Sony's possible response to Microsoft buying Zenimax

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I think they need to, and I think they will.

As it stands Sony would need to double their studios to match Xbox now.

I can’t see them buying a publisher, so I think their long term solution will be to buy two or three new studios, and double the amount of teams at their bigger existing studios. Naughty Dog, SSM, GG, and maybe Sucker Punch. The benefit this gives is you have existing software libraries, engines, infrastructure etc over setting up a completely new studio.

I think they would buy Bluepoint, House and maybe Kojima. Now Bluepoint has been used as a remake studio, and hasn’t really come up with their own IPs. This isn’t a bad thing, as Sony has plenty of vacant IPs not being developed, and if the rumours of Sony buying Konami IPs is true, then Bluepoint is just the company to work on those. However Bluepoint has already being doing that for Sony, so that doesn’t increase Sony’s game output, it just brings it in-house.

Both House and Kojima are Sony exclusive, so Sony doesn’t gain any extra games by buying them.

The quickest thing they can do is go and pay companies to give them timed exclusives. They have been doing this already, so they can step it up. Maybe go hard-core and pay Rockstar some big bucks to make GTA as a 12 month timed console exclusive. That would certainly shake things up.

Sony is very picky with what studios they buy or keep open. For instance I don’t think they would have bought some of the studios MS did.

The last company they bought was Insomniac, and they are a quality company. One of the better independent studios at that time, and just look at what they have produced so quickly for Sony. Spiderman MM and Ratchet. Two of the better looking PS5 games.

What studios are there which are the equal of them, and which ones are privately owned and prime for a buyout? It doesn’t leave many.

They really missed the boat with 4A games. They are very high level, have a good IP in Metro, which is exactly the FPS that Sony is missing from their roster.

Techland possibly. They are high level devs, with some good IPs that fit a need in Sony’s library. Dying Light 2 is self published by Techland, so it could be Playstation exclusive. But, would Sony take them on with the reported development hell DL2 is apparently in?

Bungie? Would cost a penny. Destiny would need to remain multiplat to keep the number of online players up. But, Bungie could indeed develop a FPS of high quality for Sony.

As you can see, it’s not going to be easy for Sony, both in the short term and long term.

What else can they do?

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they are incapable of responding to it any similar scale.

Buying more studios isn’t gonna be a response to Zenimax, cuz MS is still doing that after Zenimax too.

Even if we could entertain the idea, I think Bungie would be a massive get that would instantly solve some of their biggest problems, but it’s so beyond unlikely that I just don’t see it happening. They already missed the boat on snagging Digital Extremes through Leyou, so I wouldn’t think Bungie could ever happen now.

I do think they’ll eventually get (or already have) Bluepoint and Housemarque. I’d say Bluepoint is simply inevitable at this point but Housemarque has a bit more proving to do for Sony to buy them. But yeah, those are more of a thing that they could have done independent of Zenimax purchase.

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Their response was to close studios. I’m really not sure what they can do. I think they will lose in any battle for a publisher they try and buy.

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They won’t be buying anything in the scale of Zenimax.

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They’ll close their smaller studios and increase the size of the more established ones like Naughty Dog, Guerilla, Santa Monica, San Diego, Sucker Punch and Insomniac. This is a safe route and they seem to be doing exactly this. Allows them to build on top of first class studios that they know already.

Also buying on the scale of Zenimax will mean deep stock dive for Sony since they have limited cash on hand. They are a hardware company first, so they will always need cash on hand. 30 bn cash on hand is small compared to MS but it works for the hardware section of Sony.

A third angle is that their media division will keep buying - like Crunchyroll. Their media section always is growing. They have to balance out the acquisitions

And our own shpeshal_ed mentioned in a podcast that they were trying to get a loan for buying out Leyou (War frame, Gears Tactics, etc dev).

So, overall - not sure whether they can, or even need to.

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Sony will buy where it makes sense but we also have to understand that currently Sony isn’t pivoting (as I think they should) into a gamepass world. Though they make under the covers and do it in a different manner. Sony would need a big investment to do what MS is doing. Sony may also be trying to carve out its niche just like Nintendo did and go all in on it. The future for Sony lies with what they desire to be.

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I could see them acquiring studios like Bluepoint or Jade Raymond’s new studio if their first game does well but for now their strategy will most likely be to continue doing timed exclusive deals.

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I remember more than a few pissed off fan boys initial reaction to when the Zenimax purchase was announced was a long lines of “pfft…Sony should just buy Take Too, or Activision/Blizzard”

Haha, okay guys. Let’s adjust those parameters

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Square is the only publisher I could see them having any shot at acquiring. Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, Tomb Raider etc are all right in their wheelhouse. Still, you’d be looking at somewhere around $10B to acquire them which is a hell of a lot.

It’s far more likely that they will continue to grow their internal studios ( SSM and Guerrilla have two teams now apparently) and pick up independents that they have a long standing relationship with eg Bluepoint, Housemarque

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Disney owns KH, if they were purchased, KH, would still be multiplat.

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It’s not even the cost is the fact square is a public company who have to take the best deal offered and there’s virtually no chance it would be from Sony. How could Sony justify going all in on a company that gives them near every game anyway. Why rock the boat by attempting a takeover.

The ideal situation for Sony now would be for everyone to stand down, they can go back to short sightedly paying to keep things off Xbox and buying the odd cheap dev. I just don’t think MS and others are going to let it happen.

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Bungie would be hard to get because Microsoft still have some shares within the company, and would be tipped about any bid and can outmatch them

I think their strategy will be to rely on PS4 gamers not wanting to lose their digital library they established. Also I think they will acquire the devs that worked on their IPs like Housemarquee and Bluepoint

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The main option for Sony is use their relationship with big publishers and pay for exclusive games that way, I can’t really see a world where Sony buys something big like Bethesda, but I could be wrong.

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I see Sony acquiring Bluepoint Games and Housemarque in addition to expanding your current studios. I don’t see them acquiring a publisher whatsoever but if they did, my guess would be Square Enix simply because they have a strong relationship with them like Microsoft had/has with ZeniMax/Bethesda.

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They can’t respond to that scale, if there is any other publisher for sale, MS will outbid them.

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There won’t be response to that. They don’t need to. I don’t expect them trying to compete on that front with Microsoft at all. Aside being a relatively rare event - big publisher acquisition - they do not need to have an enormous pipeline as they don’t have Game Pass. They really don’t need to produce huge amount of games.

If we look from the point of view of the publisher like…Look at Square Enix for example - for what reason they would want to sell to Sony? They feel happy milking each and every platform holder.

Not really. Sony is just paying Square Enix. As soon as they stop doing that, Game Pass will get each and every Square Enix. I am pretty sure, that MS will be heavily involved in money hats in the future to prevent stuff like 1 or 2 years exclusivity. I think that the next 1-3 years are the last ones for Sony’s moneyhats.

I am pretty sure that without Sony’s money hat FF Remake will be on Game Pass sooner or later for example.

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They were doing that because Microsoft was doing nothing. With Microsoft being aggressive, Sony’s moneyhats will be more expensive for Sony.

I don’t think anybody is buying Bungie and I fully expect Bungie becoming a publisher in the near future.

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Sony is not in need to respond to Microsoft. Microsoft buy studio to make game exclusive day one on gamepass, Sony buy studios to make game exclusive that will cost 80€ and sell a lot. Gamepass is another category, Microsoft output don’t compete with other third party and the goal is not to sell a lot but having a lot of players and drive people to gamepass

Sony only need to buy Bluepoint so they can make MGS remake 1/2/3 with Konami by 2022 when the MGS movie (produce by Sony) is going to release and that’s all, their first party output is really good and don’t compete with other third party output

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It might not be a given that Kojima only makes PS5 games. He was shopping ideas around to other publishers as of a year ago iirc. I’d think they will wanna wait to see how Returnal does with Housemarque first. I kinda get the vibe it might not turn out as great as some are hoping. I do think Bluepoint would be a good fit for them though and they should nab em.

I think for Sony, their $$$ is better spent on money hatting 3rd party stuff. Getting another exclusive from From Software could help them a lot maybe.

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Sony should respond by making PSnow a decent service and maybe start adding real BC to the damn ps5 for ps1 ps2 and ps3 games

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