nocsi
Member
The answer is actually yes, but only in areas where it has nothing to do with Video Games. Mind you I invest in Sony, primarily because of their semiconductor and R&D. Because otherwise their video game side is completely mismanaged and dragging down the rest of the company. And yes, I know games are 1/3 of the company. But like most things in life, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Especially a market segment that contributes nothing to the rest of the company, is incredibly volatile and keeps burning money.
Actually the way I see it, there's like two Sonys - there's the Japanese side and there's the Western side. Only one side actually operates cohesive, the other side burns money and ditches, leaving behind the consequences. It's very much conflicting cultures.
Video Games Studio Acquisitions
Psygnosis (1995): £20 million
Incognito Entertainment (2002): ?? millions
Zipper Interactive (2006): ?? millions
Sigil Games Online: ?? millions
Evolution Studios (2007): ?? millions
Bend Studio (2000): ?? millions
Guerilla Games (2005): ?? millions
Bigbig Evolution Studios: ?? millions
Media Molecule (2010): ?? millions
Sucker Punch Productions (2011): ?? millions
Incomniac Games (2019): $229 million
Housemarque (2021): ?? millions
Firesprite (2021): ?? millions
Fabrik Games (2021): ?? millions
Bluepoint Games (2021): ?? millions
Haven Studios - Jade Raymond's scam studio (2020): ??????? millions
Valkyrie Entertainment (2021): ?? millions
Bungie (2022): $3.8 Billion
Firewalk Studios (2023): ????????? millions
How many of the above are still around and producing. I've bolded the WTF ones that are either expensive af, not able to produce and/or otherwise cannot ever produce. Notice the lack of Japanese studio acquisitions. Mind you, the amount Sony spends, ~$200 million is equivalent to acquiring a semiconductor factory, a separate semiconductor company and with change to spare.
Another comparison, the Bungle acquisition, $3.8 billion, is equivalent to Sony's other largest purchaes -- combined. Sony Ericsson ($1.5b) + EMI Music ($2.3b). What genius convinced Sony to buy Bungle, when they have always had a strong history of frequent smaller company acquisitions. It's literally codified in their entire company structure to never purchase big, but rather maintain numerous agile business segments. Another way of looking at this, their most net income reporting is $7.5 billion. Why the fuck would you burn half of that on a giant turd of a studio. At least Microsoft buying Activision, they can spin off those IPs into film. But again, wtf is Bungie, at the time of acquisition the reports were they were flying to all the studios to consult for their live service projects. It sounds like they were living it up, vacationing around the world and overall not producing shit.
Again, how did they get this deal to go through. Every other of Sony's business divisions kinda get it and are doing operating slim, maintaining profitability and producing R&D. But wtf are the jokers in the Video Game division investing in. They could've bought out every Japanese studio for the cost of Bungie.
Cloud Streaming
They bought both Onlive and Gaikai, which fundamentally do the same thing. Stream video games off of server racks of hardware. The difference is they've implemented conflicting and different sets of protocols and technologies to facilitate this. To this day, Sony is still using the Genki protocols to do all their streaming, rather than just using a WebRTC based approach, which would allow every other device on the planet to be able to directly stream Playstation Plus games. They literally could've just piggybacked of Microsoft's streaming infrastructure -- being that Sony already uses them as a cloud provider. But they went all the way to purchasing a proprietary technology, have to now maintain that tech, but to expand reach, they have to port this technology to every other device out there. Again, it's not as easy as just taking actual open-source tech that every company does: WebRTC, and using hardened tech that by default works everywhere, utilizes the inherent processing boosts found in your GPU/CPU.
They did pick up some sweet patents from OnLive though, in case there's some idiot out there willing to steal Gaikai technology. Which there probably isn't since you can fully read through the protocol from the reverse engineering the Chiaki dev had to do.
Total: $380 million (Gaikai) + ~$5 million? (OnLive, patents)
Crunchyroll/Funimation
This one's funny, there's literally no value with Crunchyroll, other than they had a portion of the market and the company is filled with dramatic problem people. Because otherwise, Funimation was a way better brand than literally a food only weeaboos would order (Crunchyroll). They merged all the funimation stuff into Crunchroll, aka just transferred licensing for anime, and let Crunchyroll fully run things. Crazy, because the Funimation frontend + backend was actually way better compared to Crunchyroll's. But this is Sony we're talking about.
Total: $1.2 billion (Crunchyroll) + $140 million (Funimation)
Stakes
Bilibili (2020): $400 million (5% stake)
Epic Games (2021): $1.45 billion (5.4% stake)
Kadokawa (2021): $365 million (2% stake)
Discord (2021): ??
FromSoftware (2022): $122 million (14%)
Again, it's always the western investments that are the most costly but produces absolutely nothing. Personally I prefer Sony doing stakes, rather than wholly acquiring companies. The shitshow they were doing with acquisitions should've all been stakes that they brought in other partners/bagholders. Meanwhile the stakes they've been doing should actually be whole acquisition. Imagine Sony wholly acquired Discord, Kadokawa/FromSoftware, and Spotify. They'd have unmatched growth. But instead they went out and bought flaming turds like Bungie, and Bungie's shitty kid, Firewalk studios. Those guys got Sony for double.
Bungie/Concord/Jade Raymond
I had to make a separate section to shit talk Bungie. Like dude you have a studio that was expensive AF to buy, but also is plagiarizing people off the Internet. Again, wtf did Sony buy this studio for? They could've just bought Sony or Square-Enix, double up their releases to coincide with Movie releases and you can be sitting pretty with very reliable income streams. Literally Microsoft is enjoying the success of Minecraft movie, Sega with Sonic films and Nintendo with Mario. Wtf weird movie would Bungie ever be able to produce. The productive side of Sony is about to pickup Kadokawa and get anime/manga boosted. Wtf is Bungle going to be able to contribute other than estrogen maxed males. Literally every dev I've seen at that place is incredibly low energy. Not even on-drugs low-energy. They're the type of people you shove down to a lion to buy yourself an extra 5 minutes of escape time. Like somebody at Sony saw these guys and thought they'd produce. I have a tip for Sony, if you want to acquire a good company, find one where the employees have cigarette burns on their desks and theres a shit ton of red bulls everywhere. Those guys got the energy, and they produce.
Concord has been discussed endlessly. But I read old articles about Sony execs meeting with the team constantly. And throughout that entire process, they've always come off impressed. Wtf is there to be impressed about when every character is ugly af. Like literally, they're all so ugly that it hurts gamer's eyes to look at, but everyone's so nice nowadays that they claim there's something else with the game.
Also buckleup for the Jade Raymond shitshow. To this day, nobody has seen or heard anything from that studio.
Total: $3.8 billion (bungie) + $200 million (concord)
VR2
Shit's bad. How do you release something then immediately ignore it. Fucken deadbeat dad/mom. Birthed it and ditched.
Immersion V. Sony
Remember this whole debacle? Microsoft and Sony were using rotating weights, Nintendo was using back-and-forth weights for vibration tech. Sony tried to ignore it, which to be fair, the patents were pretty bullshit, and proceeded to lose. Microsoft rather than fight it in court - settled and proceeded to buy a 10% stake in Immersion.
Sony lost in court and paid $90 million. Some of that going to Microsoft of course. Sony also pays $30million in licensing fees to Immersion. And additional licensing payments through 2009. Extra $22.5 million. They got patent squatted on hard, and Microsoft made back its money just sitting there with their stake in Immersion.
Like you couldn't switch to Nintendo's design, pay them, license it? Or maybe innovate another way. The best move would be to partner with Apple and develop a new tech, to which you can just piggyback off their tech. Those $150+ millions they paid to immersion could've funded 50 different R&D projects.
Total: $200 million
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Total total: ~$5.8 billion blown up
Mind you, I'm being generous with my estimates on money wasted. It's probably double this. And these are just the ones I've wanted to highlight.
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Honestly, Sony needs to just divest its Video Game stuff. It's completely distracting to the rest of the company and it doesn't really integrate into the verticals like it once did. The entire division operates like a rogue entity that once was reliably profitable, but now is operated like a house fire that drags everyone down.
Because otherwise, like I've said, every other Sony market segment is doing incredible stuff. They also all cooperate and integrate with one another. It's only the video game side that's doing this weird rogue shit but also burning up the company's profits. Like I get investments used to be tied to DEI requirements, but they dranked too much of that Kool-Aid. They just had to pretend to drink it to get those investments, rather than actually drinking it and letting the clowns drive the car.
Other investors kinda feel the same way. The game section is doomed unless Sony can figure out how to onboard more customers that doesn't require them to buy a PS5. If they could figure out how to get their services out to iOS and Android users, that would 10x their performance. But they literally can't because they spent boatloads on Gaikai and have to spend additional money on engineering that technology to be able to work efficiently on mobile devices.
So I ask, wtf has Sony done in terms of investments that was actually smart?
Actually the way I see it, there's like two Sonys - there's the Japanese side and there's the Western side. Only one side actually operates cohesive, the other side burns money and ditches, leaving behind the consequences. It's very much conflicting cultures.
Video Games Studio Acquisitions
Psygnosis (1995): £20 million
Incognito Entertainment (2002): ?? millions
Zipper Interactive (2006): ?? millions
Sigil Games Online: ?? millions
Evolution Studios (2007): ?? millions
Bend Studio (2000): ?? millions
Guerilla Games (2005): ?? millions
Bigbig Evolution Studios: ?? millions
Media Molecule (2010): ?? millions
Sucker Punch Productions (2011): ?? millions
Incomniac Games (2019): $229 million
Housemarque (2021): ?? millions
Firesprite (2021): ?? millions
Fabrik Games (2021): ?? millions
Bluepoint Games (2021): ?? millions
Haven Studios - Jade Raymond's scam studio (2020): ??????? millions
Valkyrie Entertainment (2021): ?? millions
Bungie (2022): $3.8 Billion
Firewalk Studios (2023): ????????? millions
How many of the above are still around and producing. I've bolded the WTF ones that are either expensive af, not able to produce and/or otherwise cannot ever produce. Notice the lack of Japanese studio acquisitions. Mind you, the amount Sony spends, ~$200 million is equivalent to acquiring a semiconductor factory, a separate semiconductor company and with change to spare.
Another comparison, the Bungle acquisition, $3.8 billion, is equivalent to Sony's other largest purchaes -- combined. Sony Ericsson ($1.5b) + EMI Music ($2.3b). What genius convinced Sony to buy Bungle, when they have always had a strong history of frequent smaller company acquisitions. It's literally codified in their entire company structure to never purchase big, but rather maintain numerous agile business segments. Another way of looking at this, their most net income reporting is $7.5 billion. Why the fuck would you burn half of that on a giant turd of a studio. At least Microsoft buying Activision, they can spin off those IPs into film. But again, wtf is Bungie, at the time of acquisition the reports were they were flying to all the studios to consult for their live service projects. It sounds like they were living it up, vacationing around the world and overall not producing shit.
Again, how did they get this deal to go through. Every other of Sony's business divisions kinda get it and are doing operating slim, maintaining profitability and producing R&D. But wtf are the jokers in the Video Game division investing in. They could've bought out every Japanese studio for the cost of Bungie.
Cloud Streaming
They bought both Onlive and Gaikai, which fundamentally do the same thing. Stream video games off of server racks of hardware. The difference is they've implemented conflicting and different sets of protocols and technologies to facilitate this. To this day, Sony is still using the Genki protocols to do all their streaming, rather than just using a WebRTC based approach, which would allow every other device on the planet to be able to directly stream Playstation Plus games. They literally could've just piggybacked of Microsoft's streaming infrastructure -- being that Sony already uses them as a cloud provider. But they went all the way to purchasing a proprietary technology, have to now maintain that tech, but to expand reach, they have to port this technology to every other device out there. Again, it's not as easy as just taking actual open-source tech that every company does: WebRTC, and using hardened tech that by default works everywhere, utilizes the inherent processing boosts found in your GPU/CPU.
They did pick up some sweet patents from OnLive though, in case there's some idiot out there willing to steal Gaikai technology. Which there probably isn't since you can fully read through the protocol from the reverse engineering the Chiaki dev had to do.
Total: $380 million (Gaikai) + ~$5 million? (OnLive, patents)
Crunchyroll/Funimation
This one's funny, there's literally no value with Crunchyroll, other than they had a portion of the market and the company is filled with dramatic problem people. Because otherwise, Funimation was a way better brand than literally a food only weeaboos would order (Crunchyroll). They merged all the funimation stuff into Crunchroll, aka just transferred licensing for anime, and let Crunchyroll fully run things. Crazy, because the Funimation frontend + backend was actually way better compared to Crunchyroll's. But this is Sony we're talking about.
Total: $1.2 billion (Crunchyroll) + $140 million (Funimation)
Stakes
Bilibili (2020): $400 million (5% stake)
Epic Games (2021): $1.45 billion (5.4% stake)
Kadokawa (2021): $365 million (2% stake)
Discord (2021): ??
FromSoftware (2022): $122 million (14%)
Again, it's always the western investments that are the most costly but produces absolutely nothing. Personally I prefer Sony doing stakes, rather than wholly acquiring companies. The shitshow they were doing with acquisitions should've all been stakes that they brought in other partners/bagholders. Meanwhile the stakes they've been doing should actually be whole acquisition. Imagine Sony wholly acquired Discord, Kadokawa/FromSoftware, and Spotify. They'd have unmatched growth. But instead they went out and bought flaming turds like Bungie, and Bungie's shitty kid, Firewalk studios. Those guys got Sony for double.
Bungie/Concord/Jade Raymond
I had to make a separate section to shit talk Bungie. Like dude you have a studio that was expensive AF to buy, but also is plagiarizing people off the Internet. Again, wtf did Sony buy this studio for? They could've just bought Sony or Square-Enix, double up their releases to coincide with Movie releases and you can be sitting pretty with very reliable income streams. Literally Microsoft is enjoying the success of Minecraft movie, Sega with Sonic films and Nintendo with Mario. Wtf weird movie would Bungie ever be able to produce. The productive side of Sony is about to pickup Kadokawa and get anime/manga boosted. Wtf is Bungle going to be able to contribute other than estrogen maxed males. Literally every dev I've seen at that place is incredibly low energy. Not even on-drugs low-energy. They're the type of people you shove down to a lion to buy yourself an extra 5 minutes of escape time. Like somebody at Sony saw these guys and thought they'd produce. I have a tip for Sony, if you want to acquire a good company, find one where the employees have cigarette burns on their desks and theres a shit ton of red bulls everywhere. Those guys got the energy, and they produce.
Concord has been discussed endlessly. But I read old articles about Sony execs meeting with the team constantly. And throughout that entire process, they've always come off impressed. Wtf is there to be impressed about when every character is ugly af. Like literally, they're all so ugly that it hurts gamer's eyes to look at, but everyone's so nice nowadays that they claim there's something else with the game.
Also buckleup for the Jade Raymond shitshow. To this day, nobody has seen or heard anything from that studio.
Total: $3.8 billion (bungie) + $200 million (concord)
VR2
Shit's bad. How do you release something then immediately ignore it. Fucken deadbeat dad/mom. Birthed it and ditched.
Immersion V. Sony
Remember this whole debacle? Microsoft and Sony were using rotating weights, Nintendo was using back-and-forth weights for vibration tech. Sony tried to ignore it, which to be fair, the patents were pretty bullshit, and proceeded to lose. Microsoft rather than fight it in court - settled and proceeded to buy a 10% stake in Immersion.
Sony lost in court and paid $90 million. Some of that going to Microsoft of course. Sony also pays $30million in licensing fees to Immersion. And additional licensing payments through 2009. Extra $22.5 million. They got patent squatted on hard, and Microsoft made back its money just sitting there with their stake in Immersion.
Like you couldn't switch to Nintendo's design, pay them, license it? Or maybe innovate another way. The best move would be to partner with Apple and develop a new tech, to which you can just piggyback off their tech. Those $150+ millions they paid to immersion could've funded 50 different R&D projects.
Total: $200 million
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Total total: ~$5.8 billion blown up
Mind you, I'm being generous with my estimates on money wasted. It's probably double this. And these are just the ones I've wanted to highlight.
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Honestly, Sony needs to just divest its Video Game stuff. It's completely distracting to the rest of the company and it doesn't really integrate into the verticals like it once did. The entire division operates like a rogue entity that once was reliably profitable, but now is operated like a house fire that drags everyone down.
Because otherwise, like I've said, every other Sony market segment is doing incredible stuff. They also all cooperate and integrate with one another. It's only the video game side that's doing this weird rogue shit but also burning up the company's profits. Like I get investments used to be tied to DEI requirements, but they dranked too much of that Kool-Aid. They just had to pretend to drink it to get those investments, rather than actually drinking it and letting the clowns drive the car.
Other investors kinda feel the same way. The game section is doomed unless Sony can figure out how to onboard more customers that doesn't require them to buy a PS5. If they could figure out how to get their services out to iOS and Android users, that would 10x their performance. But they literally can't because they spent boatloads on Gaikai and have to spend additional money on engineering that technology to be able to work efficiently on mobile devices.
So I ask, wtf has Sony done in terms of investments that was actually smart?
