Tencent is looking to buy Ubisoft

[Neversummer]

King was established.

Mobile gaming is boom and bust. It's inherently extremely risky business.

Sony's top target should be T2, but they can't afford them right now at least not in a cash deal. T2 gives you Zynga as well.

I think Sony should do whatever it can to put themselves in a position to buy T2 within the next 5 years and I think to do that they should buy FromSoftware/Kadokawa and CDPR and make games like Elden Ring 2 and Cyberpunk/Witcher exclusive to their own PC launcher. As well as pushing for GaaS expansions of Cyberpunk and maybe The Witcher.

In addition to selling off their financial wing, this might be doable with the inclusion of a stock swap.

Zynga has been the worse gaming acquisition ever. Take2 essentially lost 10+ billion & Zynga value has massively decreased as most of Zynga popular games are solely Facebook games that casuals & your local mom no longer plays. The Zynga acquisition is so bad it’s literally a black hole in Take2 financial report & while GTA is could be argue to be worth an acquisition spending 30-40 billion for 1 game franchise that releases every 10 year is extremely risky especially considering other franchises under Take 2 outside sport games have been under development hell.

Going for a smaller acquisition & getting more notable/flexible ip such as Capcom, Square, Sega or Kadokawa/Fromsoft would be better for both Sony & PS & the flexibility between cross media & games + ip to expand to mobile/live service & or subscription/vr

 

[Game Freak]

You're a low quality poster who just earned himself an ignore. Thanks

PlayStation fanboys obviously mind that the big Japanese publishers remain independent

 

[Game Freak]

Zynga has been the worse gaming acquisition ever. Take2 essentially lost 10+ billion & Zynga value has massively decreased as most of Zynga popular games are solely Facebook games that casuals & your local mom no longer plays. The Zynga acquisition is so bad it’s literally a black hole in Take2 financial report & while GTA is could be argue to be worth an acquisition spending 30-40 billion for 1 game franchise that releases every 10 year is extremely risky especially considering other franchises under Take 2 outside sport games have been under development hell.

Going for a smaller acquisition & getting more notable/flexible ip such as Capcom, Square, Sega or Kadokawa/Fromsoft would be better for both Sony & PS & the flexibility between cross media & games + ip to expand to mobile/live service & or subscription/vr

Rest assured that Sega will reject Sony like it rejected Microsoft.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Don't they already own many IPs and could be seen as a new "gatekeeper" for emergent cloud gaming solutions?

Although, looking at what they publish, seems only League of Legends and PUBG might be considered "big"...

That's not what regulators are looking at.

Regulators were concerned that Microsoft had cloud dominance because of Azure and Windows, allowing xCloud to block out competitors.

They weren't concerned with what IP Microsoft already owned. That's small nuggets.

If regulators stop Tencent from buying Ubisoft, it'll be because they don't want a chinese company owning a European company, taking the IP, and firing 20K people many of whom are in France.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Bruh just be spewing bs ain’t nobody reading that

Reading more will help you in life.

 

[mibu no ookami]

Zynga has been the worse gaming acquisition ever. Take2 essentially lost 10+ billion & Zynga value has massively decreased as most of Zynga popular games are solely Facebook games that casuals & your local mom no longer plays. The Zynga acquisition is so bad it’s literally a black hole in Take2 financial report & while GTA is could be argue to be worth an acquisition spending 30-40 billion for 1 game franchise that releases every 10 year is extremely risky especially considering other franchises under Take 2 outside sport games have been under development hell.

Going for a smaller acquisition & getting more notable/flexible ip such as Capcom, Square, Sega or Kadokawa/Fromsoft would be better for both Sony & PS & the flexibility between cross media & games + ip to expand to mobile/live service & or subscription/vr

Zynga gives Sony a foot in the mobile business, simple as that. Not saying they're the best option for mobile.

T2 gives you GTA, GTA Online, Red Dead, Red Dead Online, and it gives you nearly every sports game and the equivalent marketing deals. It also gives you the ability to combine MLB The Show with 2K Sports, the opportunity to pair Tiger Woods IP with ClapHanz, and gives the the chance to create an EA FC competitor.

I think Kadokawa/Fromsoftware makes a lot of sense. Square, Capcom, and Sega make far less sense. These are largely nostalgia buys.

FromSoftware gives you the ability to make EldenRing, Bloodborne, and Demon's Souls. You combine them with Bluepoint and they can pump out games.

Square Enix is not the same company it was in the 90s and early 2000s. They just aren't. When was the last time they created a major new IP?

Capcom's last major IP was Monster Hunter and they're focused almost entirely on remakes at this point.

Sega's only real value is in Atlus and Persona... hardly worth the cost to purchase, but even then is a better option than Square Enix.

 

[Danja]

I really was rooting for Ubisoft to recover as I think they're one of the few 3rd parties who at least would take a mini risk or be creative every now and then.

I'd hate to see them get to acquired as a lot of talent will definitely be disposed of.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

I think if Tencent acquires Ubisoft, this will start a chain reaction. Bigger corporations were on a drought for a longer period because everyone was watching closely the ActiBlizz trial. I wouldn't wonder if EA would be targeted next by big corporations (doesn't need to be Microsoft). Also this could lowkey enable Sony to catch negotiations/talks to Japanese Publishers again. Imo if we see now another buying spree of big corporations occurring then Sony will be forced to do something. Square Enix or Sega are waiting Sony!

 

[Shadow2027]

why? recently mobile gaming had a decrease on revenue. They should try and buy smaller companies so no regulators comes at hand or license old ip and sell them like first party exclusive to ps like nintendo does

They bought Savage Studios years ago and they literally have not earned them a penny. Same with their live service teams in Haven and firewalk. Literally just parasite bleeding the company and single player

 

[Airbus]

Good

At the same time Tencent will purge all those garbage DEI Sweet Baby on Ubisoft

The gaming industry is slowly healing

 

[Zzero]

Would that cause an issue with regulators because Tencent would also be buying the cloud rights for every ABK game released and those that will release for the next 15 years?

Of course not. They only care when scary Microsoft is doing it.

 

[toucandela]

Tencent will soon have enough sudios to have an own console. Would be funny if they enter the space and make everything they own exclusive to their console.

Interesting thought. Don't Tencent have a big stake in the Epic Game Store. A new console with Epic store and games attached. Hmmm. I'm just throwing ideas around. lol.

 

[Sloane_Ranger]

I would love to see Ubisoft recover, but they have been so infected with devs and managers that push well established franchises in poor directions - its time for a purge.

 

[Evilms]

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Tencent will soon have enough sudios to have an own console. Would be funny if they enter the space and make everything they own exclusive to their console.

They could easily devastate Sony and Nintendo.

 

[CrackmanNL]

Sad to see cause Ubisoft was on fire 2 gens ago, now they are on fire as in burning down.

They had the whole market of tactical shooters but chose to chase casuals and ruined the Tom Clancey name, they had Sam Fisher with 0 competition in the stealth market for over a decade but made him Jason Bourne and shelved him as a DLC character on mobile.

They abused the AC IP for brand recognition instead of making the fantasy RPG games a franchise on its own, they could'v had the pirate franchise at it's peak with Black Flag but chose to do it a decade too late. Would'v prevented the over saturation of AC and established 2 new series.

Meanwhile people begged years for AC in India, Japan, China & Russia but they did those in mobile instalments, now they return to Japan only have their cake eaten by Ghost. They have a legendary mascotte platformer relegated to mobile & dlc/cameos in Rayman.

Absolute dumpster fire.

 

[Yurinka]

As much as I hate government intervention, I would hope for the French government to step in and prevent a 20 000 employees company from getting sold to a company that is ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.


Chinese companies buying European ones to steal all their IP and know-how and then fire everyone has been happening all over Europe way too often, in other industries.

Tencent is not ruled by the Chinese Communist Party and most of the 20000 Ubisoft workers aren't in France. As an example, they have workers in Chna too.

They made no money from the PC ports. It is literally pennies in the grand scheme of things. Like 30 millions if you add them all together (not Destiny and Helldivers).

The Sony factual numbers say this is bullshit. Every year they grew a lot in PC, the last fiscal year made around $7000M outside PS, they continue growing and in 5 years of PC push they became a top 10 publisher in Steam history.

I could certainly see regulators wanting to step in... But it might work.

Ubisoft represents a tiny portion of the gaming market share, so being acquired by someone -and even if by someone who would make them exclusive to a single console, something Ubisoft would never accept because they want to support all platforms- wouldn't meaningfully impact the market.

Would that cause an issue with regulators because Tencent would also be buying the cloud rights for every ABK game released and those that will release for the next 15 years?

Nah, regulators and the government wouldn't stop the acquisition because Tentent never made stuff exclusive for their platform. The opposite, when they invest or acquire companies they help them reach new markets and storefronts.

What would stop it is the deal that Ubisoft and Tencent signed last time Tencent got Ubi shares: they agreed that Ubisoft wouldn't sell in X amount of years and that Tencent wouldn't buy more Ubi stocks in Y amount of years. I don't remember the amounts, but I think were 5 and 8.

Having such deal it would surprise me to see them selling Ubi, and even more to Tencent. But if they want to sell, Tencent would be the best option. Because Ubi doesn't want to sell to someone who would take them away from other platforms, or to someone who would affect their creative vision mandating them to do this or that game, particularly non-Ubisoft IPs where they don't want to work.

 

[Eternal_Wings]

Let Tencent have Ubisoft and clean the illness which has nested inside Ubisoft. Maybe then the Gaming-industry will start to recover. Don't forget that Ubisoft had historically much influence on the western Gaming-industry. If Ubisoft recovers, the Western Gaming-industry does too.

 

[arvfab]

They could easily devastate Sony and Nintendo.

Sony definitely, Nintendo is relatively safe as long as they don't follow in the foolish steps of Sony.

 

[arvfab]

I swear if Sony ends up buying a Japanese pub Mibu no Shit will have a mental crackup.

No problem, a simple reboot and an update to the LLM, and he'd be as good as new.