Yoboman
Member
Yeah but revenue growth also brings in stock growth, so a bigger acquisition is more likely to create that growth
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Sony has $10 billion left to spend on acquisitions through 2023
- Thread starter Lunatic_Gamer
- Start date
- News
Just a random FYI for everyone but Activision also makes $3.26 billion in profit last year.
Bo_Hazem
Banned
Still, they're not directly gaining much from stock market bubble. But that can make a massive hit going to movies/series (TV). Also with Sony at their back they can share assets and expertise and make much more with much less budgets.
Also it's like a college fee for other PS Studios to learn from those GaaS experts. GOT needs MTX to have legs and more expansions/cosmetics despite it has A LOT as it is now.
Capcom is massive, same with Square Enix. For capcom, just take Street Fighters:
- Most famous 1v1 fighting game ever.
- Massive EVO eSport title.
- Amazing anime and comics IP.
- Amazing for movies/series.
- It can literally be Sony's version of Disney's Marvel and WB's DC.
If done right, I think Capcom is really massive. Square Enix as well on the same level. For Sony they can do so much with IP's that MS will struggle to do so if not directly profittable solely from gaming.
If someone wanna argue about Paramount's Halo, that's shared money and much higher risk. With Sony being a juggernaut in hardware they can do so much more out of any budget due to most of its hardware and assets being in-house. Heck, even Disney and WB and others peg to Sony for VFX and other critical hardware/software.
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Thirty7ven
Banned
It's hard to see Sony's strategy IMO.
CEO says Sony is becoming a content driven company, but they don't acquire any IP, Bungie is really the only example in recent times, even though they tried to acquire 20th Century Fox for over 60B.
They talk about cross media IP, but they are mostly buying distribution platforms in the case of Crunchy and Funimation, they don't own the IP and therefore there's no cross media possibility there because they are already licensed.
Buy Evo, but they don't have a fighting series.
One Sony, but still a bunch of "independent" subsidiaries, including in the gaming scape.
Playstation is Sony's biggest segment, yet CEO says its niche. Mobile here we come I guess?
Meanwhile they continue to finance major third party projects, like Final Fantasy and Forspoken, without having IP rights to any of it.
They dedicate a lot of resources to VR even though that isn't going to take off anytime soon.
Late to the GaaS party, and maybe possibly already over committing to it.
Message to fans that they believe in generations, 2022 and everything from them is going to possibly be cross gen. Sony shows their hardware expertise with PS5, but then stuff like VRR never arrives.
I don't see a plan here.
CEO says Sony is becoming a content driven company, but they don't acquire any IP, Bungie is really the only example in recent times, even though they tried to acquire 20th Century Fox for over 60B.
They talk about cross media IP, but they are mostly buying distribution platforms in the case of Crunchy and Funimation, they don't own the IP and therefore there's no cross media possibility there because they are already licensed.
Buy Evo, but they don't have a fighting series.
One Sony, but still a bunch of "independent" subsidiaries, including in the gaming scape.
Playstation is Sony's biggest segment, yet CEO says its niche. Mobile here we come I guess?
Meanwhile they continue to finance major third party projects, like Final Fantasy and Forspoken, without having IP rights to any of it.
They dedicate a lot of resources to VR even though that isn't going to take off anytime soon.
Late to the GaaS party, and maybe possibly already over committing to it.
Message to fans that they believe in generations, 2022 and everything from them is going to possibly be cross gen. Sony shows their hardware expertise with PS5, but then stuff like VRR never arrives.
I don't see a plan here.
Yoboman
Member
Yeah I think the IP potential for multimedia is a big consideration for Sony
I think Capcom have done themselves no favours there though. They've basically burned away all good will on their big IP with poorly made movie projects
Square you could do a lot with from IP like FF, Dragon Quest, Chrono. Even stuff like Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. And maybe they can being back Thief and Legacy of Kain
One thing I like for Capcom - just give them the tech behind Days Gone and have them make a wild new Dead Rising
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Bo_Hazem
Banned
I struggle to distinguish which one is a better buy, but I lean for SE for pure gaming, ans Capcom for overall. I think if Sony is sane enough they should get both, if they're buyable.
Yoboman
Member
If the Avengers and Guardians licenses come with Square then they are the easy choice IMO
Sony would be able to mould those into much more successful games
Bo_Hazem
Banned
And FF14 online is expanding, hence their GaaS push. Also I can see a FF series to be something massive with how flexible creatively they can be with it as it's literally separate games that only share one theme.
Thirty7ven
Banned
Incredible source, funny how he only came up with a number in February 2022
Rumors about MS wanting to buy Bungie are old, what’s new is the new spin that Bungie actually went to MS, and that it was going to be cheaper.
Can put that insider in the toilet, he doesn’t know shit.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
If you pay attention to the multiplayer space, you'll notice how little IP matters. Case in point: Lost Ark.
However, in the single player space IP matters.
That's why Sonys big single player games in the pipeline are massive IP (Spiderman, Wolverine, Star Wars, God of War...)
They likely know that many of their next blockbuster games are going to be multiplayer...where IP is borderline meaningless. So in that regard, talent > IP.
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Kotor is third party and timed exclusive only btw.
yurinka
Member
Regarding Sony strategy:
- Investing in IP isn't only to buy IPs, it's also to grow the talent that creates and develop them (like growing all their existing internal development teams), hiring people with talent and potential to create and develop top IP (Bungie, Housemarque, Firesprite, Bluepoint) and to develop this IP in new areas (movies/tv shows/animation of PS IPs).
- By acquiring Funimation or Crunchyroll more than buying IP what they were doing was basically to control the future anime distribution in the western world making them easier to monetize their anime Ps and also to make companies like Kadokawa depend on them, grabbing them by the balls and to ease to get IPs.
- They are working to bring many PS IPs to gaming (Uncharted, TLOU, Twisted Metal, Ghost of Tsushima, Destiny, Jak & Daxter...) plus Sony is also adapting non-Sony IPs like Metal Gear Solid
- In the 'we believe in generations' interview Jim Ryan never said that their plan was to don't make crossgen games. The opposite, he said they were going to keep supporting PS4 for several years after PS5 launch because even if PS5 would sell at a record numbers, they had almost 100M MAU on PS4 and during the first years only 20-30M of them would migrate to PS5, so wanted to keep providing them content. He said that for PS5 he wanted to see the games using the next gen features (super fast loadings, 3d audio, haptic feedback, adaptative triggers etc). So basically he explained the plan they are implementing.
- To do somethting creative like videogames isn't like to work in a factory, so each team works in their own way, so typically is way better to give them creative freedom and even publish their own thing. Sony is known to give their teams full creative freedom, even thte 2nd party ones.
- Sony likes to innovate investing in technologies with potential. Some of them end working, some of them don't. When it works, having been pioneers typically gives them an advantage due to having an established catalog, fanbase, tech, knowledge, data and expertise that gives them a lead. Examples: VR or Cloud Gaming. Or in the future, if they want to make their 'metaverse' they already had their own one: PlayStation Home so make sure they learnt many lessons from there.
- Outside mobile, most GaaS are multiplatform and PS is the main platform for them, so Sony has been making a lot of money with them even if they didn't have their own one.
Regarding Sony X fighting games:
- Same as GaaS, they don't have their own fighting game but PS is by far the main platform of the genre, so they have been making a lot of money with it.
- Most fighting game series got their best selling entries on their series during this generation or got close to it.
- This generation most fighting game series moved to GaaS and eSports, meaning that in addition to the revenue from sales, they also got many extra revenue and retention.
- Next iteration of GaaS models, and iterating eSports will continue helping them to continue growing in revenue and retention.
- The two top grossing PC games of the last decade (League of Legends and Dungeon Fighter Online), with hundreds of millions of fans and LoL super huge in eSports, so will provice extra players to the genre plus GaaS and eSport expertise.
- So they're achieving 6-11 milion sales plus a ton of extra revenue from GaaS and eSports, and are in a clear growing trend so if properly nurtured improving the online, adding stuff like the online PS Tournaments and biggest investments in stuff like EVO this generation will have huge revenue numers similar to big budget AAA games.
- Sony also has a good opportunity here, because for many reasons in tournaments they prefer to use console instead of PCs for tournaments, and traditionally use PS because many of these games aren't in other consoles and also because more people has them. So by doing a "small" effort, they saw an opportunity to dominate a genre that was niche but has potential to become huge soon
Lies, Phil Spencer's favorite game is Destiny, they would have killed to get Bungie, who left MS because didn't want to work with them anymore. And seeing what they overpaid for Zenimax or Activision Blizzard, $2B for Bungie would have been a steal.
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Ass of Can Whooping
Gold Member
Nothing beyond the cultural barrier, whether they want to sell to MS and the fact that they aren't going to be shopping for more publishers until the ZeniMax one has gone through
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yurinka
Member
Nobody said Capcom is up for sale. Pretty likely they don't want to sell and if it would be the case maybe they would prefer a Japanese company not only because of the cultural barrier, but because most big Japanese publishers share the same main shareholders.
But they also recently acquired Betthesda, many 'smaller' teams and have to close the Activision Blizzard acquisition, so even if they may continue making acquisitions maybe they take some time to close the ABK acquisition and make sure the other teams are properly integration in the organization before to continue making more acquisitions. And if MS would be able to choose, they would acquire EA or Take 2 before, since unlike Sony they can afford them without having to make a big effort.
Melon Husk
Member
Idiots
They should have saved that money
Put it in a piggy bank
They should have saved that money
Put it in a piggy bank
Mibu no ookami
Demoted Member® Pro™
It seems like you're conflating a lot of things and because you don't see how they connect (because they weren't supposed to connect, you don't see a strategy.
They didn't acquire any IP so they aren't doing cross content media? Do you not see the Uncharted movie, Twisted Metal TV show, Last of Us TV show on HBO...
Crunchyroll/Funimation is about being the dominant player in Anime. They could also use that leverage to sell if they wanted to as well for far more in the future. They can bundle anime subscriptions with PlayStation subscriptions as well. They have over a hundred million free subscribers on Crunchyroll and funimation. These people might be willing to have a paid subscription if they get more out of it and vice versa.
Why would they need to own a fighting game series in order to facilitate the Evo tournaments?
Do you not see PlayStation Productions working directly with Sony Pictures? And if the spartacus rumors are true Sony Pictures/Sony Music are working with SIE as well for funimation and Crunchyroll.
Sometimes it is far cheaper to pay for something temporarily than to buy the farm. Not sure how that isn't clear.
On one hand you say they are late to the party on GaaS but say they they are too dedicate to VR... when is the right time to get into something rather than being too late? And how are they too late with GaaS?
yurinka
Member
If you take it literally, then true. But it's way more complex than that.
Having these assets (IPs, workers etc) has a value itself, and that the bumped revenue and profit coming from the acquisition also has a value for the stocks of the company, synergies generated from the acquisition that help improving other products (let's say with Bungie the upcoming FPS/MP/GaaS games will be better, or that PS5 hardware sales could improve a bit since Bungie fans will be sure all their games will be there independently of if Jimbo changes his mind tomorrow and decides to make Bungie's game exclusive, something I think won't happen), services (more people joining Spartacus because it's the only subscription with these games), additional products resulting from the acquisition (Destiny movies/tvs shows) etc.
So even if you look at it as 'let's count the extra profits Sony got by acquiring Bungie until they reach the amount Sony paid for them', you shouldn't only look at the extra profit posted by Bungie. You should instead counting all the ones provided directly and indirectly to Sony (extra profit provided to Spartacus/HW sales/movies & tv shows/other Sony FPS/MP/GaaS that got extra profit thanks to Bungie etc).
I believe capcom is largely family owned, and whilst the board said they wouldn't automaticalky turn down any sale pitches, in about 2014... This was before the company had a renaissance and started making money with Mon Hun World, RE7/RE2 Remake etc...
IntentionalPun
Ask me about my wife's perfect butthole
Where is anyone getting that the initial spend includes "unannounced acquisitions"?
Ghost of Caelid
Banned
From is owned by a third party already...so easier said than done unless you massively overpay.
Zeroing
Banned
Hmmm kinda but from software is part of a company so that might be complicated.
Ubisoft is dying to be brought but they want to keep their independence meaning keep doing whatever they want
Square Enix is a financial and studio management mess
Platinum games also want to be brought but their games output are hit or miss…
Nothing left to be consider a good acquisition… that doesn’t require large amounts of money.
Oddvintagechap
Member
Would only be a billie at worst.
Still they literally can have bluepoint make these medieval “soul” centric games. They don't need Fromsoftware.
Bernd Lauert
Banned
That's a very bold theory. Good luck making a good souls game without Miyazaki.
Zeroing
Banned
Unknown?
Member
Yeah it's like Crash without Naughty Dog. Best scenario is they male a souls game that's just slightly above average like Crash 4.