Sony's future and possible studio/publisher acquisitions
- Thread starter Eternal_Wings
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Came here to post this. Any day now, we're getting another mobile studio.
OP
OP
Square Enix Holdings
Integration
You don't need that with private studios for PS Studios
Bungie didn't need one either, so
Yes, Sony didn't make this acquisition for your personal tastes, they made it instead for Sony's global insterest as corporation particularly in movies, cinema, tv/streaming and music divisions.
But strategically in gaming too, because it's one of the fastest growing countries in game revenue since its revenue doubled in size compared to 5 years ago and is expected to continue to grow fast:
This is also the reason of why Sony had initiatives in gaming like India Hero Project.
So Sony selling more copies of their games is supposed to get me excited? What if those are just the GaaS titles? Again, we're gaming enthusiasts; where does an M&A for Zee come into the picture WRT new games (specifically non-GaaS titles)?
A lot of those China Hero Project games are several years away; anything for India Hero Project is very likely even further out (into the 2030s) if they're aiming at similar scope to the CHP titles, or higher.
Square Enix Holdings
Integration
You don't need that with private studios for PS Studios
Bungie didn't need one either, so
I wouldn't have thought this could be PS-related until the other part near the end.
Let's see if something of significance comes from this.
Seems to be a trend with Sony. Said company would be a good fit or fill something they need only for said company to become to big to make deals with them or absorbed by a forward thinking company.
Atlus and FromSoftware stand out too. I would add those ridiculous cheap studios/ips that Square Enix sold to Embracer as well.
They have been all about maximizing profits and being conservative as soon as the PS4 established itself as a success early on. Big missed opportunity, then they wonder why the console market doesn't grow.
IOI worked closely with Sony on the VR version of Hitman. Now they're working with ms.
All of those add up.
Integrations applies for any aquisition, private or not.Square Enix Holdings
Integration
You don't need that with private studios for PS Studios
Bungie didn't need one either, so
No, but it should make you see the reality of the market, which is that a huge amount of people love their stuff. You may have an irrational hate Sony and their games, but there is a record amount of people liking their stuff enough to buy it.
Nothing happens. Some of you have issues with GaaS when is Sony who does them (why do you always spam against Sony GaaS but not against MS, Nintendo, Activision, EA, Take 2, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square, etc GaaS?) but most of the most successful games are GaaS and GaaS make the biggest chunk of the software sales.
And since companies want to be successful and appeal the majority of their players, they bet on what it works best in their market.
In addition to this, companies make many types of games for many different player types. They don't make all their games for your specific personal tastes. To think that is egocentric, childish and stupid.
Someone was whining that Sony made this acquisition a couple years ago instead of acquiring whatever was their favorite gaming company (which pretty likely isn't on sale), having no idea about how important the Indian market is specially strategically thinking in a few years in the future.
And also ignoring that this company is way bigger and way more important than their favorite gaming company that they wanted to be acquired.
The main goal of the Zee acquisition isn't gaming. But the acquisition will give Sony a giant advertising platform in a country that is becoming a top economy (in general, but in a smaller scale in gaming too) and is the one with the biggest population in the world. So indirectly, in the long term the Zee acquisition would also benefit Sony's gaming division too. Specially regarding mobile and PC F2P.
Some China Hero Project games already are published, other ones will be published this year, other ones next year and other ones TBD. The India Hero Project is in a way earlier stage, they are starting it so yes, the Indian ones will take longer.
Both are long term investments in countries that in a few years will be huge or Sony and they want to have presence there with local talent and potential great new studios that may emerge from them, lands where a good chunk of most top AAA games are partly developed in local outsourcing companies. They aren't projects for games to be released next week.
SIE has plans to grow in mobile as one of their many goals and they plan related acquisitions. Until now they only made a small related one (Savage), but make sure that in the future will acquire more companies with a big background in mobile. Mobile games make like half of the total global gaming revenue, so Sony -like any other big publisher- wants to grow there.Came here to post this. Any day now, we're getting another mobile studio.
Yes, Sony aquires companies that fill something they need. This is why instead of companies who make rpgs they bought shooter companies, MP/GaaS companies, companies with key talent on creating top performing new AAA IPs, mobile gaming companies, PC porting companies and outsourcing companies.
IOI is a 3rd party publisher, so they work with most platform holders. Like almost all 3rd party publishers did. Nothing rare here.
They won't stick to a single platform holder just because you want. Sometimes they'll see a better deal with one and somethimes with another one.
Also, Sony has a limited number of deals or acquisitions they can handle and some companies don't want to sell, so they aren't acquired. So out of the possibilities they have, they choose the ones that are better for their interest. And as an example they have to choose between a mainline Final Fantasy / a FFVIIR and a new fantasy IP from IOI, they will obviously choose Final Fantasy / a FFVIIR.
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Holy shit man, you with these random ass correlations.
What do you want Sony to do? Try to control the ENTIRE industry and pay everyone off to not work with MS?
Absolutely absurd.
I disagree, subtract the IP and the PC version and Larian loses a lot of its luster. BG3 is lightning in a bottle.
Baldur's Gate 3 has been in beta for 3 years (I spent dozens of hours playing the beta in late 2020), Larian already had the rights to work with the BG IP and Sony now releases their own games on PC.
BG3 is a lot like TW3, everybody playing previous CDPR games knew how good they were and how fast they were getting better. Larian now turned into a huge name just like what happened to CDPR, they'll be fine even if they can't work with the BG IP anymore.
Sure, predicting BG3 would be this big was hard but predicting that Larian was a valuable dev was really easy. Meanwhile MS bought Bethesda, Blizzard, Obsidian and inXile and FromSoftware a previous PlayStation close partner and another obvious target for acquisition went to make the biggest game of 2022 and will be releasing a new game in a few weeks.
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Well its not GaaS, its single player. So is Sony buying studios in order to build and support the PS ecosystem or are they building them just to make profit off of the games, no matter what the release platform is? They could work as a side-project that might occasionally help PS, just like Sony Online Entertainment (Everquest, etc.) was, but that would be a PC-centric acquisition. And while D:OS 2 was very well reviewed there are lots of mid-sized teams that can put out super-highly reviewed games like them or CDPR. IOI is just like that with their Hitman games, so is Velan with its one-off projects, so is Asobo, so is Platinum Games, so is Sumo Digital's Newcastle studio, so is Endnight. The real questions are, do they want to sell and do their products fit into what you want to be selling.
And I just don't think that isometric RPGs are the genre people are going to rush to be a part of, especially console manufacturers. But then again, 2023 is seemingly the year of the isorpg with both BG3 and Diablo being big hits.
Oh so now I'm a Sony hater because I'm critical of some of their business strategies, and don't lap up everything like an unquestioning drone? Good to know. What a hater, buying HFW and GOW Ragnarok Day 1 :/
Sony buying Zee Entertainment has nothing to do with games. At least, not in any obvious way and not for anything, anytime soon.
Don't put words in my mouth. MS's only successful GaaS are those they acquired through 3P publisher acquisitions. Minecraft, Elder Scrolls Online primarily. Sea of Thieves took YEARS to get anywhere near good and even then, it's not a "massive" success; it just does decently enough. Halo Infinite is an abject failure.
ABK isn't doing so hot between Diablo 4 and Overwatch 2; COD Warzone is off the strengths of COD, both that and COD required ABK to sacrifice all their other studios to focus on just those IP (on the Activision side). Nintendo can manage their GaaS like Splatoon 3 and Smash Bros. because 1) those are smaller games in terms of budgets and required team sizes and 2) they have vast amounts of single-player content.
Sony can do that; go ahead. But if it comes at the expense of a good variety of AAA and AA traditional games, new IP in those spaces, or securing appealing 3P content (either through fortifying partnerships or acquisitions), then for me, I don't care what they do. As in, what they do outside of that scope is of no appeal to me.
I am not a corporate cheerleader. I have little interest in a company's goals if my own tastes aren't at least somewhat being addressed. I hold that attitude towards all companies, in all industries. You may love to point to fiscal charts and spreadsheets and tow the line for every single corporate decision Sony does but not me. I sure as hell don't do it for Microsoft or Nintendo, why would Sony be any different?
If I'm a potential customer into that ecosystem, I want content that appeals to me. If there isn't enough of that content, or if various corporate-level decisions look like they may not produce that type of content in sufficient amounts at a good enough clip for my investment, then I'm out.
You're being very dumb here because actual shareholders & investors literally make their investments based on a company's expectations to satisfy growth in areas those individuals personally, on some level, identify as important to them, as they feel those areas bring the most return in their financial investment. So it's okay for shareholders and investors to get what they want, but not the end customers who are buying the product? FOH with that.
Again, why should that person give a shit? They're a gamer, they aren't a bean counter. They aren't a shareholder or investor (most likely). They're buying these consoles to play games, and expect to see movement in areas pertaining to gaming.
No gamer gives a crap if Zee is bigger market value than their favorite 3P developer or publisher, you think they're basing that preference on market caps? Maybe the Nikkei Index and NYSE should add Trophies and Achievements. Maybe then I'll care to bean-count on behalf of corporations.
A lot of theorizing here but anything to come of this probably won't even bear fruit gaming-wise (in terms of new 1P AAA and AA traditional games that might tickle the tastes of certain enthusiasts) until several years down the line, which is PS6 territory. So, what does any of that do for PS5, in that context?
You can't answer that question.
Keep believing Stellar Blade is coming this year if you want. If it were, we likely would've gotten an update at the May Showcase, or one of these other Summer gaming events earlier. If you hear nothing in terms of an update by TGS, the game's not releasing in 2023.
Long-term bets with unproven games from unproven devs in unproven markets....are you starting to see the issue in top-loading this strategy the way Sony seems to? It should at most be a side strategy running concurrent to making M&A, share buy and investment moves with 3P who are already big on the market today, and already make games and have strong track records.
Planning for gambles of the long-term without making moves for sure bets in the mid-term is not a winning strategy.
The fact that this needed to be said is shocking really.
Any deal MS make with a third party is automatically considered by some as a slight against Sony.
These are third party companies out to make money, they aren't sticking to some weird allegiance to Sony just because they worked with them in the past, or even working with them currently.
Turns out people show up for good games anywhere.
Hitman games aren't super well reviews and neither are Asobo games with the exception of Flight Simulator. For every well review game Platinum will also release some duds.
BG3 was in open beta for 3 years, the quality of the game was not a secret.
What did I miss? Didnt they say like a week ago they weren't interested in selling?
Did they say that 2 or 3 years ago? Of course they are not going to sell now after BG3 pulled those numbers.
MS bought Obsidian in 2018, inXile in 2018 and Bethesda in 2020. Sony despite not having a single WRPG bought didn't buy any RPG studio.
Yes, some people in the forum act as if Sony controls or own these companies or as if the owe something to Sony and need to be loyal or something. And if Sony or the PS fans would lose something if a B/C tier 3P IP goes multi, when they will continue having the game and won't have any impact in the console wars.
If 3rd parties make AAA deals with Sony more often than with MS is because Sony is the market leader, so they see it as more worth it. And because Sony spends more in moneyhats (not in acquisitions). And well, obviously that market power difference also means that 3P ask MS for more money for the same exclusivity because isn't the same to need to compensate with a moneyhat the lost sales in a console with 25M units sold than in one with 50M units sold.
MS from time to time can get something, but can't do it frequently because they already spend a shit ton of money on securing day one 3P GP deals for multis and also lose a shit ton of money for basically giving away their own games to many millions of players in GP.
Quite often, the best option for 3P is to go full multi if they are in a great finantial shape. If they need cash, then they'd be more open to moneyhats.
Other than maybe streaming in their tv channels or streaming service PS IP movies and tv shows, or maybe advertise in their tv channels and streaming service Sony console or games ads, or maybe putting Sony game OSTs on their music channels no, it doesn't have anything to do with games.
It's a movie/tv/music giant, so Sony bought it basically for that. Once they complete the regulators paperwork and properly integrate it into the corporation and related divisions, I assume they'll make some adjustments and collaborations to find any possible synergies in their different Indian and non Indian channels for each division.
Who knows, they could even make Bollywood adaptations of some Sony IPs.
I'd count GaaS games like Forza Horizon 5 as successful.
And Mario Kart, or their F2P games.
You already know this isn't the case. The majority of their games under development aren't GaaS, they will invest in non-GaaS titles more than (ever) before and around half of their games under development are new IPs.
In addition to this, they hired or acquired enough people to have the same or more people than before working in non-GaaS while also having others working in GaaS, PC or mobile.
As an example, ND worked in a single game in the past and now they have 3 when aparently only one is GaaS.
Regarding 3P Jimbo said PS5 will have more 3P exclusives than in any other previous PS console. And Sony also said they spend on the 2nd party deals to be published this gen more money than they did in any previous console before.
I love to point out facts and I accept and share them, even if I don't like what they say.
Charts, statements or actions from companies, market data, etc. are factual unbiased data. Accepting them isn't being a corporate cheerleader, it's accepting reality.
Some other people like you keep rejecting reality and parroting lies even with the facts in the front of your face for some reason I don't understand.
One thing is accepting the facts and say you don't like this or that part of the facts. A different thing is to complain about fictional issues that you already know don't exist because we discussed about the topic a gazillion times and shown the related data.
This is why I ask about it. If Sony is the one with the biggest amount of non-GaaS exclusives, why don't you complain about being worried because MS or Nintendo may be doing GaaS at the expenses of reducing their output of non GaaS?
The thing is that you know that it's a lie that there isn't enough content appealing to you. You are complaining about a fictional fantasy.
I'm 99% sure that like most of us don't have enough time and/or money to play all the games you'd like to play and have a fairly big backlog of games bought but not played.
Plus, if you carefully count them pretty likely there are a gazillion games in the horizon in multiple platforms that you want and plan to buy, more than the ones you'll have time to play.
I don't like to talk about it but at least in terms of IQ let's say I'm pretty far from being dumb.
And oh surprise, investors and companies like money. They invest in stuff because want to see it grow and get money back with profits. And to grow companies on improving their products and expand to new markets and areas. Obviously new ones where they know -or at least guess looking at factual stuff like market data and projections- that there will be enough customers wanting that there.
I didn't say that a gamer is a shareholder or a investor and I am not the one saying or suggesting that if Sony invests in a non-gaming area that is being made at the expenses of the gaming area.
I only tried to explain to some childish whining egocentric person that Sony has more divisions who also make acquisitions for them and that it's stupid and egocentric to expect Sony to invest only in gaming. And also explained that even if that acquisition isn't related to gaming, their gaming division could potentially get some -pretty likely residual in the short term- side benefits.
And well, also not mentioning the obvious: extra revenue and profits in other divisions means more money to reinvest in the company including other divisions as could be gaming.
Gamers shouldn't give a crap about the Zee acquisition because it doesn't affect the gaming market, or in this case Sony's gaming division. At least not in the short term.
If it has any effect will be in the mid or long term to provide more money to Sony, that later they may use to advertise or make games or gaming acquisitions, more advertisement channels for games, more channels to get money from the movies inspired by games, in a giant market with a lot of potential for games.
What I believe is the facts. They say that as of now it's a 2023 game and nothing leads me to think it will be delayed. If they delay it to 2024, then I'll believe it has been delayed to 2024.
Sony has a great track record on spotting and supporting 2nd and 3rd party smaller games, call them indie if you will. Also, to invest in in these games is very cheap for them. Specially considering that prices in China and India aren't the same than in let's say USA.
These are very small investments for the Sony scale, to support a few Chinese and Indian indies per year must be cheaper than let's say what Yoshida may spend in PlayStation Indies in a year or what a year of development of a single Sony AAA costs.
In addition to this, China and India have many offices of top tier publishers and devs, and related giant outsourcing companies. So pretty likely, many people working in most of these games aren't the regular indie, but instead people who worked in popular AAA games.
And the Chinese and Indian gaming markets are already pretty big and have a great growth, makes sense invest there specially if investments are pretty cheap.
There's no issue here. Also, didn't want you Sony to invest in non-GaaS, smaller games, single player games, different games?
All the investments of any companies are made thinking in the long term, rarely any big investment (not this case, to support these AA/indie Asian games must be pretty cheap for them) is expected to be recouped in less than 5 years. And they are made after carefully studying the case and benefits it may provide, cost, market trends, when they estimate to recoup, risks, opportunities, etc. You may call it a gamble, companies call it investment.
Also, a handful of these games can be pretty successful and generate enough profits to compensate the investment made on like 10 of them. No need to be the next Genshin Impact.
Also, Sony has a ton of sure bets. Do you really think that games like Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, FFVII Rebirth or Death Stranding 2 are going to be a failure or what?