I think any acquisition depends on what they want to achieve, obviously.
They mentioned several times and in different content what they want to achieve. Their recent acquisitions match these things, so probably we may expect more acquisitions that would fit one or more of these groups:
- They prefer to acquire people who have a long history of PS exclusives before, maybe to secure them (most of the studios they bought)
- Want to grow and support existing internal studios to help focus on releasing more console games (bought teams specialized on outsourcing, PC ports, remakes)
- Want to grow in PC (bought Bungie and Nixxes)
- Want to grow in GaaS (bought Bungie, Haven and Lasengle)
- Want to grow in multiplayer (bought Bungie and Haven, invested on Discord)
- Want to grow in VR (bought Firesprite, Fabrik)
- Want to grow in eSports (bought EVO, supports offline tournaments, hosts many online tournaments, made the online Tournaments feature, invested on Discord)
- Want to grow the amount of genres their 1st and 2nd party is a key player (bought Bungie for FPS, Housemarque for arcade)
- Want to grow the movies, tv shows, animes etc based in games they have (bought Bungie)
- Want to bring some of their IPs to mobile and partner with mobile gamedevs (bought Lasengle)
- Want to grow in countries where consoles aren't so big via mobile and PC, particularly Asia/China (bought Lasengle, Bungie, Nixxes, want to improve in GaaS)
- Want to acquire IPs/content for their subscriptions services and stores, in the case of gaming PS Plus and PSN (bought Bungie/Destiny)
- Their priority is to reach more players in more platforms, not to make multiplatform stuff exclusive (bought Bungie and kept it as multiplatform)
- They didn't mention it but with Firesprite and making it huge they are reviving Studio Liverpool, Evolution and Bizarre Creations in a single studio. They bought and merged into it another studio with staff from these 3 dead studios, Fabrik. So could buy more studios from Liverpool or nearby cities with a good amount of former devs from these 3 studios, like Lucid
For instance, if I was aggressive and western / global focused, I would go for Ubisoft... it would do more damage to everyone else, including Xbox, Steam and any other storefront to buy Ubisoft and make all the best of their stuff exclusive, timed exclusive or just better on PS.
I think their focus is to grow in the different areas I mentioned to grow revenue and profit by increasing their offering of game types/genres and platforms covered, instead of wanting to damage the competition by locking on their platform already existing multiplatform games.
I think if Sony will buy publishers they'll keep them multiplatform as did with Bungie to reach more players, make more profits. But they seem to acquire people who does an awesome job in game types where they don't excel via 1st/2nd party game. Ubisoft covers many things but doesn't excel on any of them, and the main game type where they are more successful is already very well covered by Sony (open world AAA single player action adventures).
I think they could help a bit in many areas where Sony is interested to acquire (the ones I listed above) so could be a good fit (even if probably wouldn't enter in their top 5 or top 10 of most wanted) but I think they don't shine enough in a particular one to justify to pay the shit ton of money they would cost.
They have too many annual releases to ignore. It would also add to PS+ and deny a lot of content for GP. This move may achieve good revenue growth too but they'd have to be careful about lost Xbox sales and how that may effect things.
They bought Bungie and allowed them to publishing games in other consoles, but I'm pretty sure will block games from Bungie and other company who they may buy and would allow them to continue as multi from getting console exclusives elsewhere and from appearing on rival game subs or having console bundles with rival consoles or having beta/demo exclusives with them. Not only because of common sense, but also because they did it in "simple" marketing deals they do with 3rd party multi games, or at least was the case of RE Village.
Eastern focused, more organic / natural acquisition would be Square Enix.... would expand IP's, give another massive GAAS game in FFXIV and provide content for film and anime. Would also expand revenue but not on the level of Ubisoft.
FF, DQ, KH and other games would be useful in pushing Nintendos dominance back in Japan and would appeal globally to the PS audience.
Square Enix is one of the best fits I see. Their pricing is affordable for their budget, and in addition to what you mention it would help them in many of the areas where I mentioned they want to grow: long history of PS exclusives, PC & other consoles, would make their 1st party a key player in a big genre where they don't have presence (JRPG), potential to make movies/tv shows/anime of their IPs, popular in Asia, they are maybe the best implementation of company bringing their console IPs to mobile, tons of appealing content for PS+.
I think for games with a global approach bought from a 3rd party published they'd prefer to keep them multiplatform in terms of console, but I think that in the case of the ones that are key for Asia they could keep them console exclusive. Or minimum they'd turn all the games that are now Switch console exclusive into PS and Switch console exclusive.
WB would have been an excellent strategic choice IF they could have made SF6 excluisve... unfortunately without that I feel WB is rather pointless and their moves towards GAAS is redundant with PS Studios having so many in development.
There are several other options and I will detail them in a further post.....
I think part of WB games would be appealing for them to be included in PS Studios (meaning console exclusive and no PC version for like 2 years):
- Netherrealm: to turn their 1st party a key player in another genre, fighting games, MK is the top one in sales of the genre and has potential for movies and anime plus also would help them grow in multiplayer
- Traveller's Games and Avalanche: to become a key player in movie licensed games and quality, super successful kid focused games
- Rocksteady: this doesn't fit in the list I mentioned the want to cover, but would be the best option if they want to acquire another studiio for superhero games or to develop sequels or reboot one of their top 1st party action adventure IPs that are sleeping because their studios are busy with other projects, or even to bring them to different genre. Stuff like an Uncharted, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Killzone, Team Ico games etc.
Street Fighter has less sales, but it's more popular in eSports than Mortal Kombat and in movies. I think Capcom (keeping it with multiplatform games but keeping exclusive and blocking game subs, bundles, VR version and demo/betas) would be a perfect fit for many reasons because but specially because it would turn Sony a key player in fighting games (Street Fighter, Marvel vs Capcom), horror (Resident Evil), monster hunting games (MH), hack & slash (GoW + DMC), zombie games (RE + Dead Rising) and arcade (tons of titles)
Inline with your first strategy, if the goal is to damage the Xbox brand, one of my ideas was to buy Annapurna and Devolver.
I think it would be a great idea to buy both Annapurna and Devolver -I'd add Dotemu to the list-, and maybe even without turning (at least timed) console exclusive their games, I'd make most of them day one PS Plus games and would block all of them forever from rival game subs like GP.
I'd allow them to use Sony IPs with cool indie teams (these would be full console exclusives), I'm pretty sure they'd do great stuff.
That would give Sony tons of quality small games and a ton of stuff for PS+, plus also would help keep some old Sony IPs alive and they would even make cool mobile games, they would be the perfect 'boutique parters' they mentioned for mobile.
And would remove many quality indies from GP.
Xbox Gamepass does not generate a lot of revenue and is in the red; we all know that. Most of their games are indies, and many of the good ones come from Developer and Annapurna.
If Sony buys those two publishers, that'd deny a lot of the games going to Gamepass. That'd lead to two things:
- Xbox Gamepass will have fewer monthly games, or
- Xbox will have to spend more money to bring AAA games, which is not feasible for them.
Considering they make around $750-ish million every year from GP (while PS+ makes over $3,000 million), they will hardly be able to afford one big AAA per month.
I think that if Sony buys Annapurna and Devolver, or maybe Dotemu and Raw Fury too they would fuck GP but there are a fuck ton of cool indies so MS would put other ones in GP to replace them.
It would hurt GP because tons of top indies wouldn't be there and they'd need to make a bigger effort to find cool indies, but I think they'd still find enough good indies to continue with the current GP strategy.
We have to remember that before the release of Halo Infinite and Horizon 5, GP was like over a year with a stagnant amount of subscribers. Meaning that they reached a point where seems only new big console exclusive AAA games make them grow in GP. For MS indies are basically low cost stuff to make time until the next big release in GP, don't help them grow so I think won't invest on them with acquisitions. Double Fine and adding a lot of old or multiplatform Bethesda games seems didn't help to grow GP.
Diablo IV, CoD (this one maybe won't be able to be in GP for a while) or Overwatch 2 will be multi. People won't give a fuck about Redfall, Grounded or Penitent. So in the next year, maybe only Starfield and Forza may help grow GP. And this is if people interested on them aren't already there. So it's possible that during the next year GP wouldn't grow because all these games. I think they only have a card that may help them grow during the next year: their deal with Riot because their userbase is huge and they make a lot of money.
If the Riot deal works well, I think that after closing the Activision Blizzard King acquisition their next big MS acquisition could be Riot. It would help them grow in PC, mobile and eSports plus in several genres they don't cover like MOBA, tactical shooters and soon fighting games (their upcoming LoL fighting game has potential to be huge).
someone from Japan.