As I said, companies probably took a look at their books and did not like what they saw. These studios are expensive to run, and Embracer will have the same issues as well. I know it is a bit of a joke, but there is a reason why SE set certain expectations for the studios.
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The lack of interest from EA, T2 and Tencent is a bit surprising. Especially given the price. It seems like there was no bidding war. They just didn’t see value there.
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Despite everything, SE is doing well financially. And are probably better off with selling these studios off, for now anyways.
I’m speculating based on a lot of assumptions here, but I think Square was running their western branch at quite a loss seeing the price they went for and all the IP that were bundled with the purchase. I love the IP, but I don’t think any of the games this last decade sold spectacularly well, and that’s the reason they were put on Marvel duty.
However, GotG and The Avengers also underperformed whilst being based on a presumably expensive licence and that combined with the fact they have no games that will release soon, and they are stuck to the PD contract makes them an unattractive buy for a lot of publishers especially Sony who is already swimming in third person action adventures. I think this move will make it likelier that Sony will try to buy SE now, since Square got rid of a presumed drain in their books.
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Embracer is basically betting on - one big game will eventually sustain us. There is a reason why Sony is so into GaaS games and Microsoft getting BR, co-op and GaaS games too. Engagement trumps AAA single player.
And now that I think about it - IO Interactive saved themselves by escaping from Square Enix 
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I really expect to see a massive downsize of these studios. Embracer is not going to fund these games if Square wasn’t willing.
The only thing I hope is that Microsoft poaches as many developers from CD and puts them into TI.
They certainly are betting on increasing revenues. But yeah, the AAA market is increasingly becoming tough due to the time it takes to make games, so the risk is only increasing.
Thats not how Embracer works. They are not betting on one big success. They are betting on multiple revenue streams from back catalog to merch and new games. They are very diversified. Thats why these 50 old games and IPs are more worth for them than SE. I’m pretty sure they know how to make Eidos more profitable in the near future.
SE were the ones betting on a really big success with Marvels Avengers. I doubt Embracer would start such a project. Their GaaS games are more small scale like Valheim (and way more successful).
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An exclusive Monster Hunter would immediately make the Xbox Series the best-selling Xbox in Japan. Monster Hunter also has a ton of other potential growth, like an open world Monster Hunter and a Destiny-like Monster Hunter game. I agree that Capcom is the best Japanese publisher that Microsoft can buy. However, I’m also cool with SEGA.
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Looking at the numbers Zhuge posted from SE’s financials and a bit of back of the napkin maths, if the studios are costing roughly $100m a year to run and their development time is about five years for a game, they would need to sell 12-13m copies of a game at a full $70 price point just to make like $100m(20%) off a game.
I expect embracer to try and speed up the game development pipeline along with some serious cost cutting to make this all work. That might be another reason other interested parties didn’t bite the bullet, no one wants to be in the headlines for cutting a few hundred jobs
How in the fuck did they get all of that and those IPs for only 300m? How was there not a bidding war? I would have put the TR IP on its own at over 300m
This is tragic
Baby steps 
I don’t really think they can get both on this case, of course it would be better, but it would just drawn too much attention from antitrust.
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it wont
Two big japanese publishers? It sure would.
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Way too low of a price. Square continues to be the worst run business in all of gaming.
gaming industry is much bigger than them u guys just focus too much on console
Weird takes here…why people expect MS to get everyone? I mean not even SONY who is also desperate to get IPs and “talent” got them for that price.
Just because is “cheap” doesnt mean everyone will go after x studio, theres a lot of factors behind but lets blame xbox somehow lol
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Crystal Dynamics seemed like an obvious grab for Microsoft, considering Perfect Dark and possible Tomb Raider acquisition. It also helps add another third-person narrative based studio to Microsoft’s lineup. I feel like Microsoft grabbing Crystal wasn’t as pie in the sky as other studios and publishers people have mentioned.
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