are utter snoozefest so far (both Hellblade and Bleeding Edge), Blizzard literally lost their magic and most of their ancient building power went to fund Dreamhaven and so on and so forth. Their major strengths until now have been playground, turn 10 and Sea of Thieves on top of a good offering with Gamepass. Need a good follow up. Which is where Sony has the upper hand to begin with because outside of someone liking golf clubs a bit too much, they haven't exactly missed their shots with any of their "major" release as of late (can make a case for Days Gone tho) and well, Sucker Punch, ND etc etc still haven't showed nothing so you know
 
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Ozriel

M$FT
Sony is not DICE, with the internal resources and input they can make a game that is as big as COD, it's a massive risk and it's going to be extremely difficult but its possible. - why does everyone think COD fame will last forever? they just don't have ANY legitimate competition.

Before you say other BR's they're not even close to the same and BF is not even close tot he same style of game - it also doesn't have a competitive or BR scene.

EA’s given DICE as much funding as they require. Sony’s bigger than EA but this doesn’t seem to be a resources or resourcing issue.

Destruction All Stars probably had a budget multiple times larger than that available to Rocket League at the start, and look at the marked difference in reaction to both games.

It’s hard to go against entrenched leaders. See how the excellent Titanfall 2 fared against the old faithful.


I’m not saying it can’t be done. It’s easier said than done, is all.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
Buy off Rockstar from Take Two, somehow manage to get decent Pro Evolution Soccer games all over again, buy exclusivity from EA for sports games. Let there be blood like in PS2 era. Also get Codemasters to do an awesome Colin Mc Rae only on ps5 like 2 was on ps2, and get Atlus to do some truly amazing new rpgs only for ps5

Like, come on now. Sure Microsoft have a ton of very talented studios and ips and everything but its been ages since they got their studios and the only good titles haven't been that scary (Ori, Horizon, etc etc). They're good games, some are great but none, strictly none have been outstanding since xbox 360 era. Majority of generation defining games these last years came from Japanese studios and there's still road to cover for microsoft to ever offer something around the likes of TLOU, Monster Hunter, Souls Clone, you name it. I'm very very very interested at the next offering from MachineGames (Indiana Jones / Wolfenstein), Avowed from Obsidian even tho it looks to be in development hell, and of course the next ID game

Bethesda have been trash since Oblivion, Ninja Theory's games are utter snoozefest so far (both Hellblade and Bleeding Edge), Blizzard literally lost their magic and most of their ancient building power went to fund Dreamhaven and so on and so forth. Their major strengths until now have been playground, turn 10 and Sea of Thieves on top of a good offering with Gamepass. Need a good follow up. Which is where Sony has the upper hand to begin with because outside of someone liking golf clubs a bit too much, they haven't exactly missed their shots with any of their "major" release as of late (can make a case for Days Gone tho) and well, Sucker Punch, ND etc etc still haven't showed nothing so you know
So your solution is for them to try and outspend Microsoft to buy a company they can’t afford, and licensed sports games that EA wouldn’t dream of losing millions of sales of. You then say that Japanese devs have been the ones making the defining games of the generations, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
 

Amiga

Member
Sony should also keep their eyes on a good PSVR2 launch. It's how they can win the future of gaming. Need a PS Home VR app and they can take on Metaverse.
 

Sygma

Member
So your solution is for them to try and outspend Microsoft to buy a company they can’t afford, and licensed sports games that EA wouldn’t dream of losing millions of sales of. You then say that Japanese devs have been the ones making the defining games of the generations, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

i mean the whole thing is a meme, why would anyone answer seriously. Other than that yes, most influential games previous gen undoubtedly has been Souls clone to the point of it being used fucking everywhere when it comes down to jauging difficulty (as well as considering 2d games as "metroidvania souls like"), rebirth of Capcom via REmake & Monster Hunter World basically selling like crazy everywhere + spawning a pretty successful f2p. I will also mention Breath of the Wild literally spawning clones left and right, most notably Waifu Impact (asian game) which is the highest grossing game ever released in a first year, making 3.5 billion

Western world wise : battle royale extravaganza / live games such as Sea of Thieves / GTA online / Forza Horizon and others making waves without a pun intended and single player games being good but not to the point of influencing the industry / market like japanese games did. Guess Minecraft and Roblox just cant die anytime soon
 
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MrFunSocks

Banned
i mean the whole thing is a meme, why would anyone answer seriously. Other than that yes, most influential games previous gen undoubtedly has been Souls clone to the point of it being used fucking everywhere when it comes down to jauging difficulty (as well as considering 2d games as "metroidvania souls like"), rebirth of Capcom via REmake & Monster Hunter World basically selling like crazy everywhere + spawning a pretty successful f2p. I will also mention Breath of the Wild literally spawning clones left and right, most notably Waifu Impact (asian game) which is the highest grossing game ever released in a first year, making 3.5 billion

Western world wise : battle royale extravaganza / live games such as Sea of Thieves / GTA online / Forza Horizon and others making waves without a pun intended and single player games being good but not to the point of influencing the industry / market like japanese games did. Guess Minecraft and Roblox just cant die anytime soon
Demons souls was in no way the most influential game lol.

PUBG without doubt has been the biggest influence on the industry in the last generation. Generation before that it was COD4. Not a chance in hell Demons Souls is more influential than them.
 

Amiga

Member
Continue making the best games with in house developers. People acting like COD is on the MtRushmore of gaming.

Worst case scenario I believe Sony could be self sufficient similar to Nintendo. To me their games are that good.

If money bought talent the best games would’ve been on MS consoles. Not the case so I don’t see the cause for concern.
CoD is the only top 10 PSN game MS can take away.
  • Fortnite
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
  • FIFA 21
  • NBA 2K21
  • Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
  • Destiny 2
  • MLB The Show 21
  • Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales
  • Demon’s Souls
  • NBA 2K22

 
Fuck no to sega aquisition. You cannot fight these swarms of rats with a retarded hedgehog

The Sonic franchise has like 1.3 billion game sales and mobile downloads. I actually think a quality Sonic game made by Sony that reviewed as well as R&C: Rift Apart would be a megahit for casual gamers. Crappy Sonic Forces was like the 3rd highest most downloaded game ever on PS Plus.
 
Good question. What makes PlayStation so great is their exclusive content. Even if microsoft just got a shit load of new franchises in their camp, some extremely high-profile, I would think that people will still want to play Sony's first-party offerings anyway.

In the scenario that Sony needs to change something to keep competing, I'd say it needs to increase the amount of system-seller exclusives by like 2-3 a year or have them buy or get exclusivity deals with Capcom and Square-Enix. Too many pillars in gaming are made by these two to ignore.
 
Good question. What makes PlayStation so great is their exclusive content. Even if microsoft just got a shit load of new franchises in their camp, some extremely high-profile, I would think that people will still want to play Sony's first-party offerings anyway.

In the scenario that Sony needs to change something to keep competing, I'd say it needs to increase the amount of system-seller exclusives by like 2-3 a year or have them buy or get exclusivity deals with Capcom and Square-Enix. Too many pillars in gaming are made by these two to ignore.
The issue with PlayStation first party games is they're mainly single player games.
 

Buki1

Member
Nice business analysis OP, but can you make it a Powerpoint presentation?
 
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Shifty1897

Member
Is that bad?
For the most part, no, but a multiplayer hit or two would be good to round out their first party catalog. Sony is getting clobbered in the multiplayer shooter genre, the multiplayer racing genre, and the multiplayer fighting/brawler genre. They really need a solid answer to at least two of the three of those. Hopefully Gran Turismo 7 will hit big and take care of one, then they just need another multiplayer hit to stay competitive, and maybe The Last of Us Factions could be it.
 
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For the most part, no, but a multiplayer hit or two would be good to round out their first party catalog. Sony is getting clobbered in the multiplayer shooter genre, the multiplayer racing genre, and the multiplayer fighting/brawler genre. They really need a solid answer to at least two of the three of those. Hopefully Gran Turismo 7 will hit big and take care of one of those.
Ok that makes a lot of sense actually.
 
I’d immediately try to buy Capcom, SNK and Platinum to start. I would infuse both studios with talent, utilize old IP and remind today’s gamers what video games can be through great gameplay, high FPS and legacy titles.

Then go after Square and SEGA.

Pivot from large AAA releases that utilize old, tried and true formats that feel more like guided experiences than actual video games.

Fund more original IP like like Returnal and Tokyo Jungle internally and create a program rivaling ID@Xbox focusing on weird, fresh gaming experiences from around the world like Incredible Crisis, Seaman, Mister Mosquito, Vib-Ribbon, etc.
 
I’d immediately try to buy Capcom, SNK and Platinum to start. I would infuse both studios with talent, utilize old IP and remind today’s gamers what video games can be through great gameplay, high FPS and legacy titles.

Then go after Square and SEGA.

Pivot from large AAA releases that utilize old, tried and true formats that feel more like guided experiences than actual video games.

Fund more original IP like like Returnal and Tokyo Jungle internally and create a program rivaling ID@Xbox focusing on weird, fresh gaming experiences from around the world like Incredible Crisis, Seaman, Mister Mosquito, Vib-Ribbon, etc.


Thats a big and a big if, that Capcom or platinum would even want to be owned by sony let alone any major publisher.
 

Fox Mulder

Member
Even if their fans don’t know it, Sony must know they aren’t MS and can’t compete with these buyouts. They aren’t going to spend billions buying EA or Take Two.

They can spend far less money starting up new studios and hoping for the next uncharted or God of War style exclusive IP. Like why not take those sexy Gran Turismo car models and make a Forza Horizon style arcade game. Make a military shooter of their own.
 
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GreatnessRD

Member
My strats as a Sony Executive

  • Bring Parity between PC and Playstatin consoles - All exclusives release day and date
  • Since Call of Casual will ultimately leave, I'm bringing back the Socom IP
  • See if I can finesse some talks to purchase Square Enix
  • Whisper in Konami's ear so I can get the Silent Hill and MGS IP's
  • Let my current studios do what they've been doing... make good games and continue to win championship
I'm not panic buying because only meatballs do such a thing.
 

MrFunSocks

Banned
I’d immediately try to buy Capcom, SNK and Platinum to start. I would infuse both studios with talent, utilize old IP and remind today’s gamers what video games can be through great gameplay, high FPS and legacy titles.

Then go after Square and SEGA.

Pivot from large AAA releases that utilize old, tried and true formats that feel more like guided experiences than actual video games.

Fund more original IP like like Returnal and Tokyo Jungle internally and create a program rivaling ID@Xbox focusing on weird, fresh gaming experiences from around the world like Incredible Crisis, Seaman, Mister Mosquito, Vib-Ribbon, etc.
The problem with this is does it really even help them? Aren’t most games those companies make these days at least timed exclusives to PlayStation already, or non-existent on Xbox? Buying them wouldn’t really make any difference unless someone else was circling to buy them. They don’t have to worry about MS buying them because they’re Japanese companies, and that’s just near impossible to do for MS.

I just don’t really see that helping too much. Their first point of action now should be to start building up replacements for all the titles they are about to lose. JRPGs and fighting games aren’t it.

People need to get the idea of them buying Take Two out of their head, they cannot afford it. They’d be having to pay at least $40bil since they bought Zynga, and that’s even assuming that they are for sale, which they aren’t. Companies that are for sale don’t pay $12bil for another company themselves lol.
 
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ReBurn

Gold Member
My strats as a Sony Executive

  • Bring Parity between PC and Playstatin consoles - All exclusives release day and date
  • Since Call of Casual will ultimately leave, I'm bringing back the Socom IP
  • See if I can finesse some talks to purchase Square Enix
  • Whisper in Konami's ear so I can get the Silent Hill and MGS IP's
  • Let my current studios do what they've been doing... make good games and continue to win championship
I'm not panic buying because only meatballs do such a thing.
Do you think reviving Socom would be enough to fill the hole COD would make if it were to leave? As in keep COD gamers from moving to PC or Xbox with it? I'm not being snarky, I'm just wondering what it would really take to keep people from following COD off of the platform.

They should definitely moneyhat stuff like Final Fantasy and Silent Hill and make investments in the kinds of games that made PlayStation what it is now. I see a lot of talk about needing a military shooter to keep the casuals but I don't think it would work. I think they need to focus on an audience that's not COD and really shore up the PlayStation's biggest fans.
 

GreatnessRD

Member
Do you think reviving Socom would be enough to fill the hole COD would make if it were to leave? As in keep COD gamers from moving to PC or Xbox with it? I'm not being snarky, I'm just wondering what it would really take to keep people from following COD off of the platform.

They should definitely moneyhat stuff like Final Fantasy and Silent Hill and make investments in the kinds of games that made PlayStation what it is now. I see a lot of talk about needing a military shooter to keep the casuals but I don't think it would work. I think they need to focus on an audience that's not COD and really shore up the PlayStation's biggest fans.
Hell naw, it won't be remotely close to filling the COD void, but they gotta start somewhere. It will return a lot of the Sony Socom faithful that has branched out, however. And I agree with the moneyhatting 100%.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Hell naw, it won't be remotely close to filling the COD void, but they gotta start somewhere. It will return a lot of the Sony Socom faithful that has branched out, however. And I agree with the moneyhatting 100%.
I guess you're right about Socom. It is better than having only EA's military shooter to keep people engaged.
 

Shubh_C63

Member
It makes sense to replace COD but Sony is already knee deep in making some multiplayer giant games with Destiny like model (I am sure of this).

COD can't be replaced but they have to fill that fast paced FPS space.
Don't be like Nintendo and restrict your core audience to specific genres only.
 

Dlacy13g

Member
Holy Wall of Text.... I am just glad there was a section that started with "if I was Sony I would".... Because everything else in the post I was not going to remotely try and follow. Next time I'd suggest you just say you have X amount of dollars to spend what do you do
 
This is the focus of this thread though. It's literally in the title. You as an executive of Sony, countering Microsoft's latest strategy. Which is acquiring as many developers, publishers and IPs as possible to brute force content output. Making Gamepass seem more compelling than ever with sheer volume and exclusives.

You see right here is wording playing into a narrative. "Brute force" acquisition. "Defensive" acquisition. "Organic growth", etc. Microsoft isn't "brute forcing" content output, otherwise we'd already be seeing a deluge of new games from the Zenimax studios but...they're taking their sweet time. Because that new content they're making is being curated and polished, not simply shoved out the door.

It's logical Nintendo often gets left out of most discussions. That's because Nintendo has no direct competitor. Their target audience is way different compared to Sony and Microsoft. Nintendo has done it themselves. They carved out a niche of which works perfectly well for them.

This isn't as true as people have convinced themselves it is. There's a decent bit of overlap between the three, and there is clearly more overlap between Sony and Nintendo than Nintendo and Microsoft. People leave Nintendo out of the discussion so that it's more convenient a discussion for them to have.

Also by your own words here you seem to suggest Sony lacks an identity, a niche, that works for them which doesn't revolve around Microsoft. Whether you believe that's true or not is besides the point (I personally don't believe it which is a big reason why I don't get involved deeply into speculative acquisitions especially when they're reactionary).

The overlap between Sony and Nintendo are marginal. Nintendo targets a way younger age group even though some of their games still speak to adults.

It's not the age demographics you should pay attention to so much as the genre demographics. And isolating a platform holder's focused target to only the 1P content is flawed especially considering you're mainly doing this with Nintendo but not Sony. All platform holders leverage 3P content to their advantage in terms of the audiences they target based on genre demographics, and there is a lot more overlap between Sony and Nintendo once that's taken into consideration than you give credit.

Sony titles speak to some Japanese gamers mostly because of their 3rd party titles. Look at the best selling 1st party titles of Sony and then look at the best selling 1st party titles of Nintendo. They can't be further from each other. Now look at the best selling 1st party titles of Sony and that of Microsoft's. Much more similar right?

Again you're simply isolating the push for 3P content exclusivity being a factor in this particular part of your argument, even though your larger speculation on acquisitions hinges on acquiring 3P content. If your logic here carried through the entire premise of the thread, wouldn't the discussion focus more on new internal 1P studio upstarts from within Sony itself rather than acquiring 3P developers and publishers?

Just goes to show how paramount 3P content, particularly exclusive content or content positioned as exclusive in that regard, is to the platform holders. They leverage that specific 3P content to bolster the image and allure of their platform within the market. And yes, Nintendo ALSO does this, so acting as though Nintendo isn't as affected by acquisitions as Microsoft on the grounds their 1P aims at some different demographics than Sony's, while simultaneously not considering how major a role exclusive 3P content factors into Nintendo's platform allure (and we can see this when looking back at prior Nintendo consoles/handhelds, too) makes no sense.

Similarly, acting as though the reason to

Remember, the 1st party exclusives are where the big 3 make the most money with. The way you use a Switch compared to the PlayStation and Xbox is also vastly different..

Uh, this isn't really true. In a way for Nintendo it might be to some extent, but their 30% cut from 3P sales do add up. For Sony and Microsoft, the VAST majority of their money comes from 3P sales. Even in their best year, Sony's 1P output only accounted for roughly 18% of PlayStation's total revenue for the prior FY (the one that ended March 2021).

The other 82%? 3P sales.

In the world of entertainment, content is king. If Sony or Microsoft were to wanna compete with Nintendo directly they would first need a console that plays similarly to that of Nintendo's. So you would need to make an extra console. Not only that but then you'd need to make titles that are comparable to that of Nintendo's. Both Sony and Microsoft made the right decision to not compete with Nintendo as they'd spread themselves way too thin then. They are having a tough enough time competing with each other. Now imagine doing that times 2. It would be nuts. It would be chaos and they would both lose their brand identity, even if they were to have enough studios to make Nintendo-like games.

Sony did exactly what you're suggesting with the PS2 and PSP; the PS2 was up against Dreamcast, Xbox, and Gamecube while the PSP was up against GBA and later the Nintendo DS. They managed to make that work, and it would've continued to if the PS3 didn't screw up in the beginning as badly as it did, but you can't really blame that on the PSP.

A few other things here I don't quite agree with; Nintendo's big strength is that they make money on their hardware from Day 1. Sony have stated they're paying close attention to the Switch OLED's performance, and they also aggressively pushed to make the PS5 (at least the Disc version) profitable in a matter of months. Additionally, considering the role Japan still serves for Sony (and knowing Nintendo dominates in that market), there's more incentive still for them to make some type of new portable for regions like it (IMO I think they're planning for one, roughly on par with PS4's specs, probably a couple years from now).

Basically I guess what I'm saying is it isn't as difficult as you think to design something to compete with Nintendo and do so without ruining their brand image. This goes for both Microsoft and Sony but especially the latter considering they've done exactly this in the past.

You get me wrong, and you'd know if you read exactly what I said. The ones I want Sony to acquire if I were to be a Sony executive are the ones that are way smaller, with way less bloat and are the ones that are upstarts. I'd want them to acquire key individuals together with the people they work the best with. Aside from Capcom I don't want Sony to acquire any publisher. How's that going tit for tat? The acquisitions I calculated cost 7.7B, nowhere close to the 77B that Microsoft put on the table.

Going "tit for tat" isn't necessarily just about the money, it's about the strategy as a whole and the reasonings/motivating factors behind such a strategy. Again the premise of the thread at least IMO is driven by a reaction to MS's acquisitions, so on some base level it's going tit-for-tat. And in terms of ideological consistency, some of your speculation here is contrary to other points you've mentioned in earlier parts of your reply.

Again, if (to you), the 1P content is strong enough and Sony's biggest source of revenue, why would they need to acquire any outside devs or pubs to begin with, given whatever they provide generates less than Sony's own current 1P output? If you want to throw away that thought (which would be a good idea, since it isn't backed up by actual financial data provided by Sony themselves), then you have to realize if the driving idea behind these speculative acquisitions isn't reactionary, people can just think it's because Sony lack a brand identity or niche, and therefore have to do so buy acquiring 3P devs and publishers. You didn't say this outright, but it can be inferred in your statements about Nintendo and what those statements imply to a company like Sony.

If you're wanting to dismiss that idea (which IMO would also be a good idea to do), then similarly it gives room for people to reject the implications that MS's acquisitions are out of a need to find a brand identity or niche, or at least ALL of their acquisitions are for that purpose. I'm not saying this is something you've ever said or implied, but it's just something I'm putting out there to other people who think such a way when it comes to these acquisition discussions.

I gave the companies pretty generous valuations, in reality the total valuation of the actual acquisitions themselves are therefore pretty damn close to the 7.7B I mentioned. It will probably go towards 9B max. Which Sony can definitely afford. The risk wouldn't be too big. If they lose all of that it would set them back a little bit more than half a year, and that's only if they lose it all. Which let's be real, the hype alone would not make that happen. And even if it did, the positive buzz would also add valuation to Sony. It would add to Sony's public perception and image. Even if that can't always be put into numbers, that stuff is invaluable.

Your numbers are too low because they aren't considering the reality of other companies looking to purchase those same entities, which would drive up the purchasing cost. If Capcom's $6.9 billion in market cap, they are likely going to sell for at least 1.5x that amount if not more, considering what other companies would look to acquire them for. That alone drives up the asking price, meaning more for Sony to pay if they won the bid.

That's why I said the risk is a notable one. Sony wouldn't be pushing for these acquisition bids in a bubble.

The selling price of the devs I mentioned will again probably be max 9B. Remember that I gave them super generous valuations. And even though they aren't mired in any way shape or form, they are upstarts with limited cumulative sales. Whereas Activision-Blizzard has proven over a decade long without fail that they are one of the best in the game sales wise.

The devs yes, maybe. But you also threw Capcom in there, and I'm speaking cumulatively here.

As said previously, companies aren't static assets. People work there. People have preferences, dreams and aspirations. If people dont agree with the huge companies you mentioned who are able to make bigger bids, they will eventually leave. What will you have bought by then by overbidding? A shell of a company that basically is nothing more than just a name and showing how big your dick is. Game Science, the studio behind Black Myth: Wukong left Tencent to work on their own stuff. You can say all you want about Sony, but very few publishers give their devs almost free reign to what they develop. That and Sony being seen as this prolific publisher, offering the highest quality that people have ever experienced would want to make devs and companies join them. Many devs want to improve. Within Sony they can. It's no secret many studios share their tech and ideas with each other within Sony.

None of this is exclusive to Sony, though, and of the major companies ones like Tencent are the outlier in terms of driving potential employees to leave. What you're saying CAN happen, but in the case of various game-related acquisitions over the years it's been fairly rare of a happening.

There are instances where some companies would prefer to be acquired by certain other companies but I can assure you it's not out of some idealistic notion of "improving" under the wings of a certain platform holder. Which, quite frankly, is a bit insulting to the talents of the company that would be acquired, as if they aren't good enough as-is without being acquired and in such a case...why would they be the target of an acquisition in the first place?

Unless by "improving" you mean money for funding, because that is almost always the #1 driving factor in these kind of deals. The company being acquired should generally already have the talent, they just may need the resources and money, and in case of the former, perhaps specific resources that can be gathered by leveraging networking of the parent company looking to buy.

Isn't Sony acquiring the devs I mentioned and making them make great quality games not them doubling down what they are already doing? In contrary you just mentioned the idea of Sony putting their 1st party games on PC day 1 with a PC launcher. How is that even doubling down on what they are doing? They've never done that before. Plus this would not only make them compete with Microsoft, this will also make them compete with Epic Games.

This is me looking at it from a business perspective. Sony's strategy, regardless of any acquisitions, clearly involves opening up to and expanding further within the PC platform, to generate even more revenue and profit for the PlayStation division. If they're going to expand further in that space regardless, and want to mitigate any potential losses in console sales by doing so, they are going to want to create a launcher where they can 100% own the storefront and monetize that storefront even without a person making purchases on the store.

Which means offering PS+/PS Now style perks to subscriptions and an ad-supported version for those who don't subscribe. By doing that they are able to justify Day 1 releases, leverage the PS brand in the PC space to provide an alternative storefront from Steam, GOG, Epic etc., use the strength of their 1P content to drive engagement with their storefront/launcher on PC, leverage a linking of their PS side and PC side to allow devs to publish their games on both (as well as physically distribute their games in retail stores) while only paying a single licensing fee for both storefront types (instead of two separate ones like many do when publishing on PS and then porting to Steam, where they pay Sony a 30% cut for PS sales and Valve a 30% cut for Steam sales), and pair this with driving their PS console revisions into territory where slight profits (if not more) can be made on consoles sold, massively mitigating financial risks across the board and enabling a much wider audience for their 1P content sales.

And realistically, if anything, THAT would be the driving impetus for them making most further 3P developer acquisitions, let alone a major 3P publisher one. Without it their reasons of justification dramatically reduce.

I imagine Sony would want to keep Epic Games as their ally and not their enemy. Making them your enemy might make you lose out on their Unreal Engine 5, which everyone is so impressed by. That would definitely hurt Sony in some areas. Sony just made an effort to strengthen their relationship with Epic Games, it makes no sense to create that relationship and then instantly destroying that. You would've been basically investing into that without reaping any rewards from that. That's just not a good business move.

This makes no sense; Sony making their own storefront/launcher that competes with Epic doesn't mean they suddenly lose access to UE5! Otherwise MS wouldn't have access to it at all considering all of their games go to Steam and not EGS. Sony's "effort" to strengthen their relationship with Epic was buying a 2.5% stake into the company, which is minuscule in almost any respect.

Additionally, them doing their own launcher/storefront has no bearing on their licensing of UE5 for software and film/television production/development. Those things are being done by two different departments within Epic Games, and there are plenty of business relationships out there where two companies are cooperating closely in one space/area while being competitive in another. I mean, we see that already between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo!

Oh yeah, staying complacent and not doing anything when your competitor just acquired one of the biggest publishers ever and hoping for the best gives you control. Like how's that even logical lol. If Microsoft can buy Activision-Blizzard, they can buy any other publisher. Sony's stock dropped 20B in a day time. Not acquiring anything would put them on the spot where they will have less and less choice of the ones they wanna buy, it would only mean it's harder for them to hire any new talent. Not to mention they risk of getting their stock value drop more and more while the competition is getting stronger and stronger. Sony now just lost 20B with nothing gained. Better to spend that 20B and get something in return wouldn't you say?

And this is just more to show that the driving impetus in this discussion is a reactionary one but realistically, Sony don't need to be reactionary here. No one does. Sony don't need to acquire a dev or publisher to get new talent per se, though it is a pathway towards getting such talent.

So what if their stock dropped $20 billion? Why do you think Microsoft put out the COD statement so soon? Part of that was to stop Sony's stock from dropping any further, which should already somewhat indicate MS's intent here isn't what some other people might want to think it is. If Sony sticks to their strengths and deliver quality products that perform very well on the market, they'll make back that lost market cap value swiftly if it hasn't happened already.

You're also only looking at this from a Microsoft and Sony POV; there ARE other companies out here with major purchasing power, including other 3P publishers like Take-Two, EA, etc. Who's to say none of them end up buying some of these other 3P developers, or enter mergers with them? And that's not even to say anything about Tencent or Embracer Group.

I don't know why you gave that example, that was a different time with different circumstances. It's really not comparable by any means.

The example was given because it just goes to show that what's happening now isn't very different fundamentally from what's happened in the past. The Sega example is to show what happens when you're too reactionary to the market around you instead of playing to your strengths; the people who are constantly saying "Oh now Sony GOTTA acquire (insert company here)!" , they don't realize it but with the degree and emphasis of it the give, they're asking for Sony to be very reactionary.

And that could hurt them. Perhaps significantly. If it comes down to who has the money to spend, Sony can't necessarily play in that space for very long.

Your last paragraph just described what I said earlier. The acquisitions I mentioned are all devs who have a good relationship with Sony and aside from Capcom, they are all quite new. Some of them havent even put out a game yet. Also what I mentioned just means they are doing exactly what they are doing now, they would just be more aggressive about it and speed up the process they were going towards anyways. I never said they should change their approach, unlike you did. For example putting their 1st party titles on PC with a PC launcher. They've never ever done what you suggested. If they followed your approach THEN they'd be changing their ways of how they tackle things now.

The PC launcher example is just me noting a logical next step for a part of their strategy they are already moving towards, so I don't see what's so outlandish about it. For a company like Sony, if they want to do Day 1 in their own service, they'd want to find a way to make that on a per-game basis, most likely. If they want to do Day 1 on PC, they'd want to do that in a way where they control the storefront 100%.

For the latter, whether that's fully on their own or perhaps in a significant partnership with Epic Game Store, the concept itself would be one they'd pursue for Day 1 on PC.
 

JimRyanGOAT

Member
You're already seeing it

  1. TLOU Factions II
  2. Sony London's MP project
  3. Firesprite
  4. Deviation Games
  5. Insomniacs MP project with Marvel
  6. Haven Studios MP project
  7. GG Games MP project (Possibly Socom?)

Do you guys think this deal happened overnight? Microsoft was probably negotiating with Activision since 18-19 and Sony DEFINITELY knew about it.

Personally, if Factions has battle royale, I think that'll be the next big thing in MP gaming.

As long as the gameplay isn't paced like the SP campaign, you need that fast-paced twitch aspect in MP games
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
You're already seeing it

  1. TLOU Factions II
  2. Sony London's MP project
  3. Firesprite
  4. Deviation Games
  5. Insomniacs MP project with Marvel
  6. Haven Studios MP project
  7. GG Games MP project

Do you guys think this deal happened overnight? Microsoft was probably negotiating with Activision since 18-19 and Sony DEFINITELY knew about it.

Personally, if Factions has battle royale, I think that'll be the next big thing in MP gaming.

As long as the gameplay isn't paced like the SP campaign, you need that fast-paced twitch aspect in MP games
Good point.

Kind of weird at the moment MS buy Activision (which surely took time), Sony suddenly 180s to MP games internally.
 
You're already seeing it

  1. TLOU Factions II
  2. Sony London's MP project
  3. Firesprite
  4. Deviation Games
  5. Insomniacs MP project with Marvel
  6. Haven Studios MP project
  7. GG Games MP project (Possibly Socom?)

Do you guys think this deal happened overnight? Microsoft was probably negotiating with Activision since 18-19 and Sony DEFINITELY knew about it.

Personally, if Factions has battle royale, I think that'll be the next big thing in MP gaming.

As long as the gameplay isn't paced like the SP campaign, you need that fast-paced twitch aspect in MP games

This deal happened within the span of a couple of weeks not years.
 

Snake29

RSI Employee of the Year
The news has really brought the inner drama queens out of people. They seem to believe that if Xbox pulls ahead of Sony's gaming division in profits that Playstation is doomed and dead.

They could never make another acquisition again and still be a profitable business.

It’s tiresome and they never learn. Atm they just play the acquisition game. PS fans are playing games in the coming months.
 
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Tschumi

Member
*look at it*
*Bring forward a few previews and game announcements*
*Go back to what I've been doing so well for a decade*
 
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