Very few of those M&As you list interest me as a player in the PS ecosystem though, not to mention we haven't seen any results from some of them yet.
Yes, some of them still didn't show their first results because have been recently acquired and games need several years to be made, so they still didn't have time to show their first game as a Sony studio.
It's ok and understandable to don't be interested on these acquirisitions. First because there are different games for different types of players, not all games are made for the same type of player than you and that's ok. And second because they have a key role that you may not understand why they are important for them, or even indirectly for the games you like made by other teams.
Nixxes is just there to port games to PC, a self-defeating long-term strategy that will suppress growth of the console base as time goes on if they don't adjust it.
PC ports are highly profitable and we say in their reports that PC revenue (now expanded to non-PS revenue) keeps growing super fast, while every single metric of their console business also keeps improving and growing. None of the factual available data shows a negative impact on their console business. In fact it shows the opposite: the console business keeps improving and on top of that PC is generating them hundreds of millions that they'll use to fund console games.
Firesprite is mainly for VR but unless there's a big push for PSVR2 in the future that may be moot.
Sony was happy with the performance of PSVR1 and PSVR2 is achieving Sony's goal: to outperform PSVR1.
Firesprite also makes non-VR games, in fact they basically are Sony Liverpool Studio + Evolution + Bizarre Creations members + people from top studios + young talent.
Haven is Fairgame$ live-service/GaaS which had a rather generic trailer and a similar GaaS title, Sega's Hyenas, was cancelled.
The comparision it's almost as stupid as to say that the next Sony Santa Monica will tank because it isn't a GaaS, like the last Suda51 game, which also tanked.
Most Haven key talent is from Ubisoft and particularly these individuals were key people who broke twice the record of the fastest selling new IP in gaming history, being one of them one of the best selling game series in gaming history. And also worked on dozens of top performing AAA games, including some of the top performing GaaS as is Rainbow Six Siege.
In addition to Fairgame$ they created also a game development technology that got Cerny's and Hermen's interest because apparentl is a great improvement for Sony.
Firewalk is on Concord, which had a slightly better trailer than Fairgame$ but we know nothing really about it, and it's live-service/GaaS.
Firewalk key talent made Halo and Destiny 1, and they also got important people from other top shooters and AAA games. And yes, it's GaaS like the games that generate the majority of the game revenue. Including the top performing games in the world.
I know what Sony wants for their interests, but I also know what I want for my interests and I'm not going to ignore that just because it seems Sony are tracking another way.
You're free to dislike some of their games. But you are not the only people in the world, there are people with other tastes and Sony wants to also make games for them.
Or at least, until we know what plans they have for M&As, studio growth and the such in March as the FY closes.
Sony said they have plans to continue M&A, but not in the short term due to market conditions. They also want to get cash from selling most of their banks division to use it on acquisitions, but it will take over two years. They also said that want to take extra care on evaluating the acquisitions, which I assume means they want to spend extra time on it.
Also, just poaching talent from other studios doesn't mean much; it takes time for that talent to settle in to established teams, even more time if they're forming new teams.
Yes, normally people hired and studios acquired need time to be integrated. Plus new teams inside existing studios also need time to nail it.
They have to potentially work with new IP which can be exciting but also risky in terms of how they fare in the market compared to established IP/brands, and depending on the scale of the games they're working on, can take between 4-7 years to fully develop, polish and release.
Yes, to make games is always risky but new IPs is particularly risky. And when talking about AAA games, even more risky. This is the reason of why top publishers normally release a small percent of their games as new IPs. And Sony deciding that around a half of their more than two dozen games under development are new IPs is a very bold and apparently move.
But they are experts on turning AAA new IPs into huge hits, so aren't worried about it because they are confident that most of them will be successful and many of them huge hits. Because Sony works with top talent very experienced.
Like I said we don't know what Sony's longer-term M&A strategy for gaming looks like and maybe we'll start to see that in March. But I don't think they can afford to wait until FY '26 or FY '27 to acquire a publisher.
Sony's overal strategy is to grow in all areas. Regarding traditional games to formalize long relationships they had, plus teams that help them become stronger in areas where they aren't that strong (PC, GaaS, MP, shooters, eSpoorts...), plus also Plus also support and porting teams (Bluepoint, Nixxes, Valkyrie) to depend less on external outsourcing teams both for console and also to expand to other consoles and particularly PC (Bungie).
There are more areas where Sony isn't particularly strong where they want to strategically grow: mobile and Asian countries as China, Korea or India. So I think they may also grow in mobile and stuff appealing to these markets, as could be hiring or acquiring people specially successful in mobile, China, Korea or India.
They won't wait until FY26 or FY27. They said that the banking division stuff they estimate it may take up to 2-3 years, meaning starting around a year and a half from now, maybe a bit less. And well, that would be big acquisitions, pretty likely they can make smaller ones before.
And well, always some day they may also change their mind if they see a good opportunity or something like that. But I assume that they more or less already have decided acquisitions they'll make in 2-3 years but there's stuff that needs to wait, not only to sell the banks stuff: things like important currency change, some upcoming changes needed in the company to be acquired (things like what Square Enix said about branching off some studios as a standalone subsidiary companies that would be partially participated by other ones.
I really really really hope Sony doesn't let this one get away. If Xbox bought Pearl Abyss tomorrow, I couldn't care less, but losing Ember Lab would be soul crushing
Persona, Yakuza, Kingdom Hearts, and MLB were all exclusive for decades and they all still ended up on GamePass and with better versions than PlayStation. 3 years is nothing. Hellblade was a PS exclusive and now Xbox owns them. Nothing is ever safe from those vultures, they wait for Sony to take risks and build games up before swooping in to claim it for themselves.
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