How should Sony respond to the ABK acquisition, now that it is imminent?

[Nhomnhom]

They don’t need to react but people want them to.

They have already made key investments and can proceed with the plan as it happens. They are already market leader by a huge amount and have the software needed to keep momentum.

Gamepass is at its core destructive and cannot fund AAA game development. Unlike Microsoft, Sony’s business model will not bankrupt its game studios. This alone is the key factor. They do not have to act. Microsoft will continue to not understand the industry and kill studios and revenues for themselves.

The first move is to remove ps plus paywall and give a fair competitive playing field for all multiplayer games vs the f2p giants.

And if they were to react with a purchase that would all be subjective. I disagree with buying publishers and IP. IPs don’t mean shit to me long term… I’ve seen both Halo and Star Wars turn to shit in my lifetime so there’s that.

But if I wanted to make a more perfect Sony in the image of my choosing; they already have my favorite studio so I’d just finish the dream team by signing Kojima Productions and From Software. And then I’d have Sony buy Toho in Japan to strengthen their japan library and get Godzilla and all other properties from the legendary Japanese movie studio.

Why they don't need to react? You still think MS care about short term profit? They'll make all their money back once they get rid of Sony.

How fucking incompetent does Xbox need to be so that adding Bethesda + Activision + Blizzard + more than 10 other studios won't massively change things in the console space? Regardless of how much better PlayStation is in term of market share it still only 2:1.

We are on a whole new era, Sony added more studios than ever and yet it pales in comparison to how much MS has grown.

AAA games are taking longer than ever to get made as well so it's not like a single one of their studios is going to put out 3 new Uncharted games + TLoU in the next 6 years. Sony will get one or two games from ND this gen at most, maybe another one from SSM and mostly one from their other AAA studios.

 

[Vertigo]

Get rid of Sony…. Lols

Dumb

 

[Nhomnhom]

Get rid of Sony…. Lols

Dumb

They even said that in writing in their emails, they want to outspend Sony out of business and it's obvious that's what they are doing. It makes perfect sense for them as their previous strategy clearly didn't work at all. The plan is to grow by making PlayStation smaller.

You should better inform yourself before going around insulting people that clearly know better than you.

 

[Vertigo]

Oh wow they used competitive language. Shocking in competitive markets.

Nah, you don’t know shit. I consider you dumb as fuck tbh.

Sony would actually have to stop winning buddy.

 

[Kokoloko]

I think SE is one where maybe they don't even need to buy, they can just secure the next big games as exclusive, but Capcom and FromSoftware would be about removing games from Xbox like MS is doing to PlayStation.

Xbox is trying to choke Sony out so maybe Sony can adopt a similar strategy but limited to Japan (without Japan the odds of Xbox doing well are limited as always).

Agreed. Honestly I don’t like the attitude but Sony has to now use this mentality otherwise MS is gonna remove games from them

 

[Johnic]

Oh wow they used competitive language. Shocking in competitive markets.

Nah, you don’t know shit. I consider you dumb as fuck tbh.

Sony would actually have to stop winning buddy.

It's not competitive language. They're not trying to compete. They specifically mentioned running Sony out of the business.

 

[Vertigo]

It's not competitive language. They're not trying to compete. They specifically mentioned running Sony out of the business.

Which they are going to do how? By bankrupting studios with gamespass? By alienating all third party software that has bombed with more and more data showing us Xbox consumers don’t consume anything but gamepass.

They can talk all the shit they want. Sony will beat them. Microsoft can buy all the IP it wants doesn’t mean they won’t continue to find ways to somehow botch everything and lose.

 

[Yurinka]

I think they don't need to react with a big change or acquisition. I think the strategy they already have is the best:

• Investing more than ever in 1st party exclusives
• Investing more than ever in 2nd party exclusives
• Investing more than ever in AAA 3rd party exclusives improving their relationship with them
• Investing more than ever in indie exclusives improving their relationship with them
• Grow the headcount in existing internal 1st party teams to allow them produce more games at the same time and faster
• Grow in the MP and GaaS areas
• Grow in key genres where 1st party doesn't excel via acquisitions or 2nd party deals (as they did/are doing with the different shooter types, VR, remakes or PC ports)
• Releasing ports of old games to PC (ported by different teams -if possible acquired/hired- than the ones who made the original games to focus them on original games)
• Acquire support teams to secure enough workers now that they will have more games in development at the same time than ever
• Working to bring their IPs to mobile gaming and movies/tv shows (made by other teams different than the console ones, and also with key external teams that fit)
• Adding plenty of great content to the different PS+ tiers
• Use many of the things above to appeal the Asian (not only Japan) market to grow there
• Focus acquisitions in experienced talent who delivers top new IP or can develop good Sony IPs that are in the fridge, more than in dead shells with very known IPs. If possible, people with already stablished relationship with Sony
• Invest or acquire in key partners that may help them or the 3rd parties who work for them in areas like game engines (Epic), tools (Kraken), eSports (EVO, etc) and so on

Growing in all areas will help them get a better catalog than ever, reaching and appealing to way more players than ever, and generating more revenue and profits than ever, that they will be able to reinvest in more growth and improvement.

Also, if they have their own CoD/Halo/Gears/Overwatch/etc equivalents they won't depend on the ones from MS/ABK.

Plus if they continue improving their relationships and exclusives with 3rd parties and indies in case that some of them become open to sell their whole studio, publisher or at least some shares they will be more open to sell to Sony (as recent cases of Kadokawa or From Software).

Sony said they'll pause their acquisitions and will continue in the mid to long term, so once they continue if they are open to sell (very unlikely) I'd go for, in this order of priority:

• Capcom
• Square Enix (at least FF and its main FF studios)
• From Software (if needed, Kadokawa)
• MiHoyo (or a new studio with many key hirings from current or former MiHoyo talent)
• Select acquisitions from WB (Netherrealm, Rocksteady, Traveller's Tales, Howgart's Avalanche)
• BlueTwelve Studio (Stray)
• If cheap enough CD Projekt (or a Polish team with former key talent from this and the other top Polish studios without its toxicity)
• Devolver
• Annapurna

And if their current projects end being successful:

• Deviation
• Ballistic Moon
• Ember Lab
• Sloclap

It's not competitive language. They're not trying to compete. They specifically mentioned running Sony out of the business.

Yes, MS wants to compete against Sony by running them out of business.

But MS is failing hard because Sony has been increasing their distance with them in consoles and game subs. And with the current Sony and MS strategies and performance, this distance will become larger.

 

[Entropi]

Focus on crating great content. MS is the only one that can go on a buying spree, thanks to their other successful verticals subsidizing a decade of Xbox’s mediocrity and failures.

PS is still too dependent on third parties, and MS can just write a check for whatever is successful on PS and dry it up pretty fast.

You can’t play that game.

 

[Wraith Phantom]

They don't take exclusive serious. So they already lost.

 

[Hezekiah]

Square, Capcom, and From Software would be a great start. Not sure if the latter is really possible though.

 

[Entropi]

They don't take exclusive serious. So they already lost.

Who doesn’t?

 

[flaccidsnake]

It's fucking obvious that Sony should buy Take-Two and lock up GTA. Buying Square might be a nice to have, but it doesn't counter Call of Duty.

 

[Perrott]

By firing the team responsible of putting together their digital events after that disastrous PlayStation Showcase from May and simply having a geniunely great show, like their E3s from 2015 and 2016. That's how you compete: by showing some great games.

We already know that PlayStation is a guarantee for quality, but we don't have a clear roadmap beyond Spider-Man 2. Fix that already.

 

[BroodCorp]

Didn’t this all start with the realization Sony didn’t have the money to buy studios that would pose a threat to the Activision deal? What happened to that line of reasoning?

 

[flaccidsnake]

Didn’t this all start with the realization Sony didn’t have the money to buy studios that would pose a thread to the Activision deal? What happened to that line of reasoning?

MS as a whole is like 10x bigger than Sony but where was it said that Sony can't afford a big acquisition? Bungie was a pretty smart purchase for countering CoD without dropping 10s of billions. But I think Sony does probably need a publisher now with a rich IP catalog.

 

[Swift_Star]

I guess it isn't that imminent, @Bryank75. Time to close the thread and wait for more developments!

 

[VillaiN]

Lol at obsession with sega. Bunch of niche ips only few cares about. Heck sega better fits ms with their pc games. Ubisoft s better buy. Just cut off ubi fat.
They d almost own TP genre. AC s one of the biggest ips out there. Rainbow six. Crew (their own Forza horizon), fsr cry, splinter cell, pr8nce of persia etc.

But sony management s too stupid. They treated ps division like stepchild untill few yesrs back. Spending billions on failed products, buying music for billions etc.

Also buying shares wont do a shit as defensive move.

MS wont be able to make big deal anytime soon. So its great time for their own diversion. Their focus should be T2 without question. I dont thinj there d be manny ready to offer 25,30B. Or some bidding war.
Keep gta multi for 10 years. Wwe and nba llstay multi cause of nlicence.
Focus should be red dead, mafia, borderlands, bioshock as exclusives.

Besides that capcom and from. Jap pubs re good buy cause they wont have to deal with cma, eu. Also cdpr s great buy imo. Eventualy square.

 

[historia]

Sony should invest 10-20% in Capcom, Koei Tecmo and even Sega like they did with FromSoft and outright buy Square Enix since they are doing healthy, invest another 2-3B to Take2 and propose partnership to leverage live services game like 2K and GTA Online.

Experimenting with live service games is fine since it would help fund other singleplayer projects

Countinue buying smaller studios to help with their game outputs. Studio like Larian, Plantinum Games would help them pad out their singleplayer games output per years.

 

[Yurinka]

Lol at obsession with sega. Bunch of niche ips only few cares about. Heck sega better fits ms with their pc games. Ubisoft s better buy. Just cut off ubi fat.
They d almost own TP genre. AC s one of the biggest ips out there. Rainbow six. Crew (their own Forza horizon), fsr cry, splinter cell, pr8nce of persia etc.

Tencent did help the Guillemot family to get control of their company in terms of shares.

The Guillemot family, Ubi stakeholders and Ubi workers agree that don't want to sell Ubi, to control their own destiny and to don't have external company deciding what they should do or not or to, or telling them to stop supporting this or that platform: they want to continue supporting all platforms and continue having their own dev teams pitching their next games and their editorial team being the ones defining the vision and strategy of the company and approving the milestones of the games.

Their finantials aren't great since covid or so, but with upcoming releases of the next year or two they plan to continue having great numbers. So in addition to don't want to sell, they also don't need to sell.

MS wont be able to make big deal anytime soon. So its great time for their own diversion. Their focus should be T2 without question. I dont thinj there d be manny ready to offer 25,30B. Or some bidding war.
Keep gta multi for 10 years. Wwe and nba llstay multi cause of nlicence.
Focus should be red dead, mafia, borderlands, bioshock as exclusives.

It's too expensive for Sony, and as I remember only GTA, NBA2K, Red Dead and Zynga would be relevant for Sony.

Also, if MS or Sony buy big publishers, the smarter thing would be to keep them full multiplatform in consoles and PC to collect from them the biggest amount of revenue and profit possible.

And keep the exclusivity only for marketing, bundles, demos or game subs, while also blocking any exclusive for rival consoles. And maybe keep some game as timed console exclusive or in some rare case full exclusive, specially for game series that already do it.