Support NeoGAF

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

That 40% figure is from 1995-96 but Sony bought them in 1993. I guess Sony made a good job with them

They also continued to release games on Sega and Nintendo for several years. That totally goes against the narrative posters like thicc_girls_are_teh_best kept pushing (buying Psygnosis killed Sega or whatever)

Crazy how easy it is to change history when you have an agenda.

Uh, what? I've NEVER said Sony buying Psynosis killed Sega. Not even once.

How could you get a simple thing so, so wrong?

At first, then they merged it into Playstation and turned it into Wipeout/F1 studio and at the end they killed them when they lost licence for formula.
They don't even sell old Psygnosis games anywhere.

Yeah, it sucks. I know a lot of people would love a rerelease of the classic Wipeout games. Licensing issues with music might be one of the hold-ups, though.

sega sammy holdings market cap, 519b yen
Konami market cap, 819b yen

I mean yeah, but everyone knows 90% of Konami's value comes from pachinko gambling, and has for years now. SegaSammy actually cut back on pachinko a good while ago and have way more relevancy as a gaming company compared to Konami these days, no question.

Konami doesn't even have a fraction of the internal game development staff they had back in 7th gen or so. The only games they've released of late, IIRC, is a small game for the Switch.

And that might've only been as its publisher.

 

[Thirty7ven]

IP and future potential with Sony's involvement. There have been rumblings about Capcom - Sony inside the industry since last year, if they don't go for them they are dumb.

 

[R3claimer117]

Yeah that number is off.

Not to mention Bungie for example will only cost 2.4B at the time of purchase, with the rest being spent throughout the next couple of years on hiring etc.

That’s not how acquisitions work Microsoft doesn’t go to activision and say I’ll pay 30 billion today an the rest later.

 

[Orbital2060]

So the lawyer here looked into the claims made by the VGC article that the FTC procedures are a «break from tradition», and completely debunked this. Its business as usual.

Its interesting to see that this site and their journalists are now making things up, and you can only guess to what their motivations for doing so are. Willful obfuscation, or wishful thinking? Either way, its good to see the bias of some journalists being revealed.

 

[Thirty7ven]

That’s not how acquisitions work Microsoft doesn’t go to activision and say I’ll pay 30 billion today an the rest later.

I didn't pull it out of my ass, it's from the earnings call. 2.4 B for the acquisition and the remainder is investment to preserve talent and expand throughout the next couple of years.

Bungie is a private company, the majority of whose shares are owned by its employees. So the payment of the consideration is structured to incentivize the shareholders and other creative talent to continue working at Bungie after the acquisition closes. Approximately one-third of the $3.6 billion consideration for acquisition consists primarily of deferred payment to employee shareholders, conditional upon their continued employment and other retention incentives.

These amounts will be paid over the course of several years after the acquisition closes, and will be recorded as expenses for accounting purposes. We expect about two-thirds of these deferred payments and other retention incentives to be expensed in the first two years after the acquisition closes.

Buy Bungie, keep Bungie, expand Bungie.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Not to mention Bungie for example will only cost 2.4B at the time of purchase, with the rest being spent throughout the next couple of years on hiring etc.

It's still 3.6B, just that 1.2B will be paid conditionally and later.

 

[HeisenbergFX4]

Hot on the heels of this week’s news that Bungie will be joining PlayStation, I had a chance to chat with Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios, to learn more about how the developer collective might collaborate with the celebrated studio. We also touched on Horizon Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7 (State of Play tonight!), and MLB The Show 22.
See below for a transcript, edited for length and clarity, or listen to our chat in full.

---

Sid: So Hermen, it’s official – Bungie is joining PlayStation. Not exactly something I would have predicted a few weeks ago, but spectacular nonetheless.

Hermen: Exciting news, right? It’s a really good surprise. We like surprises. Let me just say that I’m so pleased that we could make this happen because Bungie is truly a world-class developer.

Sid: Yeah, absolutely. Just a legendary developer, really. I don’t think that’s overstating it. They’ve been around for a long time, about 30 years…. I was curious, what are some of the ways you’ve seen Bungie influence the gaming medium over the past few decades?

Hermen: It’s actually an amazing story, when you look at it. As you said, they’ve done many genres on many different platforms. And of course their work on Halo was phenomenal, in my mind some of the best shooters in history. Halo also had a very strong component. And then there’s Destiny, a series still going strong after eight years, I think. Many people have tried to build a successful live service, and failed. Because it’s really hard. So Destiny’s success is very special. I’m also impressed by the production values from them, in terms of technology, graphics, performance capture, sound and music…all of that is really top-class at Bungie.

Sid: They’re trailblazers. Halo: Combat Evolved — it’s been, what, 20-something years since that came out? But they laid the groundwork for first-person shooters on console, and a lot of those ideas have endured over that time, whether it’s grenades, melee, sticky aim was an innovation of theirs, having a recharging health bar… and all the things you pointed out with Destiny and the live service element, making this game that evolves over time. Very innovative studio.

Hermen: Yes, everyone in gaming knows that Bungie’s gameplay is one of the benchmarks. It always feels fluid, it’s always very responsive, easy to pick up and hard to put down. They’ve either started or perfected so many innovations in their games. I follow their design choices very closely since, obviously as you know, I was working on Killzone while Bungie was developing Halo.

Sid: Moving forward, how do you see PlayStation Studios partnering with Bungie? Do you envision a close working relationship with them?

Hermen: Absolutely. And obviously it’s still early, the deal itself needs to be finalized before we can officially start discussing detailed collaboration. But I’ve spent a lot of time with folks like Jason Jones and Pete Parsons, and some of the senior team over at Bungie. And let me tell you that everyone’s very excited for Bungie and PlayStation Studios to share ideas, share some of our battle scars as well. And really, just learn from each other.

Sid: Sounds like a dynamic time to be a game designer at PlayStation. With all this news, the last 12 months for PlayStation Studios has been really interesting with interesting Housemarque and Bluepoint and others… kind of a crazy time.

Hermen: Well, exciting times. We have a few very good months coming up for PlayStation fans. Horizon Forbidden West is only a few weeks away. I’ve been playing it for a while now, and it’s everything that I know Guerrilla wanted it to be. We actually began the game back when I was still at Guerrilla, and I’m just amazed at the scope, the depth, and the sheer quality that the team has achieved. You know, I think they’ve actually gotten a bit better since I left them, so really proud of that team.

And in March, we will have Gran Turismo 7. And there’s a State of Play about to hit, so later today you’ll be able to see a lot more of this game. I know that GT fans have been waiting to see what Polyphony can do on PS5, and I think they’re going to be quite happy with that.
It’s beautiful, as you would expect. But I’m really impressed with how Polyphony has used the DualSense controller. We all know that Kazunori [Yamauchi] is fanatical about recreating that driving experience for players. In that context, the DualSense is just perfect.
And then there’s MLB The Show 22 in April, of course. We gave an update on MLB The Show this week unveiling our cover athlete, the amazing Shohei Ohtani. We also announced that this year, MLB The Show will be on Nintendo Switch, as well as PS4, PS5, and Xbox. San Diego Studio is doing such a great job on this series, it just keeps getting better.

Sid: Thanks for joining us – always a pleasure to hear from you!

Hermen: Thanks for having me, Sid.

 

[mansoor1980]

3.6 billion so they can share IDEAS , like a family

 

[GhostOfTsu]

Uh, what? I've NEVER said Sony buying Psynosis killed Sega. Not even once.

How could you get a simple thing so, so wrong?

You always bring up Psygnosis any chance you get so I thought it was you, sorry

There was a post going around saying Sony bought Psygnosis, a publisher that owned 40% of the market (vs Activision 5%), to block Sega and Nintendo from getting games. Absolute nonsense but Xbox fans ran with it on forums, Twitter, etc after the Acti deal.

Maybe it was on Era

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

I didn't pull it out of my ass, it's from the earnings call. 2.4 B for the acquisition and the remainder is investment to preserve talent and expand throughout the next couple of years.



Buy Bungie, keep Bungie, expand Bungie.

That's still 3.6B. The contingency is those employees must abide by the rules set until their shares are vested. This is nothing new in acquisitions of this size. MS doesn't want to buy Bethesda and lose Todd Howard as he cashes out. Fox did the same thing to keep Iger as CEO for an extra couple of years. Sony is deferring the payment until later.

Hiring new talent, OPEX and any other expenses are on top of that.

 

[SaucyJack]

That's still 3.6B. The contingency is those employees must abide by the rules set until their shares are vested. This is nothing new in acquisitions of this size. MS doesn't want to buy Bethesda and lose Todd Howard as he cashes out. Fox did the same thing to keep Iger as CEO for an extra couple of years. Sony is deferring the payment until later.

Hiring new talent, OPEX and any other expenses are on top of that.

I think the point being made was about timing I.e. 1.2 billion of the price is beyond the 3-year period to which the 18 billion investment number relates.

IMO this is neither here nor there and would not impact the ability of PS Studios to do future deals.

 

[SSfox]

Next Sony acquisition better be a Japanese dev.

 

[Punished Miku]

Next Sony acquisition better be a Japanese dev.

They just got that mobile thing.

 

[AnotherDayAnotherDollar]

I think the point being made was about timing I.e. 1.2 billion of the price is beyond the 3-year period to which the 18 billion investment number relates.

IMO this is neither here nor there and would not impact the ability of PS Studios to do future deals.

Still 3.6B and not 2.4B which is the point of my post.

 

[Thirty7ven]

Next Sony acquisition better be a Japanese dev.

All money on Capcom, bet your house, your wife, your kids, yer usband, the goddamn dawg. It's happening baby, you know it, you just gotta listen, eyes open, smell fate slipping through time into our lives. It's here baby.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

You always bring up Psygnosis any chance you get so I thought it was you, sorry

There was a post going around saying Sony bought Psygnosis, a publisher that owned 40% of the market (vs Activision 5%), to block Sega and Nintendo from getting games. Absolute nonsense but Xbox fans ran with it on forums, Twitter, etc after the Acti deal.

Maybe it was on Era

That's okay, my dude. I just thought it was weird because yeah, I have talked about Psygnosis a lot, but never to say them getting bought by Sony killed Sega in the '90s. I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who think that, though.

Also yeah that particular post probably has data wrong. Psygnosis was a publisher, but I strongly doubt they had anything near 40% of the gaming market prior to Sony buying them. It'd of been way smaller, they didn't publish a ton of games anyhow, at least to my knowledge. Acclaim, Ocean etc. were much bigger publishers at the time. Even Sega published a ridiculous 150 games in 1995 (between consoles, PC, and arcade).

Psygnosis were one of the smaller publisher outfits at the time, but they showed a lot of promise. That's why they got purchased

 

[Salty Popsicle]

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/202...bungie-says-outspoken-analyst-michael-pachter

"Just to compare and contrast, EA bought Respawn about three or four years ago for $700 million with 400 developers. And those guys generate $700 million a year in revenue. Bungie does about $200 million in revenue. So I think Sony vastly overpaid."

"I think this was a statement that [Sony's] not going to let Microsoft get ahead of [it], so [it'll] just buy something out of desperation," Pachter adds, in rather damning fashion. "It's not really a deal that makes a whole lot of sense to me," he concludes.


I don't think this was a reaction to the Activision deal by Microsoft, but I do think Bungie's price tag was over-inflated. Thoughts?

 

[LOLCats]

Think we prolly have enough threads for this, but personally i wouldnt buy bungie... and it does feel desperate.

But then again the games they mostly make are not my genre, so my opinion is bias Because "i dont play that garbage"

 

[ManaByte]

 

[a multicultural team of v]

The price does seem high but then again they have a million preorders for their next DLC apparently so what the hell do I know.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Apex is that much bigger than Destiny? Kinda surprising.

 

[Abriael_GN]

Pachter shows once more that he understands absolutely nothing of the gaming industry.

Sony explained this morning during its financial conference call the motivations behind the acquisition of Bungie, and they're very far from anything desperate. They obviously are looking into exploring a very popular and very profitable gaming trend and purchased a company that has deep know-how in that trend. Ultimately, it's a very purposeful move that has nothing to do with desperation and certainly has been in the works for several months.

Pachter seems to think that Sony simply purchased Destiny, but that's not the case. They purchased their ticket into GAAS with all the tech and know-how that comes with it. I don't like GAAS all that much, but it's obvious that they can be extremely profitable. Sony's forays into GAAS have been historically forgettable because they had no one with that expertise, and now they do, and that expertise can be shared with all of PlayStation's studios.

This literally stupid take shows how absolutely superficial Pachter's analysis of the industry is, and it's ludicrous that there are sites that still report his shit like it's any relevant. It really is not.

Incidentally, the comparison with Respawn is idiotic. When EA purchased Respawn, they did not have a successful active GAAS under their belt. Their games had not exactly broken records before the EA acquisition. They released Apex Legends AFTER the EA acquisition, so obviously the revenue they generate now is absolutely irrelevant to the comparison.

Bungie has a successful GAAS active now, and another in its recent past at the moment of Sony's purchase. A 5-year-old that has not learned counting beyond 100 would understand easily why Bungie would be priced much higher at the moment of the acquisition. It's so stupidly elementary that it isn't even funny.

 

[cebri.one]

So it was basically the deal of the century. Patcher is wrong like 99.89% of the time.

 

[John Wick]

When Pachter states something the opposite is always true fact!

 

[Elios83]

There is a reason he never got a prediction right in decades

 

[Alebrije]

Sony a Japanese based company buying "desesperate" on a market where they currently dominate.

Sony basically filled the hole they had. Now they own an experienced multiplayer developer. Destiny could keep being mumticonsole but the real deal for Sony is to take Bungie's Know How and use on new IPs or even put Bungie to work on a new SOCOM.

 

[anthony2690]

Can we get a mega thread for the Sony bungie acquisition? It is literally drowning the board currently.

I do agree that Sony massively over paid for bungie though.

& The EA/Respawn comparison is odd, as no one knew they would make apex at the time, or how huge the game would end up being.

 

[Swift_Star]

So, buying Bethesda, creating play anywhere and gamepass were also acts of desperation? These analysts…

 

[Hitchyhero]

From what things I've read, both factual and rumour..... It seems like MS was going to buy Bungie for a lot less but because Bungie wanted games to remain Multiplatform, they said no.

Sony seems to be wanting a pivot towards multiplatform GAAS and laid their cards on the table and so Bungie asked for more. I do think the deal was overpriced but it seems they wanted experts in that field.... And even though I've never played destiny it seems to have a large play base and they do make a bit of money still for an oldish game. I don't think they were bought for the IPs or how much money they generated.... But there expertise in GAAS. So Sony thought the price was worth it there. I guess we will just have to wait to see if it pays off... But these kind of games do make a lot of money.

Microsoft Purchases work better for them because they need games for people to pay a subscription. So they needed the large numbers of studios. I guess each purchase was best for the direction each company is moving in.

 

[ethomaz]

So it was an amazing move?

Everything he says is the opposite.

 

[Azelover]

Can we please stop giving this guy attention? He's not even that good.

 

[Raphael]

Q is how much revenue was respawn bringing when EA bought them for 700 mil.

 

[Rex_DX]

Can we get a mega thread for the Sony bungie acquisition? It is literally drowning the board currently.

+1. (Don't we already have a merger/acquisition mega thread?)

 

[skit_data]

Michael Pachter, always with the worst analysis in the industry.

 

[kingfey]

NO. THAT IS FALSE
SONY WANTS LIVE SERVICE GAMES. DESTINY 2 IS THEIR STARTER FOR THAT STRATEGY, NOT TO MENTION, THEY GET FPS STUDIO IN THE PROCESS.

this is for stupid people, who wants to argue about this shit.

If Sony was desperate, they would buy konami, sega, or square. Those have much better value than bungie. The problem is that, those studios dont have the level of success that Bungie has with shooter genre.

 

[ManaByte]

creating play anywhere

I assume you never heard of Disney Movies Anywhere, which then became Movies Anywhere that allowed you to access your digital movies anywhere regardless of where you bought them. Forcing people to buy a digital game more than once is complete bullshit.

 

[Goalus]

He is a widely known and well-respected analyst.
I tend to agree with him.

 

[Max Payne’s Baretta]

Def over valued.

 

[Oddvintagechap]

in that sense Microsoft overpaid,

Zenimax makes 500 million revenue.
Bungie makes 250 million revenue.

I dont think Respawn made that revenue before EA bought them. Plus TitanFall wasnt a success. Apex was after EA heavily invested.

That being said, I sorta agreed they over paid, by a billion even. Microsoft must of raised it higher than it should have been. The game they have in the works must be amazing. Or 1 billion of that is for future expenses.

 

[BaneIsPain]

I am not a fan of this acquisition here and there but please be more desperate.

 

[Topher]

This guy is still around?

 

[MHubert]

Jim buying Bungie as an act of recreation and leisure confirmed

 

[ethomaz]

He is a widely known and well-respected analyst.
I tend to agree with him.

So all your predictions ended up being the opposite?

 

[GHG]

This guy is still around?

Exactly my first thought.

A deal 6 months in the making = desperation?

Interesting take to say the least. What's his neogaf username?

 

[winjer]

He does speak with authority, but has he ever gotten anything right.

 

[Topher]

What's his neogaf username?

Found him...

He is a widely known and well-respected analyst.
I tend to agree with him.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Dude is so consistently wrong, his name should be an official synonym for it

GOOGLE: Synonyms for "wrong"

SUGGESTIONS: Inaccurate. Incorrect. Micheal Patcher.

EXAMPLE: "No, no. That's Michael Patcher. You're supposed to use the spoon for your soup, silly!"

 

[ethomaz]

This guy is still around?

Yeap... remember these.

Michael Pachter: Truly the anti-Nostradomus

Michael Pachter: Project Morpheus 'a really bad idea for Sony

Michael Pachter says "PC Gamers are like Racists"

Has Michael Pachter eaten his hat yet?

Sony Are Fools To Bypass E3 2019, Says Michael Pachter.

And the famous...

Michael Pachter chooses the Xbox to win the next generation

 

[Iced Arcade]

I think they overpaid a bit BUT has a career record for not getting a God damn thing right.

This deal was in the works for a bit, not a knee jerk reaction

 

[itsjustJEFF]

Oh wow... Michael P legit now? Amazing how ppl's legitimacy changes when "certain" things happen

I remember when ppl would use his statements as proof that the opposite would happen he is now a "widely" well-respected... you guys are funny. I haven't heard anything from Michael P in a long time.

Edit: I'm always amazed at the mental gymnastics console fanboys perform.