Obviously, if they have games services, then some of them have an esports aspect. Therefore, they need something similar. Moreover, they often hold online tournaments for various multiplatform games.
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Definitely not the acquisition I was hoping for. lol
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I am just throwing this one out there but, thoughts on Sony buying Ravio. Not saying they will but considering they made the angry birds and how they are suprisingly not too expensive only being worth about $531 Million (lets say $700-$800 million for an acquisition) it doesnât feel impossible. I am just curious on your thought because being honest I am shocked no one has bought them yet if that being ABK, EA, T2, Ubisoft ect.
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Get ready for fanfics comparable to whatever we are doing in Xbox Acquisition thread 
I wonder if it will be more about walled gardensâŚ
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I think perhaps other than Square Enix, I donât think youâll see them acquire a major publisher. At this point they may aswell acquire Square, and have them as a 1P studio.
The ones to watch will be the ones a few have said in here. Ember Labs. Deviation Games. They will be the ones I think they look at.
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I think the big thing for Sony is gonna be finding studios who fit their whole âpremium gamesâ brand, and that likely means sticking to individual studios. I mean since Microsoft bought Bethesda they havenât gone and bought a publisher, but they have bought several studios since then. I think theyâll keep doing that - and like you said Ember Labs or Deviation Games are solid candidates.
Unless thereâs a publisher that fits alongside their first party line up. Maybe Capcom? I donât quite see Square Enix there though.
They pay for every major Square Enix game to be an exclusive though, which should tell you how important they consider them to the brand.
I also donât think Sony will exclusively focus on âprestige.â They too have a subscription service to maintain, and doing so with a focus on third party sounds very expensive. Theyâll want content big and small, and success of games like Stray should show them the impact of a Day One game.
They pay for the main Final Fantasy releases sure, and they got the next AAA game from the team who previously made a Final Fantasy - but thatâs only a small amount of their output. This year alone theyâve still got Diofield Chronicle, Live a Live, Star Ocean, Valkyrie Elysium, Harvestealla, Dragon Quest Treasures coming out as well as probably the Crisis Core remake. I donât know if all that really fits with Sonyâs current first party line up, and they donât seem particularly interested in using their first party line up to support PS+ Extra.
At least so far as how they operate right now I think itâs more likely they stick with buying individual studios or find a publisher which does fit them. But of course, I canât rule out that they might want to expand how they operate right now, and maybe theyâd look at Square Enix as a defensive move and let them operate semi-independently.
I stick to my prediction that Sony wonât acquire a publisher.
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Same for me.
I do think that Sony will acquire a publisher.
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Probably at some point but I doubt it will be a large one IMO.
fs: â anyone from north nj that wantâs a like new ps5 (just got it a few months ago) willing to sell for 500$ i paid $550 from sony direct
console is amazing, but i am done with the games i wanted to play. have box etc. now it just sits under my xbox. will ship if you pay the crazy prices, prefer meet up.
Not true. Edit: well sort of true, DQ and KH arenât owned by SE.
Of course they will buy the publisher. And some of you better pray itâs just Square Enix and not anyone else.
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âPrayâ?
Man the Zenimax and Activision acquisition must have really broke some playstation fans. Let me guess you are one of those who thinks that Sony is going to acquire EA or Take two (or why not both?) Or that those 2 has intentions to sell to Sony?
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While I donât believe that Sony will acquire a publisher, if I had to guess one, it would be Square Enix as they simply seem to be the one that makes the most sense for Sony and arenât that expensive.
It will be hilarious if Square Enix acquisition will turn into a fanfic that people will run with for years expecting Sony to buy SE any time at that moment
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There isnât a whole lot they can even get right now, so I donât think most people care.
T2 - Bogged down by their Zynga aquisition and starting off at 30bil without factoring the de-facto added premium and bid war. I donât think Sony can afford the base price let alone everything else. Couple this with licensing issues ala 2k and the fact that they are not looking to be acquired (theyâre the one making acquisitions).
Capcom - Family owned, why would they suddenly change this, especially when theyre doing better than theyâve ever done?
Konami - Basically an IP factory without the devs. What are Sony going to do with their massive pachinko and health clinic business?
SE - The only likely option, considering Sony pays hundreds of millions to keep their games off of other platforms, so it makes sense. FF14 is a successful GaaS, and they heavily need those types of games.
However, Sony seems to solely care about their AAA games and SE make a lot of smaller games (2DHD, etc). Are they going to gut half the studio and turn them into a Final Fantasy factory? Are they okay with not owning Kingdom Hearts (Disney) or Dragon Quest (Horii), the two biggest IPs SE develops aside from Final Fantasy? Are they okay with SE going all in on NFT?
Ubisoft - lol, good luck on whoever touches this with a 10 foot pole. Itâs like an infinitely worse off situation than ABK thatâs also getting heavy into NFT.
I also find it amusing that the fanfiction for Sony acquisitions seems to rest heavily on publishers that are either successful or more successful than theyâve ever been. See: Kadokawa/FromSoftware. Elden Ring the biggest game since BoTW, propelling their company to record heights hardly seen by most companies? Welp, must be ripe for a Sony acquisition because their anime business combined with Sonyâs anime studios would make Sony own and distribute the vast majority of anime content in the world! Wait⌠whatâs that? Thats the true definition of a monopoly? No, canât be.
In all seriousness, if I were Sony I would hustle. The ABK deal is closing sooner rather than later (I predict spring the latest) and you have other behemoths like Google, Apple, Tencent, etc looming around. Even Bungie were in talks with Microsoft far before Sony were, and theyâre small fries compared to bigger publishers. Iâm consistently baffled as to how certain people think Sony is going to swoop up x, y and z publisher without competition, especially when you look at their finances.
The fanfics rely on the publishers traditionally associated with Sony, basically something that Sony has always âownedâ in peopleâs mind. Capcom, Square, From, KojimaâŚNo other logic or reasoning.