Specifically talking about Bluepoint I’d still want a few more remakes/remaster of games trapped in PS3 even going back PS2 which had a ton of amazing games. If I wanted more AAA I would want to see that from other studios then Bluepoint like Naughty Dog making a new Uncharted Sucker Punch working on a new ifFAMOUS or Guerilla Games working on a new Killzone all AAA games. Which I doubt because Sony hasn’t invested in those studios to be a multi team studio larger enough to pump more games.
Sony invested to grow these and the rest of studios and now studios like ND or Guerrilla are confirmed to be multi team studios.
ND grew during the Jimbo era from working only in TLOU2 to work at the same time TLOU Online + two new SP games + (outsourced) remasters and remakes + movie/tv adaptations + (outsourced) theme park adaptations.
Guerrilla grew to work in some point at the same time on Horizon CoM (partly outsourced) + mainline Horizon + Horizon Online + Lego Horizon (partly outsourced) + apparently Horizon MMORPG for mobile games being developed at NCSoft (at least partly oursourced).
Bluepoint still didn't grow enough to have multiple projects at the same time, they don't even have enough people to run their own new AAA game. They continue as support team.
In the last 4 years Sucker punch grew from 160 to around 230, we don't have confirmation but they may have two teams now.
SE is cheap, I don’t think Square Enix makes sense for an acquisition. Atleast Sony could make smarter investment where they wouldn’t need to fully acquire SE partly due to SE not owning 2 of its major franchise they work on those being Kingdom hearts & DQ really Sony just needs to buy DQ & make a smaller investment then a full acquisition because I don’t see outside Disney buying Square Enix who doesn’t own 2 massive franchise they work on.
Some time ago SE said they plan to turn some of their studios into subsidiary companies to allow some investors to invest specifically in only some of them.
Maybe the idea is to sell a minority of some studios to people like Sony, who may not be interested on acquiring the whole SE.
I do find Hitoki comments about consolidation & wanted to acquire ip funny because now looking at it, it seems those comments where about Paramount & the entertainment industry not gaming. Paramount is a horrible buy. Sony stock would fall just cause that would be a bad buy. People say Paramount has ip but really when you look at it they don’t. Paramount biggest shows are all owned by other people Transformer=Hasbro & Sonic=Sega I think even GIJOE isn’t owned by Paramount which could have potential w live action, anime & games. WB is really the entertainment publisher Sony should be looking to buy having DC & partial Marve/Spiderman universe rights would make Sony a power house in movies, anime & games ofc if they fix & treat DC like into the spiderverse & spiderman live action films
Paramount Group generates $30B in revenue and $10B in profit before operational costs. They have a ton of IPs, plus other like the ones you mention that even if they don't own such IPs they have the exclusive to make movie adaptations.
Getting rid of its unprofitable business, optimizing many of its costs of stuff already done at other Sony subsidiaries they can make it way more profitable. The merge of Paramount and Sony Pictures would be the market leader of Hollywood studios, when now are as I remember are 4th and 5th.
Sony can also rework their debt, and have a partner who'd acquire the part of it that Sony can't own due to not being from USA (a portion of their tv business), making it cheaper. And it's already too cheap for what it is.
Warner is way more expensive, probably would cost almost twice as much as Paramount Group, so Sony couldn't afford to buy it specially because doesn't have a partner to split costs.
In any case, I think Sony won't acquire Paramount.
Regarding acquisitions, Totoki said last year than in the short term were going to have a low profile being more cautious about pricing and timing, even if they'll continue acquiring to grow in the mid to long term.
Looking at the budget they created for the 3 years period started this April, pretty likely they'll spend under $5B of it in gaming acquisitions + investments, most of which pretty likely wouldn't be spent the current FY because he said plans to decrease SIE's acquisition related costs (they are still paying stuff related to acquisitions made in previous years) this fiscal year comprared to the previous one.
