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[Badlucktroll]

if Sony bought Konami, do you guys think they would also want to control the gambling business, or would they spin it off?

 

[Nero_PR]

if Sony bought Konami, do you guys think they would also want to control the gambling business, or would they spin it off?

All in all, at the end of the day they are business. I would control it. It makes good money and the Japanese people love pachinko.

 

[Geki-D]

if Sony bought Konami, do you guys think they would also want to control the gambling business, or would they spin it off?

If it makes money, why get rid of it?

 

[joe_zazen]

All in all, at the end of the day they are business. I would control it. It makes good money and the Japanese people love pachinko.

Sony JPN cares about money, not social justice like SIE. Which is why Sony JPN bought Funimation (lots inappropriate content there) and have predatory gacha games with fanservice like fates.

 

[Airbus Jr]

if Sony bought Konami, do you guys think they would also want to control the gambling business, or would they spin it off?

Since youre on Neogaf i bet nobody here really cares about their gambling business

Most of us are more concerned with their games

Make Metal Gear Great Again

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Third party publisher that historically have strong relationship with Sony :

Rockstar
Ubisoft
Konami ( used to)
Square Enix

My random guess is one of these four

I’d argue that MS has a stronger relationship with Ubisoft if I had to choose one.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Funny that nobody is mentioning EA.

If any publisher was “in danger” of being bought up I’d pick EA since their value seems to be at its all time lowest.

 

[quickwhips]

supermassivegames is the easy choice. until dawn was more fun than heavy rain.

 

[FranXico]

Funny that nobody is mentioning EA.

If any publisher was “in danger” of being bought up I’d pick EA since their value seems to be at its all time lowest.

That would be a surprise acquisition...

 

[Coulomb_Barrier]

It's a shame. At least Microsoft share their games with PC. But Sony devs are trapped to one machine.

MS do that because Xbox install base is too small to make serious revenue from game sales.

 

[Birdo]

MS do that because Xbox install base is too small to make serious revenue from game sales.

If 43 million is too small of an install base to make money, then Nintendo hasn't been making profit for ten years

 

[xrnzaaas]

Watch them acquire Remedy. WE NEED MOAR SINGLE PLAYER OTS STORY HEAVY MATURE EXCLUSIVES YOSHIDA!!!

ALAN WAKE 2 PS5 EXCLUSIVE - DAY1 !!

 

[KingdomHeartsFan]

supermassivegames is the easy choice. until dawn was more fun than heavy rain.

They also made one of the best PSVR games, very talented studio.

 

[mckmas8808]

Sad to see checkbook warfare coming to this industry. Unfortunately, retaliation was inevitable.

This can only be a good thing. You should want companies wanting to spend money on content.

 

[Vawn]

I'm staggered that they didn't already do this a long time ago with Insomniac, especially now after Spider-Man.

If, for some reason, Insomniac chooses to not do Spiderman sequels for PS5, SuckerPunch would be more than qualified to take the reins.

 

[Nero_PR]

If, for some reason, Insomniac chooses to not do Spiderman sequels for PS5, SuckerPunch would be more than qualified to take the reins.

Imagine Spiderman flying through New York in his Iron Spider suit. Since the PS5 should render more objects at the same time and I don't think they will improve graphics (just the basic resolution, please no checkboard 4k, higher resolution textures, better lighting and shadows, occasionally some ray tracing implementation - sound or lighting) much early in this next gen. Day 1 buy.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

Id put all my money to buy Square Enix, to be honest.

 

[CJY]

I love this game of corporate Top Trumps.

 

[phil_t98]

Queue the sony has bought good studios microsoft bad or vice versa posts

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Insomniac? Surprised Sony hasn't gobbled them up yet.

 

[GreyHorace]

Can Sony buy EA if it ever goes under? That way someone will actually make games from all the dead IPs EA has greedily tucked away.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Housemarque? That company seems to love partnering Sony, and looks like might be going under. Recent games have't been great sellers and you don't even hear about them any more.

Housemarque CEO: Sometimes You Need Exclusive Deals Because Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

In an interview with Wccftech, Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen said that exclusive deals are sometimes needed for studios.

wccftech.com

Housemarque CEO: Sometimes You Need Exclusive Deals Because Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees
By Alessio Palumbo
2 hours ago

Our recent interview with the Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen and the Head of Self-Publishing Mikael Haveri had plenty of newsworthy details across its huge length.

For instance, Housemarque CEO Ilari Kuittinen plainly said that exclusive deals are sometimes needed for game developers, even in the current environment.

MH: In general, I think it’s a good time for developers. And that’s something that we’re definitely looking into, but…

IK: Sometimes you need exclusive deals because money doesn’t grow on trees. We have been receiving assistance in order to be able to understand more about how service games are working, or how multiplayer is working. So even though it’s a huge risk, we believe that we need to have a better understanding of how to do these things.

It is unclear whether he was talking solely about past endeavors (Super Stardust, Dead Nation, Resogun, Alienation and Matterfall were all PlayStation exclusives) or future ones as well.
Meanwhile, the Housemarque CEO also spoke highly of Epic and its new Store.

Of course, it’s a good thing to have competition, I think Steam has had a sort of monopoly. We certainly see that the PC market is dominated by the Steam store. It’s also possible that they do lots of interesting things, like this influencer program. That’s awesome that you can have this direct connection with these influencers, it is more transparent. So they stay kind of a pure influencer, and we can say, ‘hey 15% of the income is coming to you if you recommend and it turns into a sale.’ So it’s a transparent way of doing it, instead of paying players to play a certain Battle Royale game for a month. You know, some guy might have gotten $1 million to do it. So it’s much more transparent. And you can get five bucks if you recommend this and stream this and you are sort of doing it because of that, but also that you love the game. Not that I just gave you a million dollars to feature our game.

Housemarque is still working on Stormdivers, their sci-fi Battle Royale inspired shooter game which is now in closed beta testing with a projected 2020 release date on PC (Steam). However, their big triple-A project is still unannounced for now.

 

[Enjay]

Despite the online issues and the trash campaign it's still the best multi and best playing game in the series. Throw all the money.

Well yeah it should play the best it came out more than a decade after its last iteration. And it still played like crap like you said.

 

[Oner]

Love hearing things like this. If you're not investing your letting things slip right through your hands and you have no one else to blame for your lack of support.

 

[johntown]

Please take Silent Hill away from Konami and do something decent with it......or just take Konami would be a better option IMO.

 

[Knightime_X]

Somebody needs to acquire Konami asap.
At this rate I don't care who just somebody, go for it Sony!

 

[NahaNago]

Well with way Sony is doing things nowadays the acquisition would be for a AAA western company. Even though I really think they need to work on the exclusive first party Japanese and anime stuff.

 

[UltimaKilo]

I think Sony needs a couple of big acquisitions. Square and Konami would be interesting. However, I’m more curious, with Nintendo’s lack of games, why they aren’t acquiring more studios? Monolith worked out really well for them and they have the cash, they should buy up some more.

 

[Barakov]

I really couldn't care what western company they buy but just stay away from any company in Japan. Given their attitude towards Japanese content these days that's a safe bet.

 

[molasar]

They should try to acquire shelved IPs from other publishers and studios like:
- Enslaved and Weaponlord from Bandai Namco
- Extreme-G
- Golden Axe
- Oasis series
- Alundra
- Landstalker
- Desert Strike series
- Loaded
- Body Blows
- Final Fight
- Turok
- Syndicate
- Double Dragon
- Alien Breed
- Last Ninja
- Clay Fighter
- Dead Space
- you name it
Then assemble new studios themselves where each one is only dedicated to one of those IPs.

 

[Slings and Arrows]

Stay away from large companies. Go for SME's and use them to build decent and interesting VR games. Use them to trial some new genres or redefine old ones; a few point and click style puzzle games would be a laugh.

Keep away from AAA companies, they aren't worth the money

 

[Bryank75]

They have about 25 billion in cash and investments that they could use to buy studios or whole publishers.

If they bought a publisher and wanted to integrate it, most of the upper management would probably go with a golden handshake and a few key people would stay on possibly. Mostly, it would just be the studios that stayed intact.

I'd love Sony to buy Insomniac but they don't really have to, since they are on board already.

I'd like them to offer Mark Kern and the original WOW team to build them a studio and for them to build an MMO.

Kojima would be great to secure but he probably wants freedom first, so buying exclusivity on a game by game basis might be the only way.

I think they should buy a large share in TakeTwo, to protect them from other buyouts and also lock down exclusivity periods and content. They could do this in partnership with MS, so Stadia do not get access to TT games.

Capcom and Square would be great purchases, they have a long history with PlayStation and making Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil, DMC and Monster Hunter etc. exclusive, would be an absolute gut punch to everyone else.
Plus, the fact that they are all Japanese companies may make the acquisitions easier than if it were an american company.
They are also relatively cheap for the quantity of IP's and size of the companies.

 

[mejin]

if even MS couldn't get anything big, I don't think Sony can.

 

[EverydayBeast]

I think bringing in new developers will help Sony win next generation.

 

[FranXico]

I think they should buy a large share in TakeTwo, to protect them from other buyouts and also lock down exclusivity periods and content. They could do this in partnership with MS, so Stadia do not get access to TT games.

This actually is a clever middle-ground that would work out in everyone's best interests (except Google, of course). Nice idea.

 

[NahaNago]

I really couldn't care what western company they buy but just stay away from any company in Japan. Given their attitude towards Japanese content these days that's a safe bet.

I agree. It was just my thinking that in the past that Sony has had a weak AAA first party Japanese presence, so that is where they should fortify, but current Sony would be terrible for the majority of Japanese developers.

 

[Gediminas]

From Software, PlatinumGames, Atlus, Level-5 would be my first pick. Insomniac, CD Project Red, Bluepoint Games also could be great.

 

[Bryank75]

From Software, PlatinumGames, Atlus, Level-5 would be my first pick. Insomniac, CD Project Red, Bluepoint Games also could be great.

FROM are owned by a large Japanese company that are into Manga and stuff. Can't remember their name right now. Platinum and CDPR would be great, as would the others.

 

[-MD-]

Well yeah it should play the best it came out more than a decade after its last iteration. And it still played like crap like you said.

I never said it played like crap though. Plus that game's failure is entirely Sony's fault, not the studio that made it.

 

[kyoji]

To everyone mentioning insomniac games and why sony has not purchased them.. its not that they did not want to. Ted price and co. wanted to keep there indepence. Theres an old interview floating around the net where he talks about the importance of them remaining independent several years ago, and im pretty sure this is why sony did not aquire them back then.

 

[bitbydeath]

if even MS couldn't get anything big, I don't think Sony can.

MS don’t want to buy big. They want to buy small and in great quantity to fill out their store.

 

[MB1]

MS don’t want to buy big. They want to buy small and in great quantity to fill out their store.

I think that's the same with Sony too or go after developers where they have a strong 2nd Party relationship with.

 

[Ol'Scratch]

I am for this simply because we are reaching a stage where I have foreseen smaller studios closing up because they just can't keep up with the costs. I would rather they get bought and continue to create than have them become one of the many studios that we look back on and wish they were still around.
That also goes for Microsoft.

 

[bitbydeath]

I think that's the same with Sony too or go after developers where they have a strong 2nd Party relationship with.

Certainly possible but is harder to tell as they have a different focus on AAA games and the hardcore gamer.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

 

[Breakage]

Tetsuya Mizuguchi's company (Enhance?), especially with Sony going all in with VR.

 

[Mattyp]

People don't realise the 'Value' of big publishers and their catalogue is mainly multiplatform game titles that sell big. Take that away and the company is just worth a whole lot less than what you paid for it if you're only publishing now on one platform. And threatening to take away titles, if they ever announced themselves for sale from one platform exclusively to another just starts a pissing war that Sony will loose. None of these publishers will be for sale ever in a backroom deal, they would all be put on the market they're all publicly listed.

You buy small privately owned and turn them big, like every studio Sony has bought to date. That's the type of studios you target. Look at ND.

 

[DynamiteCop!]

Funny that nobody is mentioning EA.

If any publisher was “in danger” of being bought up I’d pick EA since their value seems to be at its all time lowest.

Sony couldn't afford any of them, they're not a very wealthy company.

 

[molasar]

The main value is in IPs and talented people, not just in companies in this business.

 

[Grand Theft Scratchy]

It's not going to be Take-Two or some other big multiplatform company. Do you really think the people at the top of Rockstar, EA or Square Enix wake up and think, "You know we've been making a lot of money selling our games on PlayStation, Xbox, PC and Nintendo. Now let's make less money by releasing future games exclusively to one platform."