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Sony's future and possible studio/publisher acquisitions
- Thread starter Eternal_Wings
- Start date
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Yes Japan.
Christian Svensson: “Looking forward to our Asia Event in Tokyo in a couple of months”
Oct-Nov 2023
Christian Svensson: “Looking forward to our Asia Event in Tokyo in a couple of months”
Oct-Nov 2023
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2-3 years ? There is no time to wait
If what you say is true, then sony have screwed up superbly with this one.
You are right. Time is of the essense. They need to acquire studios now. Like start with FromSoft and go from there.
I only quoted Sony, it's true.
And yes, there's a lot of time to wait. Sony is basically performing better than ever and in the near future will perform even better because they are -and have been during a few years- investing to grow in basically all the areas plus new ones.
PS dominates Xbox by a very wide margin, over 2:1 worldwide and 4:1 in their main market, EU. Plus also with maybe a bigger distance in their home country, Japan. They even dominate MS in MS's home country.
So yes, Sony can wait 2-3 years to make acquisitions. Or more than 5 if they want, they'll continue dominating Xbox. Maybe even with a bigger difference than now since now they got rid of chips shortages that were blocking their sales.
No, Sony right now is the most successful console maker in gaming history and have a huge lead over their direct competitor.
They decided that won't acquire for a while because don't need to since they already are too dominant and are growing in all areas.
They are the polar opposite of being screwed.
Yo can I have some of what you're smoking?
Of course Sony need to acquire/invest. Weather that's acquire publishers/developers or invest in a excluditivity deal/or indeed co-develop a game etc...
They should have been doing a much better job at these things over PS3,4,5 eras, but the market share and money mask the losses of 3rd party relationships dying off, or other people investing in or outright buying said 3rd parties.
Besides, its not even Sony whom are dictating "acquisition season". We're several missed opportunities down the line here by this point. A,B,K, Bethesda, SE West to Embracer, not to mention those Sony lost relations with, like SuperMassiveGames or ReadyAtDawn.
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There is no indication that Sony will wait two or more years to make big acquisitions. They don’t need necessarily the cash injection they could receive by selling their financial services. There a multiple ways to finance an acquisition. Stock split/mix and cash on hand or even loans.
I think if Sony is in negotiations to acquire Square Enix they will not wait 2-3 years more, they will announce it when it’s ready.
I think if Sony is in negotiations to acquire Square Enix they will not wait 2-3 years more, they will announce it when it’s ready.
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Based largely on momentum from the PS4 generation that was set in place by previous leaders of the unit. Virtually all of the games the PS5 has seen in terms of 1P and 3P exclusives were started during the last years of PS4, or in the case of 3P exclusives, deals arranged in the last years of PS4.
This could bite them in the proverbial ass in terms of long-term future prospects, by simply using current sales as a gauge for brand stability and position assuredness.
At this very moment, yes. But we are talking about mid-to-long-term momentum for the platform. Which can be impacted by fewer big 3P exclusivity deals, fewer big 3P marketing deals, fewer and/or less exciting big 1P traditional releases, too many live-service/GaaS games underperforming, too many PC ports of traditional games too early (or at all), and even factors outside of Sony's control like a recession or increase in supplier costs.
Ironically you and a few others are only looking at the immediate, short-term success and using that to gauge the long-term strategy at a snail's pace. If Sony's doing the same thing, the rug could get pulled out under them. We saw that type of hubris undo Nintendo back in the early '90s and again in the mid '90s; it could always happen again and doesn't just need to happen to Nintendo or Microsoft.
Yurinka wants Microsoft to acquire Activision and every publisher while Sony does nothing at all because they're too powerful.
Everybody that wants Sony to stay the same because "PS5 is selling well" secretly wants Playstation to go down and become weak while MS just gets more powerful.
I still think it's pretty funny he was so quick to say Sony wasn't acquiring Capcom after the Street Fighter movie deal with Legendary Pictures came out, only to be quickly told that Sony themselves entered a strategic distribution partnership for Legendary Picture's films for the next few years globally.
Basically what he wanted to use to say no acquisition was happening turned out to be a bad bullet point. Not that the Sony/Legendary deal signals an acquisition, either. The point was, it wasn't suddenly a "gotcha" that no acquisition could happen, the way it seemed like he was using it for.
According to Sony, they made a record investment for 2nd party games to be released during this generation. The biggest one they ever made according to them.
Jim Ryan also said that they were strengthening their bonds with Japanese publishers and devs and that secured that PS5 will have more exclusives than they ever had in any previous console. The big majority of exclusives for Sony always are 3rd party, so he meant that already had a lot of 3rd party deals either signed or almost.
Sony also made many acquisitions in recent years since 2019, the year Jimbo and Hermen got promoted. They also invested in a lot of strategic places like Epic Games, Devolver or From Software. They are still integrating and adapting some of these teams to the Sony infrastructure and plans. As an example, Bungie has now like 90 open job positions.
I didn't say/mean that Sony won't acquire ever or that don't need to acquire ever: I meant that they don't need to acquire now.
For many reasons, the main one being that they are very dominant in their main market specially versus their direct competitor, so there's no pressure to buy right now. The second one being that they made many acquisitions and investments in recent years, so it's better to wait a bit, make sure they integrate them properly, see their first results and analyze them properly to learn before moving to the next wave of acquisitions. And also don't have to rush and spend billions in someone who could bee too overvalued or had too big internal issues (like CD Projekt).
They said they will continue acquiring but not now, they'll do it after some time. They need time to get cash from selling their banks stuff and also to properly analyze potential acquisitions and find the ones that fit best and are realistic to acquire. Just because you like a game company doesn't mean they can buy it: even if they have the cash and budget ready to buy and would be a great fit and have a good valuation that could be recouped soon, maybe that company doesn't want to sell so can't be bought. Or regulators could block the acquisition, or many other issues that could rise.
This statement also is contrary to the reality. There are more games sold for PS4 than for any other console in gaming history, and the vast majority of them are 3rd party. Sony signed a ton of 3rd party exclusives for PS4, including basically every single 3rd party known Japanese publisher or dev.
There are more games being sold/revenue made per PS5 console than per PS4 both as of now and launch aligned.
PS has more third party exclusives than Nintendo and MS combined, both in the indies area and in the AAA area. Jimbo also said they'll have more PS5 exclusives than they ever had for any previous console, which implies they signed more 3rd party exclusives for this gen than ever.
They didn't lose any relevant partner other than ABK, but they only had CoD marketing with them and CoD will continue on PS for at least 10 years.
CoD only affected less than 8% of their MAU and yearly revenue. And CoD is way, way bigger than Bethesda, SE West, Super Massive or RAD.
Teams who btw are shadow of their past and lost of ton of their talent who worked in their best games, and many of them are working in Sony games (a couple examples: Sony is publishing a game from Until Dawn devs and hired the visual effects head of The Order 1886 for Firesprite). In addition to this, Sony also has similar games that are better and more successful than the ones these teams released in the recent years.
I mean, Sony doesn't need games like the recent Tomb Raider games or Avengers when they already have a lot of more or less similar games and way better: they have ND, Guerrilla, SSM, Sucker Punch, Insomniac, Bend, etc. In addition to this, being at Embracer or Nordisk games their games will continue to be released on PS. In fact, many of the people acquired by MS continued releasing their games on PS.
No, I don't want MS to become dominant. And I'd like Sony buy some of the 3rd parties I like as Capcom, From or ARC System Works.
But I try to see things realistically and look at the facts of the gaming market and the statements of the companies to their investors and regulators instead of being a blind fanboy who thinks MS is dominating or will dominate Sony when the facts say the opposite, or that Sony is desperate and must buy when isn't the case because they have a big lead over MS, or that MS can buy everybody only because they have money, or giving any credibility to random fake rumors of Sony going to buy whatever big publisher tomorrow when Sony had no budget to it. That's all blind fanboy fantasy far from reality.
I'd love to see Sony buying Capcom, but the facts say Sony spent the budget they had for acquisitions and investments for this fiscal year elsewhere and said they'll leave the acquisitions for the mid to long term, which lines up more or less when they'll get the cash for selling most of their bank stuff.
So no, Sony acquiring Capcom isn't likely at all or at least in the short term.
And Capcom is a family company and is performing better than ever in a more than a decade long growth pattern, so it's almost impossible that they'd like to sell right now. Plus Sony couldn't provide Capcom any major improvement by acquiring them, even with the movie deals Capcom is already doing a great job since decades ago, in many cases without Sony.
Btw I remember now these multiple 'insiders' like Jeff Grubb and family who 'leaked' that Sony was about to acquire Square Enix and obviously didn't happen.
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