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[Dolodolo]

So you'd rather believe Shreier?

Well, I'm basically saying that right now I don't see any Sony games that are small in size. Is that from Pixel Opus, but there is also unclear. They seem to be doing a project together with Sony Animation.
I'm sure the next Astrobot will be a big money platformer.

 

[lh032]

So you'd rather believe Shreier?

actually schreier is correct...alot of times imo

 

[yurinka]

Hermеn Hulst says a lot of things. He said a million times that Sony is first and foremost storytellers and their main driving mechanism is single games.

At the same time, Sony is going to release 10 services by 2026. It's funny, basically.

And again, those games that you listed. All of them were approved by Shawn Leiden.

The indie initiative is just a small offshoot where Shuhei Yoshida buys some temporary indies for little money. Not development within Sony itself. Different things.

Can you provide a link where Hermen lied?

Shawn was CEO of Worldwide Studios only during a year and a half or so and was replaced/left at the end of September 2019. Concrete Genie was released a month after he left. Dreams and Astro were released like a year or less after the left. It's hard to believe they had a development time so short that Shawn could have been who greenlighted them. And well, WWW/PS Studios is for the games published by Sony, not for 3rd party indie games. So Shawn had nothing to do with 3rd party indies.

Regarding the 10 GaaS, Bungie plans to release "at least one" new IP before 2025 (so pretty likely they have 2 until 2026). They already released MLB22 and GT7. There are 6 left, and 3 are the Haven, Deviation and Firewalk ones. The other 3 pretty likely are the TLOU2 MP game, the London Studio online game and the unannounced Guerrilla game with MP or the Firesprite game with MP.

Hermen said they had over 25 games under development, and since pretty likely a couple of these 10 online game are 2 Bungie games -who still weren't acquired by them-, out these OVER 25 games, only a third are GaaS.

In any case, Shawn no longer works for Sony. Hermen is in charge of PS Studios, and he said it's proud of their smaller and more experimental games and that will continue games of these types at PS Studios. Jason Shredder/Bloomberg was lying and spreading FUD over Sony again and Hermen debunked that false claim.

PlayStation Indies will support way more than 10 games before 2026, they have many games every year. Probably over 10 per year. And well, by definition a game published or developed by a top dog publisher like Sony may be a small game but isn't an indie. Like in cinema, music or comics indie means independent, not published by a major publisher.

PlayStation Indies not only buys timed temporal exclusives. Some games are multiplatform. They help them with marketting, PR and store visibility, and depending on the case Sony helps them with other things they may need like funding or -as in the case of Kena- stuff like localization and QA.

 

[StealthGoblin]

The only three that I see making financial sense for Sony are Capcom, Square Enix and Konami. Of those, the two former have the biggest episode for Sony.

Capcom - Street Fighter (EVO), Resident Evil (VR support), DMC etc, but there also some franchises that could be given a reboot such as Breath of Fire, Onimusha and Dino Crisis. There is also a lot of IP that could be good for Spartacus. The downside is there aren’t many Live Service games, but Sony has a lot going on in that area already.

Square Enix - Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts, Tomb Raider and some other IP that if handled properly such as Valkyrie and Star Ocean could do well too. A big draw is the ongoing success of FFXIV. There isn’t much synergy here for some of their other initiatives.

Warner Bros Interactive appear good on the surface, but a lot of the value is linked to licensing.

 

[Swift_Star]

I dont care about acquisitions anymore. It doesnt really give PS owners any good value, and if anything limits the budgets for each studio by splitting the budget pool with other studios under the Sony umbrella. Also, with Bungie going multiplatform, I cant even get hard thinking about what they would do with the PS5 IO and SSD. I do think working on one platform is better for devs overall, but Bungie and other big Sony acquisitions wont be doing that so who cares.

That said, credit where credit is due and Jimbo getting Housemarque, Nixxes, Insomniac and BP deals done is a big deal. Bungie he had to do as a response to CoD going to Microsoft just to show that they wont be calling it quits, but I think it's time to settle down and focus on increasing budgets for their first party studios. Wouldve loved to get Kojima but he couldve easily given Kojima a $100 million to make his next game in 2019 which might have been ready by 2022 seeing as how fast he works. He didn't and now Kojima has no game to work on and he doesn't want to be acquired so Jimbo's fucked up that relationship for sure.

Just go on a hiring spree. Acquire support studios like Nixxes. There are plenty of them in Asia. Get them to help out ND, SSM, Sucker Punch and GG because right now those studios are struggling to put out games in a timely fashion. That should be the priority now. They have enough studios. It's time to make them more productive.

What a load of BS. Most of this makes no sense at all.

 

[Shmunter]

How about putting forward some of that cash to creating next gen only marvels Jim, instead of trying to cash in on the mass install base of last gen.

What this man doesn’t get is the intangible benefits of brand loyalty and brand building.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Ya know what I'd love to see happen?

If all of these acquisitions go through, that MS and Sony meet up and say "you can have these exclusives if we can have these"

Yes, I have a major headache right now and stupid shit is working its way out of my brain.

 

[Topher]

Bungie he had to do as a response to CoD going to Microsoft just to show that they wont be calling it quits,

Bungie wasn't a response to CoD. The negotiations were going on for months prior to the AB announcement.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Hermеn Hulst says a lot of things. He said a million times that Sony is first and foremost storytellers and their main driving mechanism is single games.

At the same time, Sony is going to release 10 services by 2026. It's funny, basically.

And again, those games that you listed. All of them were approved by Shawn Leiden.

The indie initiative is just a small offshoot where Shuhei Yoshida buys some temporary indies for little money. Not development within Sony itself. Different things.

Well until 2026 Sony will have released more than 10 story driven games. Horizon Forbidden west was the first one since he said that. So he didn't lie.

Live games are games that will need to be maintained and Sony won't be releasing more than 10 like that.

I don't see what's weird about Sony trying to be betting on something new while keeping up with releasing what they always did.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I think Sony should get Metal Gear under the Playstation Studios umbrella and make some AAA games. It needs to come back.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

Live games are games that will need to be maintained and Sony won't be releasing more than 10 like that.

The actual quote is here... (February 2nd, 2022)

"Through close collaboration between Bungie and the PlayStation Studios, we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026," the company said.

 

[StealthGoblin]

I think Sony should get Metal Gear under the Playstation Studios umbrella and make some AAA games. It needs to come back.

MGS2 (including all platforms and the substance versions) sold ~7.4 million units. That is substantially less than Days Gone, which Sony don’t think is worth a sequel.

The Konami IPs aren’t that valuable and they don’t have talent attached to them.

 

[kyoji]

I dont care about acquisitions anymore. It doesnt really give PS owners any good value, and if anything limits the budgets for each studio by splitting the budget pool with other studios under the Sony umbrella. Also, with Bungie going multiplatform, I cant even get hard thinking about what they would do with the PS5 IO and SSD. I do think working on one platform is better for devs overall, but Bungie and other big Sony acquisitions wont be doing that so who cares.

That said, credit where credit is due and Jimbo getting Housemarque, Nixxes, Insomniac and BP deals done is a big deal. Bungie he had to do as a response to CoD going to Microsoft just to show that they wont be calling it quits, but I think it's time to settle down and focus on increasing budgets for their first party studios. Wouldve loved to get Kojima but he couldve easily given Kojima a $100 million to make his next game in 2019 which might have been ready by 2022 seeing as how fast he works. He didn't and now Kojima has no game to work on and he doesn't want to be acquired so Jimbo's fucked up that relationship for sure.

Just go on a hiring spree. Acquire support studios like Nixxes. There are plenty of them in Asia. Get them to help out ND, SSM, Sucker Punch and GG because right now those studios are struggling to put out games in a timely fashion. That should be the priority now. They have enough studios. It's time to make them more productive.

Some major in accuracies in your 2nd paragraph… You do realize playstation was in talks to acquire bungie before Activision was even on the table right?….

 

[SlimySnake]

What a load of BS. Most of this makes no sense at all.

lol

 

[Dolodolo]

How about putting forward some of that cash to creating next gen only marvels Jim, instead of trying to cash in on the mass install base of last gen.

What this man doesn’t get is the intangible benefits of brand loyalty and brand building.

I think God of War will be the last cross gen game. Well, maybe more Factions 2

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

The actual quote is here... (February 2nd, 2022)

"Through close collaboration between Bungie and the PlayStation Studios, we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2026," the company said.

We don't know if they are 11 or 99. My post still stands.

There's no indication Sony is now focusing in more live service games than story driven games.

Just from the games we know since Herman said that we get Horizon Forbidden west, God of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us remake, Spider-Man 2, Wolverine. There. 5 games just between 2022 and 2023/2024. Most of what Sony is releasing is yet to be announced...I don't see how their main focus has changed.

 

[remember_spinal]

Sony said they had over 25 games in production two months ago, so at least 26, if 10 are GAAS that means at least 16 are single player

 

[Dolodolo]

Let's count



Live-servicе:
1. Haven Project
2. Guerilla Project 2
3. Bungie Project
4. Insomniac multiplayer project
5. Twisted Metal Project
6. Firewalk project
7. London Studio Project
8. Fraction's project
9. Gran Turismo 7
10. Firesprite multiplayer shooter
11. Arrowhead Project



Singleplayer:
1. Horizon FW
2. GOW Ragnarok
3. Spider-man 2
4. Wolverine
5. Ghost of Tsishima 2
6. Cory Barlog Project
7. Pixel Opus(Sly Cooper maybe?))
8. Firesprite Horror project
9. Bluepoint Remake
10. Bluepoint non-remake project(Bloodborne 2?)))
11. Tlou Remake
12. New Naughty dog project
13. New Astrobot project
14. Housemarque new project
15. Xdev Project(s)



Not completely clear:
1. Bend new Project
2. Deviation Games project


Poop:
MLB The Show Series

 

[remember_spinal]

Let's count



Live-servicе:
1. Haven Project
2. Guerilla Project 2
3. Bungie Project
4. Insomniac multiplayer project
5. Twisted Metall Project
6. Firewalk project
7. London Studio Project
8. Fraction's project
9. Gran Turismo 7
10. Firesprite multiplayer shooter
11. Arrowhead Project



Singleplayer:
1. Horizon FW
2. GOW Ragnarok
3. Spider-man 2
4. Wolverine
5. Ghost of Tsishima 2
6. Cory Barlog Project
7. Pixel Opus(Sly Cooper maybe?))
8. Firesprite Horror project
9. Bluepoint Remake
10. Bluepoint non-remake project(Bloodborne 2?)))
11. Tlou Remake
12. New Naughty dog project
13. New Astrobot project
14. Housemarque new project
15. Xdev Project(s)



Not completely clear:
1. Bend new Project
2. Deviation Games project


Poop:
MLB The Show Series

Looking at that list I think it would almost be counter productive for sony to have 25+ single player games only in production.

For years people have said they need to diversify and thats exactly what they’re doing. We’re still getting the same amount of blockbuster single player games, now with a multiplayer/shooter/service title in-between.

That meme of 3rd person in the forest walking games are dead

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

We don't know if they are 11 or 99. My post still stands.

There's no indication Sony is now focusing in more live service games than story driven games.

Just from the games we know since Herman said that we get Horizon Forbidden west, God of War Ragnarok, The Last of Us remake, Spider-Man 2, Wolverine. There. 5 games just between 2022 and 2023/2024. Most of what Sony is releasing is yet to be announced...I don't see how their main focus has changed.

I agree we don't know one way or the other.

However, I did look into PlayStation studios hiring about a year ago and the only two studios that had no recent history of hiring multiplayer focused positions were Pixel Opus and Santa Monica. I assume Bluepoint would be on that list as well.

Sony seems to have oriented towards greenlighting 10x type games. Games that have the potential to be billion dollar revenue earners. IE big IP single player games (Star Wars, Spiderman) and GAAS gambles. Their main focus for the PS4 was single player and quirky stuff that never sold (often single player). Their focus has shifted immensely over the last 3, 4 years.

 

[remember_spinal]

I agree we don't know one way or the other.

However, I did look into PlayStation studios hiring about a year ago and the only two studios that had no recent history of hiring multiplayer focused positions were Pixel Opus and Santa Monica. I assume Bluepoint would be on that list as well.

Sony seems to have oriented towards greenlighting 10x type games. Games that have the potential to be billion dollar revenue earners. IE big IP single player games (Star Wars, Spiderman) and GAAS gambles. Their main focus for the PS4 was single player and quirky stuff that never sold (often single player). Their focus has shifted immensely over the last 3, 4 years.

Them along with most other publishers. I think nintendo are the only ones who haven’t really changed their strategy. It will be interesting to see how they fill their gaming gaps next gen now that they’ve re-released all their wii-u game already

 

[Dolodolo]

Looking at that list I think it would almost be counter productive for sony to have 25+ single player games only in production.

For years people have said they need to diversify and thats exactly what they’re doing. We’re still getting the same amount of blockbuster single player games, now with a multiplayer/shooter/service title in-between.

That meme of 3rd person in the forest walking games are dead

I think that the rumors about a new game with From Software are also true, but it's too early to add such things.
Same thing with Kojima.
Since he himself says that he makes two games. One large and the other smaller (experiment. Maybe cloudy?))

 

[Dolodolo]

I agree we don't know one way or the other.

However, I did look into PlayStation studios hiring about a year ago and the only two studios that had no recent history of hiring multiplayer focused positions were Pixel Opus and Santa Monica. I assume Bluepoint would be on that list as well.

Sony seems to have oriented towards greenlighting 10x type games. Games that have the potential to be billion dollar revenue earners. IE big IP single player games (Star Wars, Spiderman) and GAAS gambles. Their main focus for the PS4 was single player and quirky stuff that never sold (often single player). Their focus has shifted immensely over the last 3, 4 years.

Yes. They don't care about small size, singleplayer games anymore.
Now they only care about what will be sold.
This has its pros and cons, but as it is

I hope Sony understands that most of their services will turn out to be crap that no one will play, but that's another story

 

[remember_spinal]

Yes. They don't care about small size, singleplayer games anymore.
Now they only care about what will be sold.
This has its pros and cons, but as it is

I hope Sony understands that most of their services will turn out to be crap that no one will play, but that's another story

I’m sure sony aren’t naive enough to believe most of those service games will be majorly successful. They are probably hoping one or two land for long term sales potential.

Also, we have to talk about expectations. Not all service games mean they are expecting everything to be Fortnite in size and success. There are probably games like MLB or GT7 they expect will have very front loaded MTX and wind down in a year. They probably have the idea that some games will be like Fall Guys that get a large amount of people at once, and slowly scale down to be what it is now which is still pretty active but not a sales juggernaut.

Then they probably have the expectation that one game will have a GTA Online/Fortnite/Apex/Warzone on-going forever popular stream of income they can milk indefinitely.

I dont think a service game is one thing, with only one measure of success. As long as the game is continually generating income its probably a success as far as sony is looking at it. The Haven game could end up being their Minecraft or Animal Crossing.

 

[kungfuian]

From a business perspective a large purchase like Capcom makes the most sense and would really solidify Sony's position in the upcoming/current 'Content War'. Capcom have some really solid teams and decent selling high quality active IP that fit well with Sony's studio output. Plus they have a ton of legacy games and nostalgic IP to draw from for Sony's further push into the 'services' business model.

 

[Valedix]

Its gotta be Konami or Capcom

 

[Panajev2001a]

MGS2 (including all platforms and the substance versions) sold ~7.4 million units. That is substantially less than Days Gone, which Sony don’t think is worth a sequel.

The Konami IPs aren’t that valuable and they don’t have talent attached to them.

Talent can be bought and attached , but the IP’s
Konami and S-E (and FROM) have are really good for movies, anime, etc… multi media universes.

 

[StealthGoblin]

Talent can be bought and attached , but the IP’s
Konami and S-E (and FROM) have are really good for movies, anime, etc… multi media universes.

I agree with all of those points, but Sony’s acquisitions have all been about talent, not IP so far. I strongly believe Sony are only interested in teams with IP that are ready to roll.
Entering an IP agreement with Konami may be on the cards, but I would have no idea who they’d attach to those properties.

 

[Panajev2001a]

I agree with all of those points, but Sony’s acquisitions have all been about talent, not IP so far. I strongly believe Sony are only interested in teams with IP that are ready to roll.
Entering an IP agreement with Konami may be on the cards, but I would have no idea who they’d attach to those properties.

I do .

 

[Frank Horrigan]

My money is on CDPR. It makes sense. The change from redengine to Unreal, the close relationship with Sony after they removed Cyberpunk from the PS store and the delay of Cyberpunk patch/remaster to get it work with PSVR2.

All signs point to CDPR

 

[crunchyBiscuits]

the close relationship with Sony

They have a close relationship with Sony?

the delay of Cyberpunk patch/remaster to get it work with PSVR2.

Huh?

 

[Frank Horrigan]

They have a close relationship with Sony?

Yeah, they're being purchased by Sony

Huh?

Cyberpunk patch or next gen version or whatever the cool kids are calling the re-release of a game, has been delayed until next year. Cyberpunk would be awesome in VR, and one helluva game to have on PSVR2

 

[remember_spinal]

I’m not sure why anyone thinks sony will buy a publisher with 5-10 thousand employees. I honestly dont see that happening and i don’t see the point from sonys perspective or a fan perspective.

What does sony get by buying a company like square enix who already puts their best games on playstation consoles? They get to take on all the terrible financial money pits of square enix, the horrible management and rapid fire approach to game releases? Whats in it for them other than getting FFXIV? They are the Ubisoft of japan, they are unbelievably bloated and lack any real form of quality control or corporate synergy.

People also forget when you buy a company you aren’t just paying a simple flat rate for them, you have to now keep thousands of employees fed and happy, insurance, criminal suits that could arise, keep them profitable enough to justify spending the money, etc.

As a customer, the things we love about sony publishing which are the management, the god-tier support studios and tech, and the other resources sony can provide to build and make a studio better…all that pretty much vanishes when you bring on a publisher that large, it won’t adopt any of the good qualities of playstation studios.

Most likely if sony buy a major publisher they will be left to their own devices like Bungie, and they will continue publishing games as multiplatform titles because thats what financially makes sense for a acquisition that big.

Best acquisitions for sony are small to medium sized studios 10-300 employees, or small sized publishers like CyberAgent, CDPR, Arc Sys..etc

 

[GHound]

Cyberpunk patch or next gen version or whatever the cool kids are calling the re-release of a game, has been delayed until next year.

That released in February though?

 

[Frank Horrigan]

That released in February though?

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/cyberpunk-expansion-to-release-in-2023.1634790/

Expansion. My mistake. I still stand by my trash ass theory of nonsense.

 

[nominedomine]

I think Sega , Square Enix and Capcom would all be very challenging for Sony to absorb, so if something like this ever happens I expect them to handle it in the same way that they handled Bungie (sort of like what MS is doing with Bethesda/Activision/Blizzard as well).

Japanese publishers don't seem like something MS would go after so there isn't that much pressure on Sony to go after any of them. All three seem to be profitable enough already so none would be a major risk or anything but it just doesn't seem likely.

Western publishers don't seem to be a fit at all for Sony, not even CD Projekt.

 

[solidus12]

They should have acquired Ready at Dawn; the have a great engine and they can work on console and VR stuff.

A shame that they are part of Facebook now.

 

[Badlucktroll]

I agree with all of those points, but Sony’s acquisitions have all been about talent, not IP so far. I strongly believe Sony are only interested in teams with IP that are ready to roll.
Entering an IP agreement with Konami may be on the cards, but I would have no idea who they’d attach to those properties.

Housemarque Contra, Fromsoft Castlevania, Blue Point Metal Gear remakes, Kojima Silent Hill.

 

[remember_spinal]

Housemarque Contra, Fromsoft Castlevania, Blue Point Metal Gear remakes, Kojima Silent Hill.

Outside of kojima doing a silent hill, and bluepoint doing metal gear (if they would even want to do it), it doesn’t really equate to much. Those IP are very long in the tooth or just straight up dormant.

Sony doesn’t own Fromsoft and Bloodborne is a far more marketable IP. I would assume if sony is contracting Fromsoft for another game they won’t need to go spend additional money licensing or buying an IP to do it.

The Konami IP were big in the 90’s and early 2000’s but they don’t carry a premium anymore. Sonys own IP are far stronger, even the IP they aren’t currently using have just as much sales potential.

I’d say the biggest thing on there is Metal Gear Solid and the only thing you can really do with the franchise are remakes. Even then, It’s doubtful a Metal Gear-Metal Gear Solid remake will sell more than ghost of tsushima, uncharted or horizon. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me

 

[sendit]

Housemarque Contra, Fromsoft Castlevania, Blue Point Metal Gear remakes, Kojima Silent Hill.

I'd rather see Kojima make a new Zone of Enders.

 

[yurinka]

Bungie wasn't a response to CoD. The negotiations were going on for months prior to the AB announcement.

In fact, negotiations to buy Bungie started before the negotiations to acquire Activision Blizzard started.

So if something, MS could have known Sony was buying Bungie and rushed to buy CoD, even if I think wouldn't be the case. I think MS already had plans to buy publishers, saw that Sony was buying Bungie and casually an opportunity emerged because the shitstorm at Activision Blizzard exploded decreasing its price and found Kotick trying to find somwone who wanted to buy them.

I think Sega , Square Enix and Capcom would all be very challenging for Sony to absorb, so if something like this ever happens I expect them to handle it in the same way that they handled Bungie (sort of like what MS is doing with Bethesda/Activision/Blizzard as well).

Japanese publishers don't seem like something MS would go after so there isn't that much pressure on Sony to go after any of them. All three seem to be profitable enough already so none would be a major risk or anything but it just doesn't seem likely.

Western publishers don't seem to be a fit at all for Sony, not even CD Projekt.

An easy way for Sony to absorb them would be to follow the path they started with Bungie: to buy them and put them as an independent multiplatform publisher under SIE but not under PS Studios.

And to allow them to continue operating in the same way they already had: full multiplatform and witth non-gaming business.

From the Sony side I'd only forbid them to give any type of game, dlc, demo, beta or marketing exclusive to MS or Nintendo and to limit their future console bundles and inclusion on game subs to Sony plaforms. And to offer them PS temporal exclusives if desired both for some games and dlcs.

I think that if MS and Sony buy these publishers is to secure their games for their console and game subs and specially to get the huge chunk of revenue they make. So I think for them is better to keep their games multiplatform to don't leave all that money on the table, and at the same time to monetize players from other consoles, plus at the same time recoup their investment as soon as possible and turn the investment into a profitable operation.

 

[Badlucktroll]

Outside of kojima doing a silent hill, and bluepoint doing metal gear (if they would even want to do it), it doesn’t really equate to much. Those IP are very long in the tooth or just straight up dormant.

Sony doesn’t own Fromsoft and Bloodborne is a far more marketable IP. I would assume if sony is contracting Fromsoft for another game they won’t need to go spend additional money licensing or buying an IP to do it.

The Konami IP were big in the 90’s and early 2000’s but they don’t carry a premium anymore. Sonys own IP are far stronger, even the IP they aren’t currently using have just as much sales potential.

I’d say the biggest thing on there is Metal Gear Solid and the only thing you can really do with the franchise are remakes. Even then, It’s doubtful a Metal Gear-Metal Gear Solid remake will sell more than ghost of tsushima, uncharted or horizon. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me

I think if Sony makes AAA Metal Gear and Silent Hill games, hypes the fuck out of it, and caters to the fans, it will sell gangbusters. Doesn’t Silent Hill trent on twitter sometimes?

 

[yurinka]

I’m not sure why anyone thinks sony will buy a publisher with 5-10 thousand employees. I honestly dont see that happening and i don’t see the point from sonys perspective or a fan perspective.

What does sony get by buying a company like square enix who already puts their best games on playstation consoles? They get to take on all the terrible financial money pits of square enix, the horrible management and rapid fire approach to game releases? Whats in it for them other than getting FFXIV? They are the Ubisoft of japan, they are unbelievably bloated and lack any real form of quality control or corporate synergy.

People also forget when you buy a company you aren’t just paying a simple flat rate for them, you have to now keep thousands of employees fed and happy, insurance, criminal suits that could arise, keep them profitable enough to justify spending the money, etc.

As a customer, the things we love about sony publishing which are the management, the god-tier support studios and tech, and the other resources sony can provide to build and make a studio better…all that pretty much vanishes when you bring on a publisher that large, it won’t adopt any of the good qualities of playstation studios.

Most likely if sony buy a major publisher they will be left to their own devices like Bungie, and they will continue publishing games as multiplatform titles because thats what financially makes sense for a acquisition that big.

Best acquisitions for sony are small to medium sized studios 10-300 employees, or small sized publishers like CyberAgent, CDPR, Arc Sys..etc

There are many reasons of why Sony (or MS) would want to buy big publishers and pretty likely to keep them working (in most cases) as multiplatform:

• To highly increase SIE revenue and profits (money that later can be reinvested on more, bigger and better games plus more acquisitions)
• To secure several top AAA games not becoming exclusive in rival platforms, and maybe making exclusive or time exclusive some of them
• To highly increase their catalog for PS+ and to block it from appearing on rival game subs
• To get exclusivity of their console bundles, betas, demos and marketing and block these exclusivities for rival platforms
• To grow faster in PC and mobile
• In big selling genres where they don't have top level 1st party games, to secure top games of this genre and don't rely on 3rd party for that niche
• To monetize players from rival consoles without "compromising" their own game publishing brand, who would continue focused on console exclusives
• To use some of their top IPs in other divisions for movies and tv shows, to monetize soundracks etc
• To improve their tools, market data intel, game engines and additional knowledge on whatever additional area (GaaS, MP, eSports, VR, mobile...) where they can help improve whatever Sony has
• Every gen the AAA games become larger and more detailed, requiring more dev time so need addittional teams to keep (or increase) the 1st party game output

For these publishers, they would no longer have the pressure of needing to keep releasing games to have a constant revenue flow to keep their investors happy, so would be able to get rid of lower quality games and focus on improving their top tier games and release them when ready. They also would have now bigger budgets and way more marketing not only ads and PR, but also key digital store featuring. They also would have access to top tier technology, knowledge and experttise from the other 1st party tteams in many areas. They wouldn't need to handle themselves many boring -and costly- stuff that SIE would now handle or at least would support and improve (localization, QA, PR, marketing etc). And finally and the most important, being in a giant company the risk of investing $200M-$500M in a single AAA game would be way smaller.

 

[Infamy v1]

So if something, MS could have known Sony was buying Bungie and rushed to buy CoD, even if I think wouldn't be the case. I think MS already had plans to buy publishers, saw that Sony was buying Bungie and casually an opportunity emerged because the shitstorm at Activision Blizzard exploded decreasing its price and found Kotick trying to find somwone who wanted to buy them.

I keep telling you, this fanfiction stuff is getting out of hand. MS "rushed to buy CoD" as a response to... Bungie? Despite us already knowing the exact layout of how everything went down, including Microsoft/Phil interested in buying ABK before they wanted to sell, we know for a fact that CoD averages 100m MaU compared to Destiny's 6m MaU. And this is factoring Vanguard's disastrous launch and not taking into account this year's MW2 being the biggest CoD in quite some time combined with Warzone 2. MaU, that you know, has been very important to Microsoft since last generation? MaU, that, oh I don't know, is extremely important to Game Pass?

Then you factor in Overwatch, WoW, Diablo, motherfucking Candy Crush, and we don't even need to talk about the rest of the portfolio. We know that Microsoft had seen the future line-up for many ABK studios, especially Blizzard, and have been told the future looks incredibly bright. We even knew this beforehand, due to the court proceedings, because Microsoft requested to see their upcoming business pipeline before agreeing to Kotick's $100 per share asking price, to which Kotick agreed (according to Hoeg Law, companies don't do this unless very far into proceedings that have a high chance to occur). Microsoft was pleased at what they saw, raised their offer to $95 per share and that was that.

The fact that you even this was a response to Sony buying Bungie is so laughable that words cannot describe it.

Furthermore, we know that Bungie were talking to Microsoft before Sony. Yes, Bungie and MS denied this both occasions it was brought up. Obviously, because it never transpired. But even aside from big-time MS reporters leaking this, we have NateDrake from the other site (reputable leaker with a good track record that has his stuff get posted here and elsewhere, before you pretend he is a nobody), who, in a response to why Bungie and Microsoft talks fell through, said that Bungie wanted in the area of 2 billion and to remain independent:

Rumor: Microsoft has been in talks to acquire Bungie multiple times but they fell through each time due to Bungie's high price [Up: CEO Denies] Rumor

If Bungie were acquired I very much doubt they touch Halo. 343 can make good games, there is a ton of talent there. They may need to take a good look at leadership. Bungie wanted to work on something other than Halo, needed funds from a big publisher, didn't like working with Activision...

www.resetera.com

He said this in SEPTEMBER 2020. We had zero idea Sony was buying Bungie until early 2022. Not only that, but he was right on everything: Sans the extra money Sony paid for retention, Bungie got exactly $2bil~ and also got to remain independent. I'd like to see you spin that. Let me guess, coincidence?

That said, you're implying that, since MS was in talks with Bungie first, MS denied (obviously because Bungies was asking for far more then they're worth to Microsoft, as opposed to being valuable for Sony who desperately needs the GaaS talent due to their GaaS ambitions, as per Jimbo himself), somehow saw that Bungie was then immediately going to Sony, and "rushed to buy CoD?"

I mean, this is a rhetorical question. Everybody knows you're going to spin this so crazily that in the end we're all going to forget what we were talking about, anyway. As per usual.

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

My money is on CDPR. It makes sense. The change from redengine to Unreal, the close relationship with Sony after they removed Cyberpunk from the PS store and the delay of Cyberpunk patch/remaster to get it work with PSVR2.

All signs point to CDPR

What close relationship?
Also Cyberpunk is barely a functional e decent game without VR2...i don't think Sony would care or move a muscle for that.

Sony doesn't need that company...i'm so done with western studios by now. Seriously...

 

[Jen_yakzua]

I’m not sure why anyone thinks sony will buy a publisher with 5-10 thousand employees. I honestly dont see that happening and i don’t see the point from sonys perspective or a fan perspective.

What does sony get by buying a company like square enix who already puts their best games on playstation consoles? They get to take on all the terrible financial money pits of square enix, the horrible management and rapid fire approach to game releases? Whats in it for them other than getting FFXIV? They are the Ubisoft of japan, they are unbelievably bloated and lack any real form of quality control or corporate synergy.

People also forget when you buy a company you aren’t just paying a simple flat rate for them, you have to now keep thousands of employees fed and happy, insurance, criminal suits that could arise, keep them profitable enough to justify spending the money, etc.

As a customer, the things we love about sony publishing which are the management, the god-tier support studios and tech, and the other resources sony can provide to build and make a studio better…all that pretty much vanishes when you bring on a publisher that large, it won’t adopt any of the good qualities of playstation studios.

Most likely if sony buy a major publisher they will be left to their own devices like Bungie, and they will continue publishing games as multiplatform titles because thats what financially makes sense for a acquisition that big.

Best acquisitions for sony are small to medium sized studios 10-300 employees, or small sized publishers like CyberAgent, CDPR, Arc Sys..etc

Cyberagent has 5800 employees capcom is half the size as is sega

 

[Rac3r]

I keep telling you, this fanfiction stuff is getting out of hand. MS "rushed to buy CoD" as a response to... Bungie? Despite us already knowing the exact layout of how everything went down, including Microsoft/Phil interested in buying ABK before they wanted to sell, we know for a fact that CoD averages 100m MaU compared to Destiny's 6m MaU. And this is factoring Vanguard's disastrous launch and not taking into account this year's MW2 being the biggest CoD in quite some time combined with Warzone 2. MaU, that you know, has been very important to Microsoft since last generation? MaU, that, oh I don't know, is extremely important to Game Pass?

He literally said that he doesn't think Microsoft bought Activision as a response to Sony. Read his post again.

 

[Infamy v1]

He literally said that he doesn't think Microsoft bought Activision as a response to Sony. Read his post again.

Did you read past his first sentence?

I think MS already had plans to buy publishers, saw that Sony was buying Bungie and casually an opportunity emerged because the shitstorm at Activision Blizzard exploded decreasing its price and found Kotick trying to find somwone who wanted to buy them.

Not only does he contradict his first sentence right after, but he has said similar things a few times in the past in different threads. Aside from the latter, if he didn't straight up contradict himself, I wouldn't have wrote what I wrote.

 

[iHaunter]

actually schreier is correct...alot of times imo

GAF has a major hate-boner for the man.

 

[Batiman]

GAF has a major hate-boner for the man.

I don’t like him at all but I’ll admit he’s the only “insider” that actually gets stuff right 99% of the time.