Sony to continue building up Worldwide Studios through investments and acquisitions

Killer Sakoman said:
That includes Id and Bethesda studios which will be no less than $3 Billions. I believe they cost more than that.
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Sony could probably get them for 2. Covid financials makes cash rich companys sharks right now. Additionally we always find out about acquisition so late in the day. PS acquisitions are mostly done a good while ago. It always gets declared to us the public late.
 
Bryank75 said:
They have 33 Billion in cash and equivalents...

Sony Cash on Hand 2006-2020 | SNE

Sony cash on hand from 2006 to 2020. Cash on hand can be defined as cash deposits at financial institutions that can immediately be withdrawn at any time, and investments maturing in one year or less that are highly liquid and therefore regarded as cash equivalents and reported with or near cash...
www.macrotrends.net www.macrotrends.net

If I was in their position, I would pay 2 Billion upfront and the rest in debt financing... then pay off the loan over the next 5 years.
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Perrott said:
They should acquire Bluepoint Games (amazing remakes and already capable of making a new IP) and Sumo Digital (the best kart racer studio outside of Nintendo and also a super versatile developer as they can tackle many different genres with success similarly to Insomniac).
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i fully support both of these suggestions
 
Gloggins said:
Yeah I know about Epic Games. Just thought we would have heard more by now in terms of acquisitions. They need to be proactive not reactive to stay ahead.
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Sony was very recently ready to bid about 1.3 billion dollars on Leyou until Tencent stepped in and cockblocked them. They are being proactive.
 
Perrott said:
They should acquire Bluepoint Games (amazing remakes and already capable of making a new IP) and Sumo Digital (the best kart racer studio outside of Nintendo and also a super versatile developer as they can tackle many different genres with success similarly to Insomniac).
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maybe they have already if not they should.
 
vivftp said:
Sony was very recently ready to bid about 1.3 billion dollars on Leyou until Tencent stepped in and cockblocked them. They are being proactive.
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Thank god they didn't get that chicken business.....

There's way better targets out there. In China alone Game Science Studio would be amazing and way cheaper.

From Soft would be massive and so would Zenimax.

They can go small or big, add incrementally or go more strategically....
 
Turtle Rock is literally the perfect studio for Sony to buy. Talented developer coming off a commercial failure that fills a gaping hole in your lineup.
 
HouseMarque
BluePoint Games
Sumo Digital

I feel like somebody owns part of Sumo that would stop Sony from buying them... Can't quite remember though. Probably Tencent.
 
Sony should buy a studio that's job is to upgrade graphics, controls and add trophy support for PS1-2 games.

Bluepoint should continue to make the awesome stuff that they do and maybe have a smaller team that brings PS3 gen stuff to PS5 with 4k/60.
 
i hope they buy talented smaller studios that they can build up rather than huge devs or publishers, as i don't like any console maker buying those up.

Housemarque are talented ad making good games, and could be built upon to make bigger games. Bluepoint I wouldn't buy up yet, as they want to make their own games and we don't know how that will turn out. I would maybe fund their next game, and if it turns out well and the studio prove themselves, snap them up.

Hard to know who else would be open to a sale. A proper RPG studio would be great. I would love to see Platinum with a Sony budget but I don't think they want to be bought.
 
Zghia said:
i dont know if this is legit or not, but there's this rumor that sony has just acquired 2 game studios
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Very unlikely that any acquisitions were "major" third-party publishers as all of those are publicly traded companies. You don't just buy a publicly traded company, there's a process to go through. They need to halt their trading, announce to their shareholders their intent of being acquired, maybe even have a shareholder voting taking place, etc. So we would've known for weeks already if Sony had bought any publicly traded entity.

They might have bought some privately owned support studio like BluePoint or something. I wouldn't even consider them buying Platinum as Platinum have announced their intent to be a publisher themselves and stay independent. So, in all honesty, there's not a lot "high profile" studios for Sony to buy.
 
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Danjin44 said:
I hope its NOT another western studio...
tenor.gif
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I would have also prefered it if they bought at least one Japanese studio but on the other hand they already have the support of Japanese studios and a lot of them are Playstation/PC only without Sony even moving a finger. It makes more sense for them to buy a Western studio especially since the Japanese market for console games gets smaller and smaller.

Bryank75 said:
Thank god they didn't get that chicken business.....

There's way better targets out there. In China alone Game Science Studio would be amazing and way cheaper.

From Soft would be massive and so would Zenimax.

They can go small or big, add incrementally or go more strategically....
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I really doubt if any of those two want to be bought. And From Soft is owned by Kadokawa games which makes any potential acquisition even harder.
 
sublimit said:
I would have also prefered it if they bought at least one Japanese studio but on the other hand they already have the support of Japanese studios and a lot of them are Playstation/PC only without Sony even moving a finger.
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I get that but at same time there is no third party Japanese games similar to Fumito Ueda games, Gravity Rush and Folklore. Sony has more than enough first party western studio making games for them, I need my first party Japanese games, I dont need PlayStation turn in to another Xbox.
 
Nice, keep those AAA single player games coming. Sony seems to be the last bastion of quality gaming. Just keep leftist bullshit agenda out of them please.
 
Danjin44 said:
I get that but at same time there is no third party Japanese games similar to Fumito Ueda games, Gravity Rush and Folklore. Sony has more than enough first party western studio making games for them, I need my first party Japanese games, I dont need PlayStation turn in to another Xbox.
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Well Keiichiro Toyama and his team are still with Sony (can't wait to see what they are working on) and Gen Design's next game will still come out for playstation. Game Republic's closure was a sad thing though. I really believe they had potential regardless of their missteps.

But i get what you mean. I think an ideal situation would be to start hiring some experienced and talented Japanese developers and along with fresh recruits to form an "all star" new studio team within SCEJ aiming for a worlwide market but without watering down their culture aesthetics and their own distinct game design differences.
 
30yearsofhurt said:
From Software is part of the Kadokawa conglomerate. I think they'd need a few billion to snap that up.
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For a few billion u can get a publisher like Capcom. From Software is good and "successfully" but not mega successful. The Studio alone makes about 50mio $ revenue in a year. If Sony really really want From Software, they could easily buy out them, even if it is unlikely.
 
MrLove said:
For a few billion u can get a publisher like Capcom. From Software is good and "successfully" but not mega successful. The Studio alone makes about 50mio $ revenue in a year. If Sony really really want From Software, they could easily buy out them, even if it is unlikely.
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Sony (not playstation) wants to dominate the anime scene. I wouldn't put it past them to buy Kadokawa and then dump the gaming studios on Playstation. It would be a big win for Sony overall. The bigger issue is the other things Kadokawa does that don't really fit with Sony (anime hotel and other buildings).
 
Their model has been extremely succesful this gen, no point in stopping now

They are basically the Marvel studios of the industry now
 
Soulsborne said:
they have a nice collection of studios , but they are lacking variety
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They are still impressive and have been working on that, Spiderman and Ratchet are fun games for the families, Bloodborne and Demon Souls hardcore gothic styled action rpgs, FFVII R action jrpg, their racing games, Uncharted appeals to everyone and even GoW changed a lot this gen haters of the first games might like the new one as i did :D

I wish Nintendo were buying more studios tbh, instead of trying to fix old ones, they tried something with namco but were unsuccesful , MercurySteam for example has potential but desperately needs new direction
 
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I think the most obvious choices for acquisitions are Bluepoint Games and Housemarque. I'm playing armchair CEO here, but if I were in charge of SIE, I'd snap those two up immediately.

Sumo Digital is a maybe, and Ember Lab is worth keeping an eye on, but it's probably best to hold back and see how Kena is, though it seems really good based on initial impressions.

A Japanese dev worth considering is Vanillaware. They produce pretty much the exact opposite type of game Sony's western first-party devs make, so they'd do a very good job at adding variety. Then there's Kojima Productions, which I believe is more of a toss up than people might think. Personally, I assume Kojima doesn't want to be owned by a corporation again, unless he gets some big guarantees in writing.
 
Oddspeak said:
I think the most obvious choices for acquisitions are Bluepoint Games and Housemarque. I'm playing armchair CEO here, but if I were in charge of SIE, I'd snap those two up immediately.

Sumo Digital is a maybe, and Ember Lab is worth keeping an eye on, but it's probably best to hold back and see how Kena is, though it seems really good based on initial impressions.

A Japanese dev worth considering is Vanillaware. They produce pretty much the exact opposite type of game Sony's western first-party devs make, so they'd do a very good job at adding variety. Then there's Kojima Productions, which I believe is more of a toss up than people might think. Personally, I assume Kojima doesn't want to be owned by a corporation again, unless he gets some big guarantees in writing.
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Unless they can properly support the tons of projects that start and seemingly go nowhere for a long time at SIE Japan Studio, they could keep a small part of it for A-AA titles, some for JPN third parties support, and then give the rest and fuse it with KojiPro to make proper AAA games. That could give them focus and vision.
 
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Panajev2001a said:
Unless they can properly support the tons of projects that start and seemingly go nowhere for a long time at SIE Japan Studio, they could keep a small part of it for A-AA titles, some for JPN third parties support, and then give the rest and fuse it with KojiPro to make proper AAA games. That could give them focus and vision.
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You mean, there are actually active projects at Japan Studio?
I thought it was changed into a retirement home or a leisure centre for developers.

This is a team inside Japan Studio working:
Japanese-art-of-sleeping-at-work.jpg
 
sublimit said:
I would have also prefered it if they bought at least one Japanese studio but on the other hand they already have the support of Japanese studios and a lot of them are Playstation/PC only without Sony even moving a finger. It makes more sense for them to buy a Western studio especially since the Japanese market for console games gets smaller and smaller.



I really doubt if any of those two want to be bought. And From Soft is owned by Kadokawa games which makes any potential acquisition even harder.
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Yeah, I mean they should buy all of Kadokawa... it would be about the same amount as Leyou and they already want to expand their Anime business....
 
Ar¢tos said:
You mean, there are actually active projects at Japan Studio?
I thought it was changed into a retirement home or a leisure centre for developers.

This is a team inside Japan Studio working:
Japanese-art-of-sleeping-at-work.jpg
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Man, this looks painful. I feel sorry for them.
 
Bryank75 said:
Yeah, I mean they should buy all of Kadokawa... it would be about the same amount as Leyou and they already want to expand their Anime business....
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Like i said i doubt From Soft and especially Kadokawa want to be bought even if Sony would be willing to pay the insane amount of money needed. Which i also doubt they would be willing to do that for Kadokawa since Sony's eyes have been looking towards the West way more than towards the East in the last 10-15 years.
 
I would say Bluepoint is almost a sure bet because of the very close relationship they already have with Playstation. But if we take a look at the clues Sony has been leaving lately they are clearly interested in diversifying the portfolio of games and pursuing developers with experience in multiplayer.

So don't get your hopes up with flashy acquisitions because probably studios like Illfonic (Friday the 13th and Predator: Hunting Grounds) or Housemarque (they were already developing a Battle Royale before Sony approached them for the Returnal exclusive deal) are more interesting to Sony right now than Remedy or FromSowtare.
 
FranXico said:
They've been pretty innocuous so far.
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History just makes me sceptical. Maybe being innocuous is the problem? why make acquisitions if you don't know what to do with them?

Maybe we already know MS M.O. and right now they have clearly a plan to go full GaaS route, although they don't know how to achieve it. There is no case of sucess coming from Microsoft Games Studios and I can't blame the devs, but MS strategy.

Even if they did make acquisition of talented devs I just don't give anymore benefit of the doubt, they have to earn it. My fellow xbox fans could just dismiss as a fanboy drivel, but come on...there is a limit for everyone.

When we talk about Sony, we have seen the results of their work on WWS. Playstation brand was cultivated along the years through the accumulation of user trust and this is something they tell in their report which really makes sense: "To reinforce content IP, SIE will accelerate the enhancement and rollout of its portfolio of exclusive PlayStation titles. As a result of cooperation with in-house development and partner companies, sell-through of PS4 software titles continues to grow, and the intention is to further enhance the lineup with compelling content ".

"cinematic movies" they say, but sony has a clear commitment to quality games and therefore it is no wonder that its studios have been improving over the years while Microsoft has failed to do the same.
 
So both Sony and MS have built an impressive studio list. But the real battle I have started to notice is gaining that PC leverage. Both seem to have maxed out on the console side so gaining that leverage on PC is where the true battle begins. Just some few observations:

MS have of course been up front about placing games everywhere, and i assume a few yrs down the line they will also be on everything including PS.
MS have had a tremendous year on PC as a lot of their older titles have come across steam and done strong sales, better than i think they ever expected. MS does not currently use the Epic store for buiness.
A lot of current updates on Steam are being a lot more controller friendly for configurations.
MS could easily buy Steam, but i think it more of just a behind the closed door deal where they will be in bed together for a long time.

Sony has slowly started to test the waters with exclusives to the PC. While the reception to their titles has been strong the actual sales is maybe below expectations, not sure.
Sony has bought into Epic and i expect more them to tie down more exclusives in terms of Epic and PS.

We are looking at 2 philosophies, both Steam and MS have both been clear they do not care where or what you play on while PS and Epic are about playing only in their yard.

Now if this was 10-15 years ago i would not be happy with the exclusive play, but there are so many strong titles today its not really loss. And actually for the PC space its the ultimate win from my POV.

The one question will be how much does that 1.4% investment Sony put into Epic hold. i have said multiple times Epic could easily tell any dev if the use their engine it HAS to be exclusive to them for x amount of time does this come true? Dont know, all i know there are great games released every week. A few dozen studios do not make the gaming world go round.
 
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