Sony Pictures reportedly in talks to buy Paramount. |UP|Sony Makes $26 Billion All-Cash Offer for Paramount.

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Know what you could do with 26b?

Capcom
Square
Fromsoftware
Larian
CD Projekt
Remedy

Know what else could be done with it?

>Investments, share purchases, and possible 2P co-dev/co-fund game partnerships:

-Capcom
-Square Enix
-Bandai Namco
-Take Two
-EA
-Shift Up
-SEGA/Atlus
-Koei Tecmo
-Epic
-Kadokawa/From Software
-Arc System Works
-Level 5
-Vanillaware
-NIS Japan
-Ember Lab
-Devolver Digital
-Annapurna

And that's all of them, BTW. Not just one or the other.

...let alone the studio expansions and AAA/AA projects that could be doled out to the current internal 1P studios

 

[Etifilio]

Yes, but the "medium to long term" (normally means aprox. over around 3 years or more) is important here, specially in the context where he was talking about acquisitions in games. He also said that didn't expect to make acquisitions in the short term (which normally means around 1 or 2 years).

hopefully they make the right choices this time, Bungie was clearly an overpaid acquisition

 

[Would_you_kindly]

The Boys is co-owned between Amazon and Sony Pictures.

No one has made a game out of The Boys. Why because it would be a tough game to make first of all and second, it probably wouldn't be worth it.

Someone brought up Ghostbusters earlier and this is a similar one. It's not really worth Sony making a Ghostbusters game. Sony Pictures is just RECENTLY trying to increase the profile of Ghostbusters and they've been fairly unsuccessful in doing so.

Same can also be said of Men in Black.

When they had the rights to Bond, it was also complicated and made more sense to license to EA, multiplatform and they weren't the sole owners of the rights.

The only movie properties Sony would want to make a movie out of is Spider-Man and again they don't own the rights here, Marvel does. They didn't need Da Vinci Code because they had Uncharted. The reality is that Sony Pictures doesn't have a lot of great gaming IP, which would definitely change with Paramount.

They're doing a bunch of marvel games & as much as I love Spider-Man the boys is just a league above marvel they could easily do a mortal Kombat style fighter with it at the very least

 

[Systemshock2023]

What folks need to realize is that IP hoarding means nothing without management. It takes time and money to manage M&A and get a good product out of the acquired studios. In theory Microsoft owns a bajillon IPs. Do they have the manpower to make something good with all of them at the same time?
Of course not, no one can expand that fast without growing pains.

Sony has a lot of it's OWN IPs in gaming. Those should be leveraged instead. You have slyphon filter stored in a drawer but want Kojima to do a weird ass new stealth game?

 

[mibu no ookami]

They're doing a bunch of marvel games & as much as I love Spider-Man the boys is just a league above marvel they could easily do a mortal Kombat style fighter with it at the very least

I mean nothing that you said was factual. You might PERSONALLY prefer The Boys to Marvel, but The Boys isn't generating billions of dollars per year in revenue. So please, just stop it.

 

[mibu no ookami]

hopefully they make the right choices this time, Bungie was clearly an overpaid acquisition

If you were Sony and could go back in time and prevent the rise of Halo, how much would you pay to do it?

Bungie not only gave Sony their own premier FPS in Destiny and future titles, it gave them immediate expertise in GaaS, AND maybe most importantly it cut off Microsoft's potential path to rekindle interest in Halo, which might have allowed them to stagger on in the industry another generation or two. Preventing that was worth billions more than Sony paid for Bungie.

 

[PlacidusaX]

Sony won’t even get major ip like Transformer & GIJoe after acquiring paramount they will need to buy Hasbro to own the franchise & get games mixed w cross media synergies.

Sony will only get TMNT & SpongeBob other like Sonic, Transformer Paramount don’t even own or control.

Sony is better buying WB who’s also rumored to be selling soon. Buying WB will actually get you major ip WB owns plus a better subscription that’s making profit. Paramount+ is like the bottom of the barrel streaming service. Owning the Halo streaming rights also is worthless that tv show has been destroyed in gaming & now cross media

You left out much.
A tip.. look into all of the properties Paramount owns.

Multiple networks will make em more money than any game company.

CBS for example hosts NFL games and sometimes the Superbowl.
Nothing bigger in North American than the NFL.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Sony has a lot of it's OWN IPs in gaming. Those should be leveraged instead. You have slyphon filter stored in a drawer but want Kojima to do a weird ass new stealth game?

First, I'm not convinced that PHYSINT isn't going to be unrelated to SYPHoN fIlTer. But either way, the only people who put a premium on that medium is fans. As a game, it never sold super well. It was always behind Metal Gear Solid and Splinter Cell. No movies or books ever came out of Syphon Filter.

 

[Gediminas]

They're doing a bunch of marvel games & as much as I love Spider-Man the boys is just a league above marvel they could easily do a mortal Kombat style fighter with it at the very least

Outside of Series, Boys has no real value really. It has no brand recognition.

 

[Etifilio]

If you were Sony and could go back in time and prevent the rise of Halo, how much would you pay to do it?

Bungie not only gave Sony their own premier FPS in Destiny and future titles, it gave them immediate expertise in GaaS, AND maybe most importantly it cut off Microsoft's potential path to rekindle interest in Halo, which might have allowed them to stagger on in the industry another generation or two. Preventing that was worth billions more than Sony paid for Bungie.

i'm sorry but Bungie was not worth 3.6B dollars, you can't convince me otherwise, Bungie didn't bring anything for PLAYSTATION exclusivity wise, if one thing, it only made Sony be more multiplatform with IPs they own on Xbox, and no, Bungie would not save Halo, Halo died a long time ago, Bungie is fighting to keep Destiny alive today

 

[Yurinka]

hopefully they make the right choices this time

They did a great job until now, and their strategy seems to be working and seeing record numbers and a nice growth in all their areas:

Active console userbase, games sold/ARPU spent on their store, game subs revenue, sales of first party games, amount of first (and 2nd) party teams working on new games (after making a big growth in manpower via hirings and acquisitions), record investment in deals with 3rd party publishers, record revenue and growth in PC, same goes with MP/GaaS (GT+MLB+Destiny+Helldivers), record revenue in accesories, apparently are doing a lot of key deals for future mobile games...

This growth means that even if they don't do anything they'll continue growing.

Bungie was clearly an overpaid acquisition

The opposite.

Bungie is generating hundreds of millions in revenue per year with a 7 year old game, which is a lot. Plus are part of the team that is helping their GaaS to do a great job.

Plus more importantly, they have many projects in the works that -looking back to their records and achievements they had with Halo and Destiny, and to the record numbers of the Marathon teaser- are going to be stunning successes.

Plus also have movie/tv show adaptations in the works, which will make way more money.

Bungie is the most important acquisition SIE/SCE ever did. Not because of the money paid for the acquisition, but for the money they will generate both directly and indirectly. With their own projects and helping other teams build multi billion dollar GaaS titles. Make sure it will be the most profitable acquisition made until now.

 

[mibu no ookami]

i'm sorry but Bungie was not worth 3.6B dollars, you can't convince me otherwise, Bungie didn't bring anything for PLAYSTATION exclusivity wise, if one thing, it only made Sony be more multiplatform with IPs they own on Xbox, and no, Bungie would not save Halo, Halo died a long time ago, Bungie is fighting to keep Destiny alive today

Exclusivity isn't the only place value is derived from.

I know I can't convince you because you're a fanboy. I broke this down already.

Bungie isn't fighting to keep Destiny alive, which goes to show what you know about Destiny. Destiny 2's last major expansion is Final Shape which releases next month. They'll be moving on largely to Marathon.

If Bungie was sold to Microsoft, Microsoft very easily could have sold fans on a resurgence of Halo under the control of Bungie again. Even without releasing something, that could have bought Microsoft a lot of time.

Capcom was able to resurrect Resident Evil and Street Fighter, but please tell me that Halo was dead and gone after really only being on the decline for a short period of time in the first place.

The franchise single-handedly gave life to Xbox. It was smart of Sony to give no chance at a second life.

 

[Danja1187]

?

Sony was never a PlayStation only company

So why is PlayStation carrying the company on its back?

 

[Thirty7ven]

Obviously Sony isn’t just PlayStation and never was, but when have we seen anything close to the kind of investment they are willing to do on these Hollywood studios? They wanted to buy Fox, they are willing to go this far for Paramount, and despite the fact they have been carried hard by PlayStation they seem more interested in adapting games to other medium than they are the other way around. Isn’t a Men in Black game obvious? Not that we need more licensed IP, but they seem happy overpaying for Marvel licensed games.

 

[CrackmanNL]

Regarding Bungie, I stand by Jim Ryan's take he will get more value out of it than ABK especially if it reflects well into internal PS studios live-service. For Sony, getting world class FPS dev in-house, one that actually managed to maintain the promise for live-service over a decade and literally owning the studio that made your competitor to spite them is 3 birds with one stone. You can't deny Bungie made two franchises worth in the billion dollars.

On topic. Interesting to see that Sony now got the movie studio that does Sonic movies and Halo tv show, while they themselves partnered with Nintendo on Zelda. Who would'v thought... Sony is getting domination into the cross-media stuff with video game adaptations, smart moves.

 

[Yobo]

Sony are so dumb

 

[mibu no ookami]

Obviously Sony isn’t just PlayStation and never was, but when have we seen anything close to the kind of investment they are willing to do on these Hollywood studios? They wanted to buy Fox, they are willing to go this far for Paramount, and despite the fact they have been carried hard by PlayStation they seem more interested in adapting games to other medium than they are the other way around. Isn’t a Men in Black game obvious? Not that we need more licensed IP, but they seem happy overpaying for Marvel licensed games.

• I won't be surprised if Sony attempts to acquire T2 in the next couple of years
• Sony hasn't been carried by PlayStation, in fact in the dark days of PlayStation (PS3) it was the other divisions that carried PlayStation
• Licensing IP for games is tricky, it takes the right timing and the right partner, and the right IP
  • Sony was not a major software developer in the PS1 and PS2 days, this only happened more towards the middle to end of the PS3 days, and became something larger in the PS4 days
  • Men in Black 3 came out in 2012
  • They tried to bring Men in Black back but without Will Smith because they wanted to reboot the franchise in a more cost effective manner, it failed
    • Bad Boys for Life on the other hand was a smash hit and wasn't a much better movie. Independence day also was unsuccessful without Will Smith
    • You take the risk with rebooting a franchise, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't look at Jurassic World

If Sony is able to reboot Mission Impossible without Tom Cruise, they'll definitely make MI games internally at SIE. TMNT, Avatar (ATLA), and Spongebob, all make a lot of sense. Licensing out Top Gun to Namco Bandai makes a lot of sense too.

There is an off chance that PlayStation vs Nickelodeon could be a success. I think having two different target audiences might make it difficult though. Kratos vs Spongebob probably won't work.

 

[TigerFang]

They're investing plenty into PlayStation. From Chine Hero, Publisher deals, all of this while they are still burning so much cash on their first party which are in their development cycle, doing major discounts on Games & PS+.

That being said, Sony group will not just take entirety of its cash and invest into SIE, that's not how a corporation works.

 

[Etifilio]

Exclusivity isn't the only place value is derived from.

I know I can't convince you because you're a fanboy. I broke this down already.

Bungie isn't fighting to keep Destiny alive, which goes to show what you know about Destiny. Destiny 2's last major expansion is Final Shape which releases next month. They'll be moving on largely to Marathon.

If Bungie was sold to Microsoft, Microsoft very easily could have sold fans on a resurgence of Halo under the control of Bungie again. Even without releasing something, that could have bought Microsoft a lot of time.

Capcom was able to resurrect Resident Evil and Street Fighter, but please tell me that Halo was dead and gone after really only being on the decline for a short period of time in the first place.

The franchise single-handedly gave life to Xbox. It was smart of Sony to give no chance at a second life.

you think you know better than anyone here but in reality you're the one looking like a fanboy and just looking stupid in general with your TERRIBLE takes, even Sony themselfs were not happy with Bungie and the current situation at the company missing its internal targets, they overpaid for Bungie, today Bungie would not even be worth half of what Sony paid in 2022 if they remained independent, you live in a fairlytail world where Bungie (a company that hates to be controlled, only sold themselfs to Sony with the guarantee that they would take their own decisions and remain "independent" in that aspect and already split from MS to not be obligated to develop Halo in the past), would all of a sudden... sell to Microsoft again, abandon Destiny from day to night to focus on saving an IP that has no savings, that's exactly why Destiny was created in the first place, to replace it cause Bungie themselfs saw that there was nothing else to be made with Halo after Reach in the traditional format the game existed

and by your logic, acquiring Activision was fairly better in the eyes of Microsoft, specially if they want to "save" Halo since now they own multiple FPS studios (the best FPS studios in the industry) that work on the biggest FPS franchise of all time, Call Of Duty, and Sony? lost more franchises they could market and use to impulse PlayStation, and don't even pretend Call Of Duty is not important to PlayStation because it is and you know it is, much more important than Destiny revenue and profit wise, not to mention its popularity globally, but go ahead and continue with the "Sony doesn't need to buy any publisher" argument, once there is no more big game publishers in the industry and everything is dominated by companies larger than Sony, they'll be the big players in the industry, not SIE, that's something you seem to fail to understand

 

[Etifilio]

They're investing plenty into PlayStation. From Chine Hero, Publisher deals, all of this while they are still burning so much cash on their first party which are in their development cycle, doing major discounts on Games & PS+.

That being said, Sony group will not just take entirety of its cash and invest into SIE, that's not how a corporation works.

well, they should, cause PlayStation has been carrying Sony on their backs for a long time now, they need to invest more, having 18 studios that take 5 years to create a single game simply won't be enough, and we're seeing the dry years of 2023/2024 first party wise, this CAN'T happen for a platform as big as PlayStation, the only way PlayStation can grow significantly is by buying studios or a big publisher, the more first party AAA games they have, the more profit they'll make, the more consoles they'll sell, and it's not about just consoles, they're sleeping on mobile and they need to TAKE ACTIONS right now before it's too late, all of the big mobile publishers are getting bought, so absolutely, people have all the rights in the world to be concerned about the long term future of the brand