Ampere Analyst expects Sony to react to Xbox’s Activision deal with a major acquisition of its own

[KiryuRealty]

Yep, the idea that Sony are taking "too long" is really stupid and gets repeated on this forum daily unfortunately.

Some people just have no clue how the world works and what kind of maneuvering corporations have to do sometimes.

To break it down for those who still don’t get it, Sony rushing to make a deal for Take Two, for example, before the dust settled for the MS buyout of Activision would risk making MS’ claims that they needed to buy publishers to compete with Sony look legitimate.

 

[AshHunter216]

Some people just have no clue how the world works and what kind of maneuvering corporations have to do sometimes.

To break it down for those who still don’t get it, Sony rushing to make a deal for Take Two, for example, before the dust settled for the MS buyout of Activision would risk making MS’ claims that they needed to buy publishers to compete with Sony look legitimate.

On top of that, negotiations and budgeting for large acquisitions take a very long time.

 

[KiryuRealty]

On top of that, negotiations and budgeting for large acquisitions take a very long time.

Also true.

The only mergers that happen fast are the suspicious ones like MS buying Nokia after a former MS exec became their CEO, or Zenimax when they had been functioning as a de facto MS serfdom of two generations already.

 

[AllBizness]

Well I mean, didn't Sony just post a position for a m&a manager? I hope they buy CDPR, Larian, and merge with Take Two.

 

[Cool hand luke]

Capcom
T2
Epic (Mainly to own Unreal)
Konami (IPs)
Square Enix

All good choices.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

On top of that, negotiations and budgeting for large acquisitions take a very long time.

Phil bought Activision, the biggest acquisition in history, in 2 months. Activision was not even on the market. It was all initiated by Phil on a phone call.

Sony had plenty of time to do something big. Over 20 months. They are still hiring and making postings. It's like they have no contact in the industry. Slowpokes.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

All Sony has to "buy" is the right to have the 2024 holiday bundle with GTA VI. Much smarter and cheaper.

Short-term option, doesn't account for long-term ramifications of consolidation.

Sony can do both, FWIW. They probably already have marketing rights to GTA 6. But yeah, a GTA 6 bundle only addresses the immediate market situation, not anything 5-10 years out.

 

[Box]

Entirely deleterious to Nintendo, what do they have to gain from it? Bear in mind, given their valuations, that this would have to be a true merger and not the disguised acquisition that some previous ones like Activision have been.

Sony Movies could make Nintendo Movies
Crunchyroll could make Nintendo Anime
Sony Music would benefit Nintendo a lot
Consoles would have access to the entire retro Playstation games as well as Nintendo (Sony has made games for the Snes)
Sony Charecters in Smash Bros
Playstation studios will share tech with Nintendo ones
A lot of proprietary hardware is owned by Sony and licenced out to other companies

 

[Bryank75]

Phil bought Activision, the biggest acquisition in history, in 2 months. Activision was not even on the market. It was all initiated by Phil on a phone call.

Sony had plenty of time to do something big. Over 20 months. They are still hiring and making postings. It's like they have no contact in the industry. Slowpokes.

They do move at a snails pace. It must be said.

There are lots of high quality targets out there. From small to really large.

A studio buy needs less work and less redundancies to integrate... but might not move the needle in a big way.

A bigger acquisition can vary so much... Capcom is very tightly managed and I think should be left as it is. While something like CDPR has a lot of different aspects... GOG, government supports, tumultuous management style etc that might prove to be difficult to manage and develop into the future.

Each organisation has its own set of challenges and I think a lot of Xbox fans miss these things... they think "just buy it and that is it, we own it and they will just make everything free for us by magic...no work needed".... but the hard part has just begun for Microsoft. Writing the cheque was easy.

 

[AshHunter216]

Phil bought Activision, the biggest acquisition in history, in 2 months. Activision was not even on the market. It was all initiated by Phil on a phone call.

Sony had plenty of time to do something big. Over 20 months. They are still hiring and making postings. It's like they have no contact in the industry. Slowpokes.

Nothing happens that quickly, they are not going too slow, you guys are just impatient and scared because you let Xbox and their fanboys get inside your head.
Also, they're not going to do anything while they're integrating ABK. Even Zenimax caused them to have a cooldown period, and this is much larger than that was, refer to thicc's earlier comment.

 

[anonpuffs]

Take 2 and EA are the obvious choices. Both of them have huge sports franchises that are extremely stable income streams. With MLB, FC/Madden, or 2k... Sony would never have to worry about being driven out of the industry.

 

[Danja]

Sony has definitely missed some good opportunities.

I was convinced they'd get Remedy when Shu was making so many visits during
'Controls ' development... They would have been perfect.

We as fans want them to react immediately which is fair. But, we also don't know what they are even doing behind the scenes. Or even if Playstation has been further handicapped since everything has basically been gutted.

But can they even take on a major publisher like EA or Take Two?

They have definitely failed at accelerating internal studio expansion.

The perfect get would be "Capcom" but that's never gonna happen.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

Nothing happens that quickly, they are not going too slow, you guys are just impatient and scared because you let Xbox and their fanboys get inside your head.
Also, they're not going to do anything while they're integrating ABK. Even Zenimax caused them to have a cooldown period, and this is much larger than that was, refer to thicc's earlier comment.

The "cooldown" period was from March 2021 until November 2021. I don't even call that a cooldown. They were actively looking for more.

Negotiations for Activision were between Nov 2021 to Jan 2022 when it was announced. 2 months. All the dates were in the SEC filings.

To me they bought it back to back. There was no cooldown or integration. They jumped from the 8 billions acquisition to the 70 billions acquisition. They don't give a fuck while Sony is like this:

 

[AshHunter216]

The "cooldown" period was from March 2021 until November 2021. I don't even call that a cooldown. They were actively looking for more.

Negotiations for Activision were between Nov 2021 to Jan 2022 when it was announced. 2 months. All the dates were in the SEC filings.

To me they bought it back to back. There was no cooldown or integration. They jumped from the 8 billions acquisition to the 70 billions acquisition. They don't give a fuck while Sony is like this:

Lol, you guys refuse to think rationally and insist on panicking. Have at it!

 

[laynelane]

We need an “Obvious” reaction.

And to all wondering why they have waited, it’s because that was the smart strategy while waiting to see if MS would be stopped by regulators. Sony buying anyone big during that time would have been leverage for MS to have an easier time.

Also, the FTC is still fighting the Activision deal.

There's also the idea that since MS wasn't stopped by regulators, it gives Sony (and everyone else) an easier time going forward with their own acquisitions.

 

[Zzero]

Short-term option, doesn't account for long-term ramifications of consolidation.

Sony can do both, FWIW. They probably already have marketing rights to GTA 6. But yeah, a GTA 6 bundle only addresses the immediate market situation, not anything 5-10 years out.

5 to 10 years out if people haven't embraced Gamepass then Xbox is fucked. If Gamepass/streaming is the future (like a decade out) than MS probably wins, if it isn't then MS gaming dies.

Sony Movies could make Nintendo Movies
Crunchyroll could make Nintendo Anime
Sony Music would benefit Nintendo a lot
Consoles would have access to the entire retro Playstation games as well as Nintendo (Sony has made games for the Snes)
Sony Charecters in Smash Bros
Playstation studios will share tech with Nintendo ones
A lot of proprietary hardware is owned by Sony and licenced out to other companies

The first two seem like they would actually hurt the owners of Nintendo IP, by limiting who could make pitches on it. Especially in movies, since last I checked Sony doesn't have a big budget western cartoon studio.
And I don't see how Sony Music benefits Nintendo, like, at all.
The next two are, honestly, really small potatoes, especially the Smash one.
Useful, but only so much so, isn't all the tech on all of these boxes contracted out to chip makers now anyway?
This, on the other hand, is an actual benefit, and one that goes both ways.

But when it comes down to it, you are asking to either support two separate consoles (a Switch 2 and the PS5) or to abandon the switching model in favor of the PS5's standard home console set-up. I cannot possibly see that growing market share versus the two being separate, or removing duplicate costs enough to make it more profitable than having two systems, ergo shareholders are better off with the businesses being apart than they are with them being together. All speculation anyway, since regulators would never allow such a merger anyways, under current business conditions. That might change in a decade or two (see: Sega in 1992 versus Sega in 2002) but its clearly off the table for now.

 

[gokuss4]

Sony and Nintendo need to Merge, that's the only way to succeed.

I want to se the merge between Sony and Nintendo happen
It will be the strangest moment in human history

 

[Ludwig]

The "cooldown" period was from March 2021 until November 2021. I don't even call that a cooldown. They were actively looking for more.

Negotiations for Activision were between Nov 2021 to Jan 2022 when it was announced. 2 months. All the dates were in the SEC filings.

To me they bought it back to back. There was no cooldown or integration. They jumped from the 8 billions acquisition to the 70 billions acquisition. They don't give a fuck while Sony is like this:

It actually took 6 months for the Activision deal to happen. After completing the ZeniMax deal, they went straight to ABK.

You are correct; they are definitely slow learners. You only have to look at the emails where Jim Ryan reacted to the ABK deal to see that.

 

[Gods&Monsters]

It actually took 6 months for the Activision deal to happen. After completing the ZeniMax deal, they went straight to ABK.

Zenimax closed March 9, 2021. Phil was on the phone with Bobby Kotick on November 19, 2021. Activision was announced on January 18, 2022.

Those are the official dates. Everything was done in less than 2 months with Christmas vacations in-between.

Zenimax was not integrated. They dumped it there on the floor and jumped to the next.

 

[anonpuffs]

The "cooldown" period was from March 2021 until November 2021. I don't even call that a cooldown. They were actively looking for more.

Negotiations for Activision were between Nov 2021 to Jan 2022 when it was announced. 2 months. All the dates were in the SEC filings.

To me they bought it back to back. There was no cooldown or integration. They jumped from the 8 billions acquisition to the 70 billions acquisition. They don't give a fuck while Sony is like this:

And how did that work out for them?

Bethesda put out absolute trash while Microsoft was asleep at the wheel/busy trying to gobble up ABK. Halo Infinite also died.

Ghostwire tokyo was better on PS5 than series x. Redfall was an unmitigated disaster and damage the xbox brand so bad that gamepass subs stalled out. Starfield was initially forced to announce too early (November 2022) and then once they realized what a shitshow that game's state was in they had to endure the public humiliation of having to delay it by a whole year, and even after a year the game bombed miserably and scored low as fuck considering what they were expecting out of it. They were expecting that game to carry them for 5 years. Instead it's dead after a month.

While I agree that Sony should respond with acquisitions, maybe actually put a little trust into the people who can make a >90 metacritic superhero game than wilding out because Microsoft is throwing money around. Sony has proven it knows what it's doing with its acquisitions.