Swift_Star
Banned
Nobody knows. The guy is a fanboy cheerleading for MS monopoly. There is another thread by him suggesting Sony should use DirectX for their games.How would anyone here know?
Nobody knows. The guy is a fanboy cheerleading for MS monopoly. There is another thread by him suggesting Sony should use DirectX for their games.How would anyone here know?
I'm on the fence. I think this is testing the waters but if Microsoft acquire Embracer then it'll be the biggest load of bullshit. Embracer own tonnes of IP and studios. It's bad enough that Microsoft argue they're not a poor third place in the console market and don't compare to Sony or Nintendo in size and ability to compete. This would be straight out monopolising.
Why would they? They can’t even maintain a delivery pipeline with their current studios. They should focus on delivering the games they currently are developing instead of trying to buy the whole industry.
With all their studios, the fact they need to hire outside studios to make their game is mind-blowing.
Ehh. Embracer is master of consolidation, but I doubt people had problem with them aquiring CD/EidosMicrosoft shills are weird. Consolidation is bad for the industry and bad for gamers.
Acquisition begging is alot of xbox fanboys favorite game apparently.Microsoft shills are weird. Consolidation is bad for the industry and bad for gamers.
No we don't need that. That would be too much.I think they will get them. Would be interesting if they go after the whole embracer group.
It's their favorite exclusives.What's with all these people daydreaming about all the shit Microsoft can buy. They need to improve the output of their existing developers before buying more trash.
I mean it's because they're GamePass fanboys more than anything else, never mind that Microsoft doesn't have to buy studios to get games on GamePass, but that guarantees it & they don't care about anything else except having more things to play on "The best deal in gaming!™"It's their favorite exclusives.
UmadbroThen you’d probably be in support of them getting more studios. We’ve seen success from Sony filling up their own first party gaps with purchased exclusivity for deathloop, Ghostwire, Forspoken and Final Fantasy…not to mention purchases to expand into under-represented genres.
Sounds like you want MS to follow suit to plug holes in their pipeline.
The idea that new dev teams like the Initiative and Playground’s Fable team without a ton of employees are outsourcing heavily for AAA production is confusing to you?
You also think it’s more efficient to strip devs off internal projects vs hire experienced devs from outside?
This explains many of your posts, I suppose.
200 million is chump change. So Sony could have bought them themselves and then sold them onto MS for double.They had the chance to get them for a penny and they didn't. 200 Million was nothing for such a team. Yet they did not unless Sony had a say with Square Enix not to sell to MS ? I mean business wise that doesn't make any logic, but Sony is a snake so who knows?
I am baffled why they didn’t either . To have both tomb raider and uncharted is a lock for this genre exclusive to Sony .200 million is chump change. So Sony could have bought them themselves and then sold them onto MS for double.
It would only be a monopoly if buying all this stuff shot them to first place in the console wars, which we all know wouldn't happen no matter who or what they buy.
I think once MS gets AKB over the line they really only need to tie up a few lose ends, being both genre and talent.That would honestly be disgusting. They can barely manage the studios they currently have in terms of consistent high-quality content, let alone improving their output beyond previous accomplishments. They'll most likely get the ABK studios soon...how much more can a glutton eat before their stomach bursts like that disgusting fat guy from that Yoshi's Island SNES commercial?
Honestly after ABK, MS should be more than fine on gaming acquisitions outside of a couple smaller dev teams, for the next 5 or so years. Anything else between that time that's a big gaming publisher or similar will hopefully get called out for what it really is: intentional anti-competitive, deprivation of content from platform rivals.
Because you only need but so much to compete and in terms of raw resources (1P teams, tech, money), MS already has enough IMHO. At least let them produce some meaningful results before entertaining the idea they should buy up a crapton of more teams.
You arnt comparing a reboot made by Sabre to what is going to be the biggest new franchise ever created by Bethesda are you? For real?
Sure Jan.
Just going to point out to you that MS acquisition strategy seems more geared towards Gamepass content + mobile entry than hitting any arbitrary quality milestones set by folks on gaming forums.
They’re certainly not interested in buying Embracer. Nobody’s going to add 13000 employees.
Unlike Sony, MS doesn't buy every studio they work with.
There is a decent chance Sony would buy Square Enix. S-E kind of knows that they aren't in a position where they can compete internationally. This was fueled by their sell-off of their western studios.
What does Sony have it's own abundance of western studios. What does Sony lack? Japanese studios.
It could be a real win win for Sony and Square Enix. They already have a deep relationship and maybe just maybe under Sony they'd have a shift in management and we'd see a return to quality over rush jobs and half-measures with their IP. I say this after Naughty Dog did a rush job half measure with the remake for the last of us part 1.... oy vey... Anyways I think that the price is too steep for what they offer.
But back to the OP, I think it's a bit farfetched, but not out of the realm of possibility that Embrace bought them to spin them off at a higher cost. Something that would make Square Enix look really bad unless it became clear that Square Enix was getting that cost of their books.
I think Sony will announce its own acquisitions right after the regulators approve/disapprove of the ABK deal. And then we'll see how the rest of the industry shakes out. I believe we'll see a round of mergers to stave off acquisitions too.
Capcom and Konami would make for an interesting merger. They're really the only two major third party Japanese studios that haven't had a merger and Capcom still has the development arm to make games for Konami's IP.
I think once MS gets AKB over the line they really only need to tie up a few lose ends, being both genre and talent.
For genre I think it's safe to say they really only need some more action adventure games, and possibly some more Japanese content. I would have said they need a platforming studio but will have Toys for Bob, so that's ticked.
The other part of it to keep talent thay rely on. For instance Asobo with the on going Flight Sim contract and their ability for adventure games.
Next up would be Certain Afinity because they are balls deep with Microsoft and they wouldn't want to lose them to Sony or another publisher.
Avalanche studios is needed to help build games in the backlog of MS. They can do another Rage for instance. They are already doing Contraband so it makes sense.
Outside of those maybe IO Interactive and Platinum Games.
That's all they need.
Microsoft have been downplaying just how much the impact is going to have acquiring ABK and Bethesda. It should mean that with their studio acquisitions MGS would be huge by comparison. If they bought Embracer, they would easily be the biggest entity in the market. They would own an incredible amount of IP and developers.
Just because they don't sell the most consoles per year doesn't mean that what they're doing is fair competition and not monopolising. You can split and pie chart, form any set of data but the fact remains they've gained a tonne of studios from these acquisitions, not just developers but internal software for outsourcing, engine development, asset production etc.
If Microsoft were to acquire Embracer. Look at it rationally. Break it down. Look how much Embracer actually own and how big they've grown. You add that onto Microsoft who are still playing the victim in the hopes that it'll get this deal to go through and surely and reasonable person would admit that its too much.
Embracer is a house of cards. Saints Row didn't do so hot and they seemed genuinely shocked. I think they've already closed one studio as well.Aren't they owned by that super big publisher who's buying all these companies?
If so? No
That's the Publisher!Embracer is a house of cards. Saints Row didn't do so hot and they seemed genuinely shocked. I think they've already closed one studio as well.
I don't either. But they really don't even have to. They have ex-Crystal studio leads building The Initiative, and they're co-developing with CD. If anyone wants to just get a job at The Initiative they can switch over I'm sure. I don't MS is buying them either.That's the Publisher!
If Embracer has CD... I don't see MS getting them any time soon.
Well if that's the case, they already have enough. ABK gives them both of those things; treasure trove of older games they can release in the service (also an excuse for Xbox-branded re-releases of older Guitar Hero, Rock Band, DJ Hero etc. controllers), and King with mobile games like Candy Crush (oh and COD mobile).
They're good for a long while IMO.
Are you secretly confirming that Sony have acquired Ember Lab, Square-Enix, Capcom, and Supermassive Games?
Hot damn!
Square-Enix have opened up investment programs (or something like that) for outside investors to pour into specific studios they own. So, I think Sony will invest a ton into the studios that produce the mainline Final Fantasy titles and maybe some of the smaller games. I can see Nintendo investing into some of the other Square-Enix studios, with Sony & Nintendo splitting investments into the studio that makes the Dragon Quest games.
Ironically that does give Microsoft a window to invest in certain Square-Enix teams/IPs themselves, but I don't know if they'd have enough time to actually do that given the current hold-ups with the ABK acquisition investigation.
IIRC Square-Enix sold those studios but Embracer Group covered at least some of the debt those studios had? Which might explain how they picked them up for so cheap in the first place. Might've misheard about that though.
Can definitely see both things happening. Smaller-scale I can see Sony acquiring Ember Lab, the team behind Sifu, Deviation, and MAYBE Arc System Works if they want some in-house fighting game talent.
Anything WRT publishers, I'm not even going to entertain right now. What happens, happens there. I'm more curious about 3P publisher mergers, actually.
I'm trying to think of what Konami brings to Capcom outside of pachinko and having a lot of cash that can probably help with game funding.
Those would be good strategies on MS's end. I can see them acquiring Certain Affinity tbh, and maybe Avalanche. Realistically I don't see them acquiring any Japanese groups other than Platinum, but that could be complicated as Nintendo have a working relationship with Platinum for the Bayonetta series, though IIRC Sega still own the IP rights to Bayonetta so maybe the three parties could work something out?
At the very least though though, they should certainly keep up partnerships with the studios you just mentioned.
I honestly don't think Sony has any interest in Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics. They have plenty of similar minded studios. Literally, if your gaming preference is third person action adventure games, you already have PlayStation console. What could CD and Eidos Montreal bring to pull more people over? Not much, I think. Even with Perfect Dark/Fable co-development, I think that if Sony wanted them, they would outpay Embracer.It was quite genius by MS to put Sony off buying Edios themselves.
Both CD and Edios have contracts in place to develop MS games for the next 2 or 3 years with Fable and Perfect Dark.
No way Sony spends 300 million to then have to spend the next 3 years of these studios lives developing Xbox exclusives.
Not too sure Embracer really want these studios spending their time making two Xbox exclusives when they could be making another Tomb Raider games on multiple platforms.
For the money they got sold for Sony would have been interested.I honestly don't think Sony has any interest in Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics. They have plenty of similar minded studios. Literally, if your gaming preference is third person action adventure games, you already have PlayStation console. What could CD and Eidos Montreal bring to pull more people over? Not much, I think. Even with Perfect Dark/Fable co-development, I think that if Sony wanted them, they would outpay Embracer.
For Sony it is more logical to buy either another studios they have relationship with, or to invest in some live-service game companies since this is an area that Sony itself is really weak. And we saw how combination of Crystal + live service game ended up.
I disagree. Because yes, 300 million is not much money in grand scheme of things. But you are also taking all those employees on your payroll. And especially Eidos Montreal is studio on the level of Naughty Dog in terms of size. And only IP that could have some value to Sony is Tomb Raider thanks to cross-media potential. And what is worst, no game is coming from those studios in next 2-3 years so it's not like they would helped Sony immediately. My point is. If Sony was really interested, they would have bought them, because they can easily outspent Embracer Group.For the money they got sold for Sony would have been interested.
Microsoft would have bought them if they hadn't of been trying to buy ABK.