I disagree with your assessment of Sony RPGs. All I play are classic RPGs - not games that are fps' with a skill tree, but real rpgs, and Sony has next to none.
They used to be the console with all the rpgs, now that console is the xbox.
PS has a gazilllion RPGs that aren't on Xbox. Xbox doesn't have any decent RPG that isn't on PS.
As for Larian, divinity 1 and 2, including the expansions, were the highest rated and best selling classic rpgs since the golden era of PC RPGs.
Balders Gate 3, the long, long awaited sequel to one of, if not the best, most renowned RPG ever created, is, at this moment in time, a console exclusive to PS5 and will move units.
I don't say that Larian makes bad games (btw I personally know BG3 devs), I only say that they are more a PC dev. Their console sales are residual, in console there are other games that sell way more.
So if Sony some day would be afraid of losing all the gazillion devs that are making RPGs for PS (something that won't happen at all), they'd try to secure the most relevant ones. But guess what, Sony already has them secured and has deals with them without needing to acquire them.
CDPR, capcom (dragons dogma 2) and Larian would be great purchases
I'd buy Capcom (for Resident Evil, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil and DMC plus their legacy more than for Dragon's Dogma), but Capcom are performing better than ever has been improving their finantials every year during the last decade, meaning that it's a bad moment to sell because very likely they will continue growing, so their value will be way higher in a few years.
Also, like Ubisoft it's a family business, so unless the whole family wants to retire or it seriously tank (which isn't the case) I don't see them interested on selling the company.
CDPR now has a market cap of $2.7B (so in thee current context their acquisition price probably would be around 50% more), which is a joke since they only release a big game per generation and they don't own a single IP. In addition to this, their management and working ethics seems to need a huge overhaul. I think their vaue should continue dropping to around the half of their current market cap, around $1.5B maybe.
In any case, Sony already has many SP narrative open world games, now they have Guerrilla, Insomniac, Sucker Punch or more or less Santa Monica there. I see Sony interested on acquiring instead studios that excel on different game types that are top sellers in console and that that their 1st party projects don't handle or master. As an eample, the recent shooter/GaaS/MP acquisitions.
If cheap Larian would be interesting to grow in PC.
To buy Firewalk before we have seen or really even heard anything?
They worked before in games like Destiny, Halo, Bioshock Infinite, Apex Legends, Titanfall, Mass Effect and so on. So I assume Hermen liked what he saw, but their pedigree gives him confidence.
They probably just like what they see. I think this is good news. If I remember correctly Nintnedo didn’t actually buy Retro until weeks before Prime 1 actually launched…
Lots of devs split off.
Fun fact: the Metroid Prime leads splitted off and now are at Bluepoint.
