"Game giants from China, Sweden and the United States" were also interested in acquiring Housemarque

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Original source (in Finnish:)

According to Ilari Kuittinen, co-founder and CEO of Housemarque, Sony has not been the only one interested in Housemarque, but other game giants have participated.

"Usual suspects, i.e. major players in the industry from China, Sweden and the United States. I have to say, it’s a very special spring in the back and the fact that we’ve been competing even feels a little surreal.

The Chinese company was probably Tencent, while the Swedish company was probably Embracer.

But what about the American one? Epic? Microsoft? What do you think?

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Lots of American options. EA, Take Two, and MS have all been buying.

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Not MS, I’m almost sure, Housemarque does not fit into “we are long time buddies” criteria set up by Matt Booty.

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Funnily enough, Housemarque could have continued making the games they’re actually passionate about had Xbox picked them up thanks to Game Pass.

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That’s the irony isn’t it lol. If Xbox can greenlight Grounded then they would have almost certainly greenlited a twin stick shooter. Who knows whether Sony will but my money is no for the foreseeable future.

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Did Booty make such a criteria?

InXile and MS had no pre-existing relationship. But InXile caught wind of Obsidian and wanted to join them.

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The statement doesn’t mean much; signing an NDA to look at the numbers does not mean people were chomping at the bit to start a bidding war with Sony.

CEO’s also will never say “Sony was the only one interested”.

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I’m pretty confident Microsoft were definitely looking at Housemarque at one point

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Microsoft may as well bid, for the same reason Sony likely tried for Zenimax.

  1. You might get lucky and win. Either purely with money or just being more compelling.

  2. If you are present you inherently help bid the price up for your competitors making it hard for them to keep acquiring.

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I think at this point if you can think of a talented developer, Microsoft has more than likely knocked on their door. They haven’t exactly hid the fact that they are looking at further acquisitions.

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