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Mergers and Acquisitions |OT| Thread Merged

Acquisitions and mergers official topic

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ManaByte

Banned
I dont like online GAAS so I'd be happy with an action RPG. Don't know about others though. My last played COD with Kevin Spacey and "Press X to pay respects". I played the VR space demo.
When the Activision purchase happened people kept pushing them as Sony’s saviors as they are former COD devs. They were assuming they were making and exclusive COD clone for Sony. Their game is a co-op action/RPG running on Unreal 4.
 
I think we are the only 2 people on this forum that love Ubi games Bo. Great minds think alike for sure.

I'll tell you one thing though, people can hate on Ubisoft all they want but they make good quality games, and whoever buys Ubisoft will be open to some fantastic big named franchises.
Nah I like Ubisoft games too. I've subscribed to Ubisoft Connect and enjoy Far Cry, Watch Dogs and The Division.
Ubisoft would be the better buy imo.
So many good games in so many different genres under that publisher.
 

VAVA Mk2

Member
Whatever makes you sleep at night. It was bought to share expertise on FPS and GAAS so we don't have more failed GAAS launches like Destruction Allstars (since improved in a recent update). I believe as long as Bungie keeps it multiplatform who gives a shit.
I don't. And I literally just stated facts about the numbers of the acquisition in response to the thread title. The Jez Core comment about MS declining is of course heresay until others can cooroberate it.
 
Nah I like Ubisoft games too. I've subscribed to Ubisoft Connect and enjoy Far Cry, Watch Dogs and The Division.
Ubisoft would be the better buy imo.
So many good games in so many different genres under that publisher.

Not that much of a fan outside of Assassin's Creed, but yeah it definitley makes sense. You can't get much better than Ubisoft for a GaaS portfolio.

They should probably be more hands of if they do get them though. There's something wrong with the production pipeline over there. Too many delays
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
I don't. And I literally just stated facts about the numbers of the acquisition in response to the thread title. The Jez Core comment about MS declining is of course heresay until others can cooroberate it.
MS has more money. They like Bungie.

We can safely assume they ultimately weren't interested in the price or Bungies conditions.
 

Sleepwalker

Member
Problem with buying Ubisoft is they don't want to be bought. They just fought out a hostile takeover tooth and nail to remain independent.
 

Emedan

Member
Revenge for Crash and Spyro!

On a more serious note, come on it's not like Sony did this reactively to the Act/blizz thing, how would such a timeline even make sense?
 
Not that much of a fan outside of Assassin's Creed, but yeah it definitley makes sense. You can't get much better than Ubisoft for a GaaS portfolio.

They should probably be more hands of if they do get them though. There's something wrong with the production pipeline over there. Too many delays
Precisely 😉

You want GAAS? Ubi got GAAS.
Can't bank on AAA's story driven games all gen long.
Ubisoft has open world expertise and there's The Crew for an open world racer. Forza Horizon is hugely successful for Xbox and PS needs and alternative to Gran Turismo.
Rainbow Six,
Far Cry,
Watch Dogs,
The Division,
Ass Creed,
Riders Republic.

There's something for everyone.
 
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Interfectum

Member
Disney and Apple will both want in on the meta verse / gaming bullshit so no doubt they will be jumping in huge soon. I expect someone to make a play for Sony and Nintendo at some point.
 

supernova8

Banned
Usually we try to avoid duplicate threads (especially all in the same timeframe) - why aren't the mods locking threads to discourage it? It happened with the Bethesda and Activision acquisitions and it's happening again - just a wall of Bungie threads.
 
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Hilarious that this is marked “business” when a basic understanding of business is nowhere to be found.

M&A Due diligence takes months. The more thorough you are the longer it takes. And it’s not like you can throw 100000 lawyers at it and shorten the time. It doesn’t work like that. Not even for Sony.

It’s likely that Sony’s interest in buying Bungie started in the Spring or early summer of last year. Under iron clad ‘if you leak, we’ll sue you’ NDAs.

It’s hard to imagine what an M&A and the due dilligence process looks and feels like until you’ve experienced one from either side (spoiler: if your company was acquired and you didn’t know until announcement you likely weren’t carefully picked to be involved in due diligence). But even a pedantic understanding tells you that Sony didn’t whip out their Black Card or checkbook after learning about Microsoft’s news and blindly buy a company.

Cmon.
 
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Thirty7ven

Banned
Disney and Apple will both want in on the meta verse / gaming bullshit so no doubt they will be jumping in huge soon. I expect someone to make a play for Sony and Nintendo at some point.

Nintendo can’t be bought, the only way is for it to merge with another Japanese company.
 
Corporations are not like 12 year old gamers with an urgent need to spend their weekly allowance on random shit.
Merger decisions are strategic, well planned and have to deliver a long term ROI to the shareholders.
Neither Microsoft nor Sony are impulse shopping or have money lying around to spend on whatever management desires.
It´s a fucking business you muppets.
Bro this is Neogaf 😂. Take that common sense elsewhere please
 
5 years behind?
Maybe consoles are weaker with raw gpu power but right now pc don't even have direct IO storage like ps5 have. NVME drives are not utilized.
And I bet most developers would prefer to work for locked hardware anyway
Really Consoles Are 7 Years Behind, But I Was Being Kind!! Yes In Graphics Capability And Raw Compute Consoles Are Right Now 7 Years Behind Cutting Edge PC's!! It Really Benefits PC's That All Developers Are Being Forced To Up Their Game Graphically!! Eventually Dev's Will Again Begin Tailoring Games Like Quake, Duke Nukem, Wolfenstein, Doom, The Original BF1942 And Counter Strike Before That, EverQuest 2 And Far More PC Specific Showcases Which Blew PC Gamers Away And Left Most Console Gamers Wondering What The Fuss Was About!!

I'm Very Glad Consoles Are No Longer Far Over A Decade Behind Cutting Edge PC Tech!! Sure Most PC Gamers Are!!
 

Kerotan

Member
After the Vivendi story, everyone should have realised that Ubisoft wants to remain independent. They are out of the race. EA has a strong mainstream portfolio and is the only competitor to Activision-Blizzard besides Ubisoft. Take 2 would easily cost 25 billion in a takeover. I'm not sure Sony or Microsoft want to afford that. Microsoft would not get such a deal through with competition authorities after the last acquisition. On Microsoft's side, smaller studio takeovers are more likely now. It will be some time before Sony responds to the last takeover.
Doesn't T2 make like 2 billion in profits a year so if sony were to drop 30BN they would see a return while also securing security for the future of their most lucrative devision.

As for Ubisoft who knows what they think of selling to Sony or MS.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
MS has more money. They like Bungie.

We can safely assume they ultimately weren't interested in the price or Bungies conditions.

More likely they realized that they'd have a choice between ABK and Bungie, because acquiring both would really make a case that they are trying to corner the market.

MS are also likely fine with Sony taking Bungie because it means that if they have it, one of their big-tech competitors can't snatch it up.

What I feel we're seeing is a kind of circling of the wagons by the present incumbents to ward off corporate raiding by Apple, Google, Amazon, Meta, etc. Basically the message is; if you want into the gaming market, build your own IP.
 

Vaelka

Member
To be honest I was referring to Tomb Raider as the main get from such acquisition. A very well established heroine and a good story game can be very successful.
I kinda feel like it has been done already, twice lol.
I mean are they gonna do a third reboot?
The reboot is already so typical to what these AAA games are I don't think it'd be any different and I get the impression people are a bit tired of the reboot.

Perhaps I am wrong tho but didn't the last one sell less I feel like it was kinda met with a '' meh ''?
 
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Vaelka

Member
How would it be a show of power lol?
Microsoft is astronomically larger than Sony and the Activison Blizzard aquisition dwarves Bungie.

Edit: I don't think this stuff happens on a whim either, I think they may have been planing on this for a while and been in talks but maybe escalated it?
 
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Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
I'd imagine if Sony were going to spend huge, it'd be on Kadokawa Corp. Because that would really fit well with their overall media strategy, and it'd get them FROM in the process. The Asian market is huge, and the sheer amount of IP relevant to that region under Kadokawa's control would make Sony quite the powerhouse.
 

Boss Mog

Member
...And that's Valve. Valve is valued at around $12B which should make it easily affordable to Sony. Buying Valve would instantly give Sony the lion's share of the PC market and let them compete on two platforms the way MS currently does. It would boost their VR capabilities as well and they would have a portable system in the form of Steamdeck. Sony have been pretty cozy with Valve lately, porting many of it's exclusives to PC and putting them on Steam rather than creating their own launcher/service with PlayStation branding. Rumors also suggest that Valve is porting Half-Life Alyx to the PSVR2 as a launch title. It would be good for Sony but also for gamers who could hope to get PlayStation exclusives day one on PC and potential sequels like Half-Life 3 and Portal 3 that Valve haven't been interested in making despite heavy demand.

Some might suggest Epic as an alternative but Epic is more than double the price ($28B), has less market-share with its PC store and there could potentially be opposition to deal from a legal standpoint seeing as Unreal Engine is widely used by devs across all platforms. And while Fortnite would be a huge get, I feel like Valve IPs will have better value in the long run, as Fornite's popularity is sure to fade when the next big thing comes around as today's youth are very fickle-minded.

I certainly would welcome it. I think all these acquisitions by both MS and Sony are a good thing because I don't believe they are doing this so much in a bid to compete with each other but rather to fend off Apple, Google, Meta and Amazon who are eager took take over gaming and have the cash to buy whoever they want in order to do so. I also feel like many studios and publishers would much rather be bought by MS or Sony than by those other huge corporations that don't have the pedigree in gaming that MS and Sony have.
 
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Seemed like this was going to happen... Next few months going to be pretty interesting around here

Anticipation Popcorn GIF

Every transaction of this size is getting reviewed. It isn't interesting in the least, not so far anyway.
 
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