Sony's acquisitions and investments budget to spend during this FY2023 is only 16.9B yen (around $147M)

Yurinka

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And not the gaming division, but to spend by the whole Sony in acquisitions, investments and Sony stock repurchases during FY2023.

As you may remember they had a 'strategic investments' budget of 2 or more Trillion yen to spend during FY2021,FY2022 and FY2023, but when showing the FY2022 results they decreased it to 1.8 Trillion yen:

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Source (page 22)

These 0.2+ Trillion yen ($1.48B+) went to be spent on image sensors, and servers for corporate R&D and the gaming division (which means that probably this FY they'll release big MP games, may plan to expand PS cloud gaming to mobile or simply it's by the PSN growth due to the planned huge console sales).

2T yen a couple years ago were $18B, but now are $14,8B due to change in dollar and yen value. So they decided to pause on acquisitions and investments in the long term and continue in mid to long term once the market is more favorable. "Recent changes in the market environment" may have been regulators being harsher than expected with the ABK acquisitions.

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Source (page 22)

From this 1.8T yen (now $13.333B), they spent 1.0527T (now $7.8B) during FY2022.
In FY2021 they did spend 323.9B yen less: 728.1B yen (now $5,39B).
So the remaining budget for FY2023 is 1.8T - 1.0527T - 728.1B = 19.9B yen ($147.3M)

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Source (page 3)

May 24th there will be also a Sony Business Segment Meeting where the bosses of the divisions of Sony will share more info about their fiscal year, so probably Jimbo may explain something else about potential future unannounced acquisitions, but not likely at all. As happened last year in that meeting, he'll focus on detail and reviewing the results of the recently ended FY shown and make some overal forecast for the future and explain the current plans or strategy for their division detailing, more than in the ones posted in their fiscal year report.

A few days before, May 18th they have a Corporate Strategy Meeting where the Sony CEO and President (no Jimbo that day) will update their overall strategy of the corportation, so may also add some extra detail over the known acquisitions but as happened last year pretty likely won't announce new acquisitions or explain much more than they explained in the FY report before.

Everything posted above is factual data from Sony.

My personal thoughts:

Does this mean Sony can't acquire? No, they can acquire and have money and other stuff to do so, only means they don't want to acquire during the current fiscal year. If they had planned or desired to make more acquisitions during the current FY they'd have increased this budget instead of incresing it.

Does this means they won't announce any acquisition more during the current FY? Means that pretty likely won't announce any acquisition more during the current fiscal year, even if they might announce it close to its end in March/April 2024 and count it for the next FY, that pretty likely will have a new budget for 'strategic investments' separated from this 2T/1.8T yen one (which is for FY2021+FY2022+FY2023 only).

Seems that they'll wait for a better moment where the dollar vs yen value is more favorable to them, and maybe also prefered to have a low profile in acquisitions and investments until the ABK acquisition is over, to see what all regulators end doing with it, since it could also impact potential future big Sony acquisitions.
 
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Kokoloko

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So no Square Enix, CDPR etc. No proper reply to the Bethesda acquisition by MS?

I wouldnt care about Sony going after publishers but with MS and others buying up IPs I think its important to secure these. Either by buying them or by buying shares in certain publishers so they never miss out on classic IPs not coming to PS.

Like Bethesda and what they are trying with Activision.
If MS wasnt buying it all up, I would be happy with Sony carrying on what they were doing before.
 
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Dabaus

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Arent they supposed to have a May meeting where they go over acquisition strategies for the next few years?
 

Nhomnhom

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So no Square Enix, CDPR etc. No proper reply to the Bethesda acquisition by MS.

I wouldnt care about Sony going after publishers but with MS and others buying up IPs I think its important to secure these. Either by buying them or by buying shares in certain publishers so they never miss out on classic IPs not coming to PS.

Like Bethesda and what they are trying with Activision.
If MS wasnt buying it all up, I would be happy with Sony carrying on what they were doing before.
Xbox is dead, odds are in a few years all Bethesda games will be releasing on PlayStation again, just like they release on Steam now where Valve takes a 30% cut.

Right now MS is just losing money by delaying the inevitable. I guess they need to see what will happen with Starfield first.
 

Kokoloko

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Xbox is dead, odds are in a few years all Bethesda games will be releasing on PlayStation again, just like they release on Steam now where Valve takes a 30% cut.

Right now MS is just losing money by delaying the inevitable. I guess they need to see what will happen with Starfield first.

I wouldn’t say its over till the fat lady sings.
I more than most people cant stand MS, and want them out the console and video game market so I hope they are dead Like you said
 

flaccidsnake

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I don't think Playstation needed a Bethesda-sized acquisition to counter Xbox. Bungie was a coup. MS is doing these acquisitions because they're desperate to catch up to PS studios. Playstation just needs their teams to do what they do, and they should fucking show us what they've been working on.
 

Nhomnhom

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I wouldn’t say its over till the fat lady sings.
I more than most people cant stand MS, and want them out the console and video game market so I hope they are dead Like you said
If it's not dead it sure is pretty close to it. Let's see if PlayStation and Jim Ryan have what it takes to send it on it's way. Even the ABK deal passing next year wouldn't be enough to save Xbox, assuming Sony does their homework and bury Xbox in the upcoming months.
 
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Eternal_Wings

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That’s so wrong. I asked William R. Aguilar about this. This nothing but based only on his assumptions.
 
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Yurinka

Yurinka

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Arent they supposed to have a May meeting where they go over acquisition strategies for the next few years?
May 24th they have the 2023 business segments meeting, where like every year the head of each Sony division reviews how their previous fiscal year went for them and make some forecast for the future and sometimes explains some plan.

This is the document of the previous 2022 business segments meeting.

In the business segments meeting they go more in depth on each division. There's also the corporate strategy meeting on May 18th, but they detail there less every division.
 
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Nhomnhom

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Just because MS taps out, and thats still a huge assumption at this point, doesnt mean other players wont still be making acquisitions. Tencent, netease, embracer, Saudi fund, etc etc are all still relevant.
Sure, Sony should fear those companies just as much as Nintendo fears them getting into their portable console market. Just as Google and Apple fear a new mobile OS challenger.

Some people just can't tell when something is over apparently. MS has wasted so much money on Xbox just to get absolutely nowhere.
 

shrike0fth0rns

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I don't think Playstation needed a Bethesda-sized acquisition to counter Xbox. Bungie was a coup. MS is doing these acquisitions because they're desperate to catch up to PS studios. Playstation just needs their teams to do what they do, and they should fucking show us what they've been working on.
Yeah they really don’t!! That zenimax purchase was overrated asf. So far they’ve released nothing but mid sht. Buying Bethesda didn’t move the needle at all for Xbox.
 
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Yurinka

Yurinka

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TubzGaming

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I'm confused, It seems every week for the past 1-2 months Sony's "Acquisitions funds" get smaller and smaller with no real reason to explain it.
But as everyone knows it does not really matter how much they "have" to spend as if they really want to buy something they can get more in other ways.
 

Bryank75

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If it's not dead it sure is pretty close to it. Let's see if PlayStation and Jim Ryan have what it takes to send it on it's way. Even the ABK deal passing next year wouldn't be enough to save Xbox, assuming Sony does their homework and bury Xbox in the upcoming months.

My argument would be that making From games exclusive would be a 'catalyst' to sending Xbox on its way...