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[Oddvintagechap]

Are you saying they making Horizon a Waifu GAAS game?

NCSoft is developing the title. Idk if I would describe it as a “Waifu” game. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s very cutesy.

 

[UltimaKilo]

Can part of that please be an investment in porting over a SOCOM game with higher resolution and textures?

 

[bitbydeath]

Fair enough. I assumed the OP is accurate when he said in the first line the $11.5B includes stock buybacks.

You’re right, but I think they do that quite frequently, so I don’t know which side the dollars fall.

Fake Edit: While googling I saw they just recently committed to 1.6B, being new I gather that would come out of it.

Sony shares leap 12% on buyback and dividend plans, higher profit outlook

Shares in Sony Group jumped 12% in early Tokyo trading on Wednesday after the company pledged to boost shareholder returns and forecast higher annual profit with a boost from its image sensors business. The tech and entertainment conglomerate said it would spend up to 250 billion yen ($1.6...

finance.yahoo.com

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You’re right, but I think they do that quite frequently, so I don’t know which side the dollars fall.

Fake Edit: While googling I saw they just recently committed to 1.6B, being new I gather that would come out of it.

Sony shares leap 12% on buyback and dividend plans, higher profit outlook

Shares in Sony Group jumped 12% in early Tokyo trading on Wednesday after the company pledged to boost shareholder returns and forecast higher annual profit with a boost from its image sensors business. The tech and entertainment conglomerate said it would spend up to 250 billion yen ($1.6...

finance.yahoo.com

Ah. my mistake. I thought it was $2.5B US. I got mixed up as I read about Sony earnings in the morning and misremembered it was actually 250B Yen.

 

[bitbydeath]

Ah. my mistake. I thought it was $2.5B US. I got mixed up as I read about Sony earnings in the morning and misremembered it was actually 250B Yen.

I wasn’t even aware it was announced.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I wasn’t even aware it was announced.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/14/sony-q4-and-full-year-2023-earnings.html

Sony Group Portal - FY2023 Q2 Earnings Announcement

www.sony.com

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/pdf/23q4_sonypre.pdf

Skimming the financials, there's some fuckery going on because they keep stating customized charts "with or without financial services division"

 

[Jesb]

I hope part of their plans are to put out their games on GFN.

 

[Felessan]

It's great that you can buy talent and IPs, but sooner or later you will have issues on how to manage them financially. Especially with more first party games being sold on your platform cannibalizing sales from other first party games.

There is no issues to how to manage them financially. Projects inside corps operate pretty much on the same basis as projects outside corps - if you not perform well financially - you can go in debt or you go bankrupt. If you go bankrupt in corp - you will just get fired and your studio closed.
The problem almost always is an ability to manage and not a money. Properly managed function a self sustainable. The skill of particular management team allows them to manage structure of certain size - their management limit. If the size of the structure is bigger than their ability - it's the point where things goes highwire most of the time, and not a lack of money.

But the issue is MMOs, how many dead MMOs are there now? I lost count. Final Fantasy online and WoW is the current biggest. But after that it’s tough to name a recent successfully launch MMO.

Tons of them. Genshin for example.
MMO became a bit obsolete term, because many mobile game already "coop online game with social interaction" and can be treated as MMO.
Horizon MMO is not WoW/FF14 style MMO, assumed platforms are PC/mobile/PS5 - so it will be Genshin/Tower of Fantasy/Arknight Endfield/ZZZ/Mugen style "MMO" and not oldschool type of MMO

 

[Perrott]

- They announced $1.6 billion in stock buybacks. The paramount deal sunk the stock lately, so the are buying back stock to prop the stock back up

What a fucking waste. They could've purchased a package of several, incredible teams and partners (FromSoftware, Remedy, Ballistic Moon, Arrowhead, Kojima Productions, etc) for that money that they're now having to throw down the toilet to make up for the bad image their retarded bid for Paramount has given them - which if for whatever reason doesn't end up materializing in the acquisition of Paramount, would now literally be 1.6B (all of PlayStation's profit in a year) wasted for absolutely nothing.

 

[Hardensoul]

There is no issues to how to manage them financially. Projects inside corps operate pretty much on the same basis as projects outside corps - if you not perform well financially - you can go in debt or you go bankrupt. If you go bankrupt in corp - you will just get fired and your studio closed.
The problem almost always is an ability to manage and not a money. Properly managed function a self sustainable. The skill of particular management team allows them to manage structure of certain size - their management limit. If the size of the structure is bigger than their ability - it's the point where things goes highwire most of the time, and not a lack of money.


Tons of them. Genshin for example.
MMO became a bit obsolete term, because many mobile game already "coop online game with social interaction" and can be treated as MMO.
Horizon MMO is not WoW/FF14 style MMO, assumed platforms are PC/mobile/PS5 - so it will be Genshin/Tower of Fantasy/Arknight Endfield/ZZZ/Mugen style "MMO" and not oldschool type of MMO

Thanks for explaining the distinction between the type of MMO Horizon is likely to be.

Definitely not type of MMO I like. Too much of gatcha mechanic.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

What a fucking waste. They could've purchased a package of several, incredible teams and partners (FromSoftware, Remedy, Ballistic Moon, Arrowhead, Kojima Productions, etc) for that money that they're now having to throw down the toilet to make up for the bad image their retarded bid for Paramount has given them - which if for whatever reason doesn't end up materializing in the acquisition of Paramount, would now literally be 1.6B (all of PlayStation's profit in a year) wasted for absolutely nothing.

Since the Paramount deal was rumoured and then announced the stock literally dropped $8 in a week and a half (about $10 billion market cap out of $100 billion).

But the funny thing is the stock popped back up $5 today, which mainly came from 5-1 stock split and the paramount deal is on shaky ground perhaps. So really, they probably didnt even have to do the share buy back because buying back $1.6 billion of stock out of a company worth $100 billion is nothing anyway. You're talking about boosting the EPS 1.6% for shareholders. They also announced increasing over time the dividend payout ratio from 32% to 40%. Which means more profits will be given to shareholders.

Sony shares leap 12% on buyback and dividend plans, higher profit outlook

Shares in Sony Group jumped 12% in early Tokyo trading on Wednesday after the company pledged to boost shareholder returns and forecast higher annual profit with a boost from its image sensors business. The tech and entertainment conglomerate said it would spend up to 250 billion yen ($1.6...

finance.yahoo.com

Group shares had fallen in recent months with investors concerned about the outlook for the games business and the financial impact of a potential bid for Paramount Global. With Wednesday's gains, however, the shares are roughly flat for the year to date.

Sony is rethinking its bid for the U.S. media company, CNBC reported overnight. The Japanese conglomerate is interested in buying Paramount in a consortium with buyout firm Apollo Global Management, Reuters has reported.

 

[drganon]

This industry is not guaranteed. All it takes is 1 decision from heard up and you can screw up your entire progress.

In 1-2 gen, we might not even have a console. Ps6 might be the last console we see.

Can you go back to one of your self imposed bans.

 

[Roronoa Zoro]

They announced in the fiscal year earnings that they plan on spending 11.5 billion USD on strategic investments (including music catalog purchases and buypack plans).

This is significantly more than what they actually spent in the previous mid range strategy. Who knows if this involves Paramount or not, it wouldn't really make much sense if it did.

Depending on whether that is the case, it would be pretty easy to assume that SIE will spend as much or more than they did acquiring Bungie on other publishers/developers in the next 3 years.

I think the most likely candidates would be

• FromSoftware/Kadokawa
  • Current Market Cap: 2.78 Billion USD
  • Sony already owns 14.09% of FromSoftware and 1.93% of Kadokawa
  • Fully owns Elden Ring now, Sony already owns Demon's Souls and Bloodborne, and Armored Core has shown to be a much stronger IP now
  • Buying a Japanese company makes sense because of the currency rate
• Sega
  • Current Market Cap: 3.7 Billion USD
  • If they are successful in buying Paramount, this would give them the full rights to the Sonic IP
  • Persona exclusivity
  • Transmedia opportunities for Sonic, Persona, and Yakuza
  • Virtual Fighter for EVO
  • Again, currency is favorable
• Arrowhead
  • Private Company
  • Build and expand out on Helldivers 2
• NCSoft
  • Working with Sony on Horizon online MMO
  • Significant experience in GaaS, MMO, and Mobile

Honorable Mentions: Playrix and Bandai Namco. Both for mobile, but Bandai Namco especially for synergies in anime. Bandai Namco might be a bit too large to take on without private equity involved, I could also see maybe a stock swap rather than an all cash deal, especially since they're doing stock buybacks.

Replace Sega with square. Sony wants those ip

 

[Ronin_7]

Let's hope they don't Embrace too much of the market...

Embracer was an absolute disaster.

 

[schaft0620]

I speculate that they already acquired Aarowhead. Kinda like BluePoint where it happened some time before Demon's Souls came out but wasn't official until sometime after. The CEO of Aarowhead is super chill and laid back especially during some of the more sketchy times of the launch. A few hundred million dollars will do that. They also bend the knee to Sony on everything to do with the PSN stuff.

 

[rm082e]

Embracer was an absolute disaster.

Indeed. We waited for years for the other shoe to drop and all those studios to get screwed. Every time I would hear "Embracer" I would think of the running away balloon meme:

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

Sega would be nice for sony with football sim , house of the dead and virtue cop etc etc with sony trying to grab paramount which has sonic movies imagine sonic racing movie

 

[Hudo]

I think Sony should buy Playstation next.

 

[BattleScar]

I can't believe we're talking about more acquisitions and consolidation. Fucking crazy shit.

 

[balls of snow]

Poach the entirety of Tango Gameworks. Do it Sony, for the clout.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

You said insanely popular! If it was insanely popular why hasn’t part 2 sold as much as part 1. Last report I saw was under 10m(correct me if there was update over that) vs over 21m part 1.

Also address my comments about it being MMO. There was no need to compare Mario, there is no MMO Mario game.

Forbidden West will never sell as many as Zero Dawn, it hasn't been out as long. Not only that but part 2 isn't as good of a game, it's visually better and the side missions are better but the main story was awful, there were no real improvements to the gameplay to make it more fun and Aloy should have been renamed "Anoy" because she started every other sentence with a sigh lol.

 

[Mibu no ookami]

Replace Sega with square. Sony wants those ip

There might be some value in Final Fantasy Online, but there is also potential in Persona Online.

 

[Hardensoul]

Forbidden West will never sell as many as Zero Dawn, it hasn't been out as long. Not only that but part 2 isn't as good of a game, it's visually better and the side missions are better but the main story was awful, there were no real improvements to the gameplay to make it more fun and Aloy should have been renamed "Anoy" because she started every other sentence with a sigh lol.

I’m aware that Forbidden West is very divisive among the fans. Which could be reason why sales are lower than expect.

I won’t comment on quality of either games. I was just curious about expanding the ip to other game genre. Wasn’t aware Horizon had multiplayer and could be expanded to an MMO.