I'm personally not going to freak myself out over hypotheticals and pictures that MS try to use to gain clout with Japanese game enthusiasts.
Sony's future and possible studio/publisher acquisitions
- Thread starter Eternal_Wings
- Start date
Dunno, but they do get new yearly budgets for acquisitions that they can use as they see fit.
Sony offered 50 Billion for Fox in 2016. They're in a better situation now than they were then. They could get more than enough to buy any publisher.
It's just a matter of what they see as being worth. You don't just pay a sum in advance and call it a day. They still have to pay the employees of purchased companies and in some cases "inherit" debt as well.
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Sony announced back then in 2021 to spend ¥4 trillion. They will have until the fiscal year 2024 arrives spent about half. With coming fiscal year they will spend another ¥2 trillion. Also cash on hand is not the only way to do big acquisitions. If they would buy Square Enix then they will probably do a stock split/mix cash on hand deal. There a multiple ways to achieve this.
I've already mentally said goodbye to Kojima Productions
Phil wants Kojima to be associated with Xbox and away from Sony. That is clear.
The game is nowhere close to shipment. He doesn't need to go there at every opportunity. Whole team lunches, whole team trips, custom gifts. Most expensive cloud game ever.
Searching for new things to stress out over every other day is not healthy. If it happens it happens, but Kojima doesn't seem at all likely imo.
www.gamespot.com
Kojima Turned Down "Ridiculously High" Offers To Sell His Company
Kojima says he's turned down all offers so far because, "... it's not that I want money. I want to make what I want to make."
www.gamespot.com
Yeah and FWIW, Kojima's always kinda been like this. I think the only time his brand was almost exclusively associated with PlayStation was the PS3; otherwise Gamecube got a remake of MGS1 and OG Xbox got a port of MGS2. Prior to that he had a profile on the Saturn with a (superior) version of Policenauts, and MGS1 probably would've gotten a Dreamcast port if it stayed on the market a bit longer (or if Bleemcast didn't happen).
He rarely messed with Nintendo systems prior to Gamecube btw; 16-bit wise he was a lot closer to Sega and NEC systems/computers. Hell, Metal Gear itself started on the MSX (Microsoft & ASCII). I don't think seeing Kojima make games on non-PlayStation systems constitutes him betraying Sony or anything. Not his fault Xbox has a narcissistic big-shot mascot for a CEO :/
I agree with you that's what Phil wants to do, and it's always about optics with him. Another clear indication of a narcissistic personality trait, IMO.
But it's not like Sony can't play this game, too. I dunno why they don't make a chance to do more PR stuff with Kojima heavily involved, even if currently the enthusiasts optics game is the only one Microsoft can actually go at Sony in and beat them at (mainly because Sony doesn't try).
SIE will probably do more promotional stuff with Kojima as Death Stranding 2 comes further along completion though, I'm sure.
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Some of guys are really easy to scare. Buying Kojima makes no sense for no company. Him retiring would mean his whole studio becomes worthless. He will not work forever, he will retire to enjoy the rest of his life someday. It’s every time the same thing: some idiotic Xbox clout chaser set up people for an ignorant take and you fell for it easily. PlayStation is getting a AAA Game and Xbox a „small and edgy game“. So what on the world do you fear? It will flop because it’s exclusive to Xbox and secondly Cloud only. IconEra has become a den of frightened doom & gloom mongers. Give me a break…
This is not true, there's no 4 or 2 trillion left. There was $400M left for the current fiscal year and now it must be less because they acquired that headphones company.
After spending a good part of these 4trillion on acquisitions like Bungie or Crunchyroll, stocks repurchases and investments (in places like Devolver, From or Epic/Unreal Engine) they said that for the current fiscal year instead of using the remaining of that budget in what it was supposed for (acquisitions, investments and Sony stocks repurchases, and for the whole Sony, not only gaming) they were going to leave only around $400M left and that were going to reallocate the money to be spent on servers for the gaming divison and in semiconductors.
Sony said that were going to leave acquisitions for the mid to long term (this means some years), and that were going to sell 80% of their banks business to get cash for these acquisitions, plus were going to use that extra time to hope for better market conditions and evalate better and more carefully their acquisitions.
To use cash isn't the only option to pay acquisitions, and they don't even need to use the cash of that budget or from selling the other division. But they decided to do it in that way.
Fun fact: Sony released MSX computers, accessories and games.
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It is true. Your writing doesn’t debunk anything I have said lol. Sony themselves said it.
Sony to spend $18.39 billion on strategic investments over next 3 years, including subscription push
Sony Group said on Wednesday it will spend 2 trillion yen ($18.39 billion) over the next three years on strategic investments.
www.cnbc.com
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Yes, what I said debunks what you said. That $18B/4T yen info you posted is outdated info from 2021.It is true. Your writing doesn’t debunk anything I have said lol. Sony themselves said it.
Sony has not spent 4 trillion yen yet, only the half. I also don’t know why you do so desperately try to prove Sony has no cash left. We all know you’re not okay with Sony possibly acquiring big companies.Sony to spend $18.39 billion on strategic investments over next 3 years, including subscription push
Sony Group said on Wednesday it will spend 2 trillion yen ($18.39 billion) over the next three years on strategic investments.
The info I told you is from a few months ago. A few months ago, in 2023 when publishing the fiscal year numbers Sony decided that won't spend the totality that $18B budget in acquisitions+investments+stock repurchases.
After spending a good chunk of if, decided to realocate most of the remaining budget to buy servers and semiconductors stuff, reducing the remaining acquisitions+investements+stock repurchases budget for the current FY to only around $400M. And more recently bought a premium headphones company that makes the tech behind the upcoming Sony headsets.
They also mentioned that due to market conditions decided to pause acquisitions until the mid-long term and to better evaluate their future acquisitions. Also mentioned that will sell 80% of their banks division (in a process that they estimate will take 2-3 years) and will use that case on acquisitions for their entertainment divisions, where the CEO wants to focus Sony.
They must be extremely confidant Microsoft wont go for any of their close partners.
Considering most of said partners are Japanese they're good until Japan starts to ok foreign powers owning businesses in their country which will more then likely never happen.
They don't have to wait that long to fund an acquisition nor should they with what MS is doing. They risk losing access to iconic franchises that have been on their platform since its inception otherwise, particularly in Japan.
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Nah it doesn’t.
Sony had a budget of $44,5B for Investments. They didn’t spent all of it, only about the half Japanese which is ¥2 trillion.
I assume that yes, they are very confident on their market position and also confident on the position of enough key partners. I bet Sony knows that the people Sony doesn't want to be sold to MS, and that Sony instead could afford to buy won't sell to MS. Mainly Square Enix, Capcom, Ubisoft, Sega and (maybe making an effort Sony could affor to buy them) Bandai Namco.
I also think they also know conversations of MS with other companies to successfully purchase them after ABK and aren't worried because may be pretty small or from PC & mobile and other ones that were important but unsuccessful, or are companies that Sony wouldn't miss because they already have a ton of games of these genres.
I also assume that the 'market conditions' Sony mentioned when explaining that they won't buy for a while is that -in addition to war, current currency exchange, inflation or similar economics reasons- they are also worried about regulators being too aggresive with the MS+ABK acquisition, which would mean regulators would be even more aggresive with Sony if they try a big acquisition, because unlike Microsoft, Sony is the market leader in consoles and game subs, specially in some countries where Sony is a very distant leader.
On top of that, in the last 4 years or so Sony made a shit ton of acquisitions, so maybe they need some time to make sure that all these new teams are properly integrated and that their current projects are on track to recoup all that huge investment relatively soon, at a reasonable pace. At least partially, to earn enough profit/cash to use it for big acquisitions.
Yes, it's debunked. Stop acting like a flatearther.
I won't repeat it again, use the search to find the many times it has been mentioned in this forum, including links to the official Sony documents and exact qoutes to their investors where they said that in the current fiscal year won't spend the remaining budget but reduced it to around $400M because wanted to move most of that money to buy servers and semiconductors, and also mentioned to their investors that wanted to pause the acquisitions for a while.
And separatedly, that in a 2-3 years aprox. process they'll sell around 80% of their banks division and that plan to use that cash on acquisitions, mostly focused on their entertainment divisions (which also includes gaming).
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Where did Sony state they spend the whole $44B? Maybe you have some comprehension issues but I said next fiscal year they will spend another ¥2 trillion.
Next fiscal year begins on 2024 March. Stop acting like you’re some business analyst.
You’re delusional.
No, that budget was for 3 years period that ends this fiscal year, in March 2024. There aren't 2 trillion for the next fiscal year: nothing of that budget is for the next fiscal year.
And Sony said they moved away most of what remained of the budget for the current fiscal year. As I said, use the search and you'll see me explaining it multiple times sharing the original sources with the direct quotes and graphs from Sony explaining it linking to proper, not outdated sources.
Go and search the sources. And it's funny that you mention, since this week I'm working making game market research for an upcoming game xDD
Edit: I was wrong. It wasn't around $400M for the current FY, it was around $140M. Here's the proper explanation with the proper sources and data:
https://icon-era.com/threads/sonys-...is-fy2023-is-only-16-9b-yen-around-147m.3577/
Part of these around $140M, later were spent to acquire this company (the cost of the acquisition isn't known/public): https://icon-era.com/threads/sony-i...d-pioneer-of-high-end-gaming-headphones.5424/
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So we know Hiroki Totoki becomes chairman on 2023 Oct, where also Jim Ryan leaving Sony.
On March 1st Hiroki will fill the role as interim CEO. As I said before I am confident it’s going to be Kiichiro Urata.
Kiichiro Urata, the head of Japan Asia partner development and relations for Sony Interactive Entertainment, will also be appointed company director.
www.gematsu.com
Becoming just within a short period of time Company director is very astounding. It’s also the highest position aside CEO and Chairman.
If they would consider someone from SIE California becoming CEO they would have appointed Eric Lempel as chairman/interim CEO. But you don’t appoint someone from Sony Japan and especially not the CFO, if you would plan on a western leadership again for PlayStation. So this is my conclusion the next will be a Japanese CEO for SIE. Sony executives made their resolve and are exhausted of western guys driving the company in the wrong direction. This time a Japanese leader with Urata will strengthen PlayStation back to their roots. Many of the GaaS projects getting cancelled is the first step of the new PlayStation order. Also you heard it here first: With Kiichiro Urata becoming new PlayStation CEO, Sony will reallocate their HQ back to Tokyo. Current HQ will be renamed in SIE of America. This also means the return of region based decisions, which is e.g. working very well for Nintendo. The turn back to Japan as PlayStation HQ won’t happen overnight, it will be a long-term investment. Bookmark this tweet and remember my words. It was me who said half a year before that Jim Ryan’s job standing on the line with the outcome of ABK. And I have been not telling stories so far.
On March 1st Hiroki will fill the role as interim CEO. As I said before I am confident it’s going to be Kiichiro Urata.
Kiichiro Urata, the head of Japan Asia partner development and relations for Sony Interactive Entertainment, will also be appointed company director.
Sony Interactive Entertainment representative director and deputy president Masayasu Ito to retire
Masayasu Ito will resign as representative director and deputy president of Sony Interactive Entertainment on October 1, and current director and deputy president Lin Tao will replace Ito, the comp…
www.gematsu.com
Becoming just within a short period of time Company director is very astounding. It’s also the highest position aside CEO and Chairman.
If they would consider someone from SIE California becoming CEO they would have appointed Eric Lempel as chairman/interim CEO. But you don’t appoint someone from Sony Japan and especially not the CFO, if you would plan on a western leadership again for PlayStation. So this is my conclusion the next will be a Japanese CEO for SIE. Sony executives made their resolve and are exhausted of western guys driving the company in the wrong direction. This time a Japanese leader with Urata will strengthen PlayStation back to their roots. Many of the GaaS projects getting cancelled is the first step of the new PlayStation order. Also you heard it here first: With Kiichiro Urata becoming new PlayStation CEO, Sony will reallocate their HQ back to Tokyo. Current HQ will be renamed in SIE of America. This also means the return of region based decisions, which is e.g. working very well for Nintendo. The turn back to Japan as PlayStation HQ won’t happen overnight, it will be a long-term investment. Bookmark this tweet and remember my words. It was me who said half a year before that Jim Ryan’s job standing on the line with the outcome of ABK. And I have been not telling stories so far.
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