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[Elbow Identity Shallow]

I have a horrible feeling that the "It Takes Two To Tango" may have something to do with Tango Chain, it would certainly be a pretty tidy fit for where the larger gaming companies seem to want to go in terms of the entire metaverse concept.

 

[reksveks]

just borrow some and get epic

I think it would raise anti-trust issues. Unreal is used by a huge amount of the competition's studio.

 

[Orta]

BREAKING: Xbox to buy the FTC for $68.8 billion!!!

 

[StreetsofBeige]

As if Activision ($8 billion sales) across global gaming sales of $200 billion is worthy of taking down the acquisition. MS even said COD would still be on PS until the partnership deal is done in 2023. And only a small portion of PS gamers even play COD out of the 100+ million active user base.

Activision games will still be able to be played on PC and all existing/legacy games are still there on platforms.

 

[yurinka]

MS even adding ABK is not the market leader of gaming. Isn't the market leader in console gaming. Isn't the market leader in mobile gaming. Isn't the market leader in PC gaming. Isn't the market leader in VR gaming. Isn't the market leader in game subscriptions. There is no monopoly and competition harmed at all, they shouldn't have any issue with regulators.

MS even said COD would still be on PS until the partnership deal is done in 2023.

Not true, MS never said that they want to keep it "until 2023". Spencer said they want to keep CoD on PS. In the SEC filing they said that want to keep supporting these communities where they are, mentioning previous Bethesda and Mojang acquisitions (where they kept releasing all the post acquisition games, updates and dlcs on PS and none of them has been Xbox exclusive) and particularly mentioning Minecraft (all its post acquisition console games, dlc and updates are on PS and Switch many years after the acquisition) as example of it in the SEC filling when explaining their plans to investors and regulators.

These are fighting words, not sure nVIDIA was that kind of threat for ARM, but we will see. ARM has a huge China problem.

Nvidia buying ARM would mean monopoly, a distant market leader on their area.

MS even with ABK instead isn't a market leader in gaming at all. Not even specifically in consoles gaming, pc gaming, mobile gaming or game subscriptions. So there's no monopoly at all.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Nvidia Arm deal wouldn't have gone through.. Because they would've own the entire mobile market, having full control over their competitors.

Uhm, I think it would have been a lot more difficult to enforce than people thought (also considering ARM does not own ARM fully already, see the China spat). Apple could be moving to RISCV tomorrow and do not even blink an eye and Qualcomm and Samsung could still dominate with licenses to the existing ARM IP and develop their extensions.

I think nVIDIA has less leverage on those behemoths than we think. Buying Activision with Azure money is not exactly that much different in effect. Say they buy EA, Ubisoft, and Take Two next … same revenue stream? I wonder where the competition Uber alles folks will go . Anyways, not that I would rain on that parade as in such a scenario it takes very little time for the monopolist to start exploiting their advantage against consumers .

 

[Panajev2001a]

MS even said COD would still be on PS until the partnership deal is done in 2023

This is exactly why they review these deals, the point is what would happen after the deal is done in terms of market effect. It feels like you are almost deliberately missing the point thereS

 

[Elios83]

I doubt the deal won't pass but there are implications:

1. Microsoft is hands tied for a long time to do similar deals with other companies.
2. The deal might take longer than expected to be approved.
3. They might need to give up on using the deal to restrict the number of platforms Activision games will be released on.

We'll see what happens.

 

[BlitzerRadic]

I’d think this is just the standard procedure for deals of this size and I’m sure MS knew the deal was going to get reviewed before even announcing it. I have no doubt the deal will go through, for better or worse.

No doubt the deal is going through. However, I doubt it's going to pass without regulators asking for concessions. Disney had to sell all of Fox's RSNs in order for that deal to pass because regulators felt that Disney owning those RSNs would harm competition/consumers.

 

[yurinka]

Before we talk about acquisitions how much money do Sony have left after the Bungie purchase?

As I remember they had a budget for acquisitions for this and next year of ~$14B. So now ~10B+ after the acquisition. They have way more money than that, but if they don't rise it that's their budget for now.

 

[yurinka]

American corporate culture isn't something I want to see seep into their studios any more than it already has and the PS side of Sony is very centralized in NA already.

No problem, Sony and SIE are Japanese companies and PS a Japanese brand. They did open a 2nd HQ for SIE in USA, but they continue having their original one in Japan.

 

[yurinka]

I mean I agree mostly with what you are saying, simply we have yet to see anything or have any statement about them not buying that IP.

Unless stated, I believe its correct to assume its owned by Sony as I'd argue that would be something they would state today if anything if they are willing to tell us all this. Like with future Destiny titles, future new IP, stating they are self publishing.....yet not say they own the IP? Sounds like its not stated cause Sony bought it, which would make sense for 3 Billion and allowing them to have creative freedom, self publish for selling that IP in the first place. So I don't see enough to say they didn't buy that IP, Sony doesn't buy teams like that and I don't think any major publisher to my memory have ever had a deal this big, with the IP not being owned by them or something.

Even more odd, Sony owns Bungie, they bought them, thus the IP is owned by them by default anyway as this isn't some long term marketing deal we are talking about or some timed game, its simply too much money spent to believe they don't own that IP. Would be the first I've ever heard of such a thing at this price point in the industry.

Sony bought 100% of Bungie, so obviously also bought all the assets Bungie had, including all current and future Bungie IPs. Bungie IPs are only one of the different things they buy with these $3.6B.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I bet COD stays multiplat in order for this shit to pass

Who it the US government gives a fuck about an online shooter? Every company on the planet is free to make a competing game.

 

[yurinka]

But do they want to sell? Further, what major Japanese studios have sold or merged since Square Enix or Namco Bandai?

Maybe Sega Sammy (they also own Atlus) or Koei Tecmo. ARC System Works bought Technos Japan, or Kadokawa From Software. Then there are more minor ones like Grasshopper. Bandai Namco bought Banpresto. Or Square Enix bought Taito.

But well, some of them maybe aren't 'major' or are previous to Square Enix and Namco Bandai mergers.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I would be shocked if this doesnt Go through due to all the purchases that are happening.
Sony just buying Bungie helps them even more too.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

What is the point of acquiring EA? Their cash cow is FIFA which is a licensed IP.

This will actually be a way better anti-trust case than Activision, since EA has an exclusive licence, which means FIFA will be locked to one platform.

 

[rofif]

Both @Karak and Skullzi teased ActiBliz. Zenimax was also teased by someone(I used to mention his name here but I forgot).

Nobody teased shit enough to even give a hint

 

[shubik]

I bet we will see a Destiny TV show produced by SONY somewhere down the line...

 

[DenchDeckard]

Gaming is truly about purchases now and not about games At least for the last 2 to 3 years while Covid struck.

I think it’s partly due to companies trying to get as much cash as possible as releases slow down and get delayed.

I also think if Jeff knows anything it’s probably some twat that we don’t want buying someone, Apple or Facebook or something.

 

[shubik]

EA would be such a good buy for SONY. Imagine SONY owning all the sports franchises. Finally, a FIFA that is not a scam. The market is huge and it would be a great response to Call of duty leaving. We all know the yearly charts and how much money FIFA, madden, and co. reel in.

 

[yurinka]

Some strong ass points, I completely forgot about that Evo purchase lol Maybe Sony is in talks still to buy Capcom or Bandi Namco (or both)

In addition to owning EVO and have the Street Fighter V exclusive, Sony also got many more fighting game 3rd party exclusives during this generation, like Guilty Gear Strive last year. Sony also funded several fighting games tournaments, and made the Tournament features mostly used by fighting games in online tournaments hosted by Sony. Soon they'll release an enhaced version for PS5 of the Tournaments feature, recently highlighted at CES.

Sony is very interested on fighting games and heavily supported them. But it's weird not having a 1st/2nd party fighting game to take advantage of all this. The fighting game genre did grow a lot during the PS4 generation, with most series or studios selling better than ever (or almost) and now having a GaaS focus. In a few years the two top grossing PC games of the last decade (League of Legends and Dungeon Fighter Online), both with insanely huge fanbases, will get a fighting game. So the genre will grow even more.

Sony also likes to buy people who had a long tradition of exclusives for them, and ARC System Works (who is developing Dungeon Fighter Duel) and Capcom had exclusives with them since back to th PS1 days. And studios that excel in genres where their 1st party internal teams are weak.

So it wouldn't be rare to see Sony buying ARC System Works or Capcom if they want to sell. ARC System Works recently sold over 8 million copies of their Dragon Ball FighterZ game, so are also a good opportunity to make anime games. And they are a pretty small studio that develops 3 games at the same time, so they would be super cheap, productive and profitable.

 

[ImmersiveProjection]

 

[Pallas]

I bet COD stays multiplat in order for this shit to pass

Why would CoD need to stay multi platform for the deal to pass? It’s a big purchase but it doesn’t create any monopolies.

 

[GigaBowser]

Crazy day. A lot to unpack. I think we're all trying to make sense of this so let's put our business minds together.

Event: Sony buys Bungie but only under the strict stipulation that Bungie will still make multiplats.


Was this done defensively to prevent MS from getting there first?

Or is this a show of power saying we can throw billions around and intend to do it again..... Back off.

People saying this was not reactionary and the deal was being discussed for months I have two questions:

1. Why did they decide to pull the trigger now?
2. Did the Zenimax purchase initate this if not the Activision purchase?

 

[Big Baller]

Power?

 

[just_like_that]

show of power?

studio acquisitions really do make people come up with dumbass takes, just move on lol

 

[Dick Jones]

Neither. Sony are trying to break TPS and this will get Bungie to help the Sony Studios share ideas. The sales from Destiny and beyond help them too

 

[DenchDeckard]

I don’t think it has anything to do with microsoft buying them, I don’t think MS were interested.

I think after the Bethesda deal went through last year a lot of pressure was on Sony to show their strength as the leading next gen platform holder. They shopped around who they could get and where they were lacking as a business ( first person shooters ) and after creating a good business deal with securing the year long exclusivity deal with Bungie it seemed like the best option.

it needed to be a big deal one larger than an insomniac or firespite but there probably wasn’t too many options.

I don’t think it is a good deal for Sony at all, Bungie absolutely pulled the Ace card in this negotiation.

I don’t think it’s got anything to do with activision but everything with having to show a market leading mentality after the Bethesda deal.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

bc it makes no sense to gut multiple profit sectors.

PC-Xbox makes a nice profit for bungie, Why would Xbox remove minecraft from Playstation? Mulitiplayer games grow the bigger the player base.

 

[SSfox]

I think Microsoft isnt after Japanese companies so there is no urgent need to get SE, Capcom, KojiPro ro Sega. Aside from FF14, these companies dont really make FPS GaaS games which are what driving the revenues right now.

I suspect Take2 and Ubisoft are next. Maybe even EA. It has been all western publishers so far. Before its all said and done, Sony and Microsoft will own all third party publishers and will be publishing games on each others platforms. I think CD project gets sold before SE.

Genshin Impact says hi!!

Also I think MS wouldn't hesitate to buy a Japanese publisher if they can, I mean without the doubt, but it seems not so easy specially japanese devs, not prices issues but has more to do with some japanese rules.

 

[//DEVIL//]

Sony, believe it or not doesnt just care about ps5 only . They know they will be eaten alive by MS if they continue playing the console only card.

If it wasn’t clear with their pc releases, it’s 100% now with bungie and the later going to be 100% multi platform. Just like that Minecraft dev studio is for MS.

It’s not show of power or defensive . This deal is probably in the making way longer than MS deal with Activision.

I am expecting very soon, more pc ports of PlayStation games to pc as well. Specially with the huge success their latest couple of games sold. 1 million copies on pc for 50$ a game that’s 50 million dollar from one game alone. You think after seeing this money, sony will stop releasing pc games ? More and more ports will follow soon. Including the new horizon as well as the new god of war . Probably 1 year after first release max .

This not about Xbox vs PlayStation anymore . It’s about who has more content to be a major player in the market of video games . Just think of Sony and Disney are in movies.

Bet your ass ps5 only games and no pc ports in the near future are numbered . Sony can’t lock their games behind 1 system when MS you can play their games directly from a tv if it has google play

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Defensive buy by Sony. Bungie is a reliable company making good shooters and it fills a void in their first party games for whatever new games come later. And it prevents MS from possibly grabbing them adding to their shooter stockpile.

MS isn't going to care if Sony can buy studios for $3.6 billion because MS can spend more.

 

[Mozza]

It was an attempt to counter Microsoft spending 7 billion on Zenimax and 79 billion on Activision, buy spending 3 billion on Bungie, not so sure this will help them, as it only highlights how mismatched they are in spending terms, I get they do need a replacement for COD, but not sure Bungie is the answer to this, but at least it's a response.

 

[MonarchJT]

Read this and you will understand

So if it's not about exclusivity, why exactly did Sony buy Bungie?

It's about talent and universes.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Mozza]

All those smaller studios need to be watching out, or a chance to get a good deal as Sony attempts to counter Microsoft's massive spending sprees, will be very interesting.

 

[just_like_that]

a lot of the bungie devs didnt even know they were going to be acquired by sony. they were all told the same time as it was announed publicly

so fuck that fat slob jeff scrub

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Bet your ass ps5 only games and no pc ports in the near future are numbered . Sony can’t lock their games behind 1 system when MS you can play their games directly from a tv if it has google play

Jim Ryan hinted at that responding to the deal saying something about expanding and connecting with gamers beyond console. That can mean even more PC ports, mobile or both. There is no way Bungie's next game (which will surely be another game heavy into GAAS) is PS only. It might not be on Xbox, but it's not going to be a 4 year old port to PC. It'll be on PC day one.

 

[Fahdis]

Jokes on all of you... Amazon buys Sony and Nintendo. Fact is that "buys" has 4 letters "you" has 3... Half Life 3 Confirmed!

 

[reksveks]

EA would be such a good buy for SONY. Imagine SONY owning all the sports franchises. Finally, a FIFA that is not a scam. The market is huge and it would be a great response to Call of duty leaving. We all know the yearly charts and how much money FIFA, madden, and co. reel in.

EA value is kinda in the fact:
- It's a licensed sports game
- it's a 'scam' or it's full of mtx via FUT

You want to take away a key part of their value?

 

[MonarchJT]

Sony bought 100% of Bungie, so obviously also bought all the assets Bungie had, including all current and future Bungie IPs. Bungie IPs are only one of the different things they buy with these $3.6B.

they seem to have a type of contract where k my Bungie say how can the Ip be used

Sony bought Bungie yes, and they will own Bungie, that's all true. However, it's sounding as if Bungie negotiated to be the sole and primary owner of the Destiny intellectual property even while being a independent subsidiary of Sony. The kinds of definitive statements Bungie are making on remaining multi-platform, controlling all their own publishing, even promising future games will be multi-platform and continue to stay where all their existing communities of fans are, could not be made unless they had it in an ironclad contract that Sony agreed to.

So you can indeed own a company yet the company that you own can still very much have full say and rights in what and how their IP is used, and on what platforms it can appear on. Contracts are contracts even for companies that you own. Otherwise if Sony is ever in violation, Bungie can likely take it to court and win their independence. If the buyer is willing to agree to certain terms, do not underestimate what Bungie could have gotten from this deal.

let's be honest here ...is not for Destiny that as been always a so so success (started with a boom after very bad and then grow up)
As for games this is about next Bungie games.....they promised in 19 to release a new game by 2025. Next game could be exclusive ....exactly like with all Ms studios

 

[Helghan]

EA would be such a good buy for SONY. Imagine SONY owning all the sports franchises. Finally, a FIFA that is not a scam. The market is huge and it would be a great response to Call of duty leaving. We all know the yearly charts and how much money FIFA, madden, and co. reel in.

Why would Sony make a FIFA that isn't a scam when that's where the value is? To create less value, but be a more loveable brand? When they are already the most loved gaming brand? Please...

 

[shubik]

EA value is kinda in the fact:
- It's a licensed sports game
- it's a 'scam' or it's full of mtx via FUT

You want to take away a key part of their value?

Yes, because the games would still sell like crazy. Switch the yearly release cycle to an update system that gets a real overhaul every couple of years and you are good to go.

 

[Sosokrates]

And I fear closegated content tied to ecosystems/launcher etc...And that's not something I look forward to, be it from Sony,Ms,Nintendo or anyone.Because right now I fail to see where the consumers win.

Its will ultimately benifit customers.

There will be a gamepass/xbox app and a playstation app, to play games nativly will require a min spec PC, or linux based sytem maybe (who knows).

Sonu + Microsoft may still make hardware but they wont be closed boxes.

It will basically be like the PC, movie streaming, android businesses.

Customers will be able to subscribe to gamepass or a playstation equivalent or buy content to own via there respective apps.

The great thing about this is people only need to buy 1 piece of hardware, 1 type of controller etc

 

[MonarchJT]

Jim Ryan hinted at that responding to the deal saying something about expanding and connecting with gamers beyond console. That can mean even more PC ports, mobile or both. There is no way Bungie's next game (which will surely be another game heavy into GAAS) is PS only. It might not be on Xbox, but it's not going to be a 4 year old port to PC. It'll be on PC day one.

next game seem to be around 2025...at that point I'm sure that Sony will release multiple titles day one on PC

 

[shubik]

Why would Sony make a FIFA that isn't a scam when that's where the value is? To create less value, but be a more loveable brand? When they are already the most loved gaming brand? Please...

31 Million copies of FIFA 21 were sold globally. Without any in-game purchases. You don´t think that would be something SONY is interested in? They already own a multiplat sportsgame title. Why not expand?

 

[cebri.one]

None, the money in gaming is done on software and distribution of software. They want to horder as many big devs as possible and with the launch of Spartacus on PC, become one of the main sellers of video games anywhere.

 

[reksveks]

Yes, because the games would still sell like crazy. Switch the yearly release cycle to an update system that gets a real overhaul every couple of years and you are good to go.

You do know that in general EA gets two third of their revenue from mtx/DLC?

Also you charging for those upgrades? Same price as a new game. (it's the COD issue)

Don't get me wrong that plan is great for consumers but would absolutely make no business sense.

 

[anthony2690]

I can imagine these talks were happening before anyone knew about Microsoft and Activision.

I also get the feeling they have purchased bungie for another reason besides their games, especially are they will continue to run independently.

 

[Banjo64]

Literally just to ensure they’ll always have a stellar FPS game on PS.

 

[Ass of Can Whooping]

Before we talk about acquisitions how much money do Sony have left after the Bungie purchase?