I believe they were mentioning they don’t think Sony could financially take on Zenimax… which I agree with.
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I think they can but it would require a stock swap or leveraged buyout which can be risky. Sony only has 2.5 billion cash on hand and that nunber was probably depleted by the acquisition of Crunchyroll. PlayStation is healthy, Anime is healthy, the rest of Sony not necessarily meaning it can help to have capital and leverage on hand for cash crunches (like Sony Pictures is experiencing).
Idk, the inverse to that is because PlayStation is so vital, it’s better to prop the brand up, but that depends on how crazy things get on the acquisition side. PlayStation is still afforded a ton of luxuries like significantly cheaper moneyhats due to their historical significance, domination of the 6th gen, victory in the 8th gen and Xbox’s lack of marketshare in Japan coupled with Nintendo’s underpowered hardware.
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If people want to talk about going after major IP and good studios that could do even more with Xbox’s funding and could potentially be up for grabs, let’s look at Valve. Also no I’m not talking about steam and that portion of the company, just valves IP and studios.
Valve is in a position where the majority of their focus is on steam and rightly so. They’re still headed by Gabe Newell who reportedly is pondering retirement. If that’s true, he may want to cash in before retirement and hand the IP over to someone he’s comfortable with and he’s close to xbox and Phil. He could sell off that portion of the company and those IP and retire a multi billionaire while leaving his company in good position still (steam), the IP and studios in good hands and him and his family secure forever (pretty much).
Valve has some of the biggest IP of the, comparable in size to what Bethesda brought to the table. There’s no other private company that would come close in terms if IP and even a slight chance they’d sell.
IP
Counterstrike
Team Fortress
Portal
Half Life
Left 4 Dead
Dota
If MS spend crazy money in the games industry, it will be to acquire Valve
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You might as well acquire steam and have it become the windows store.
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The problem with that could be a monopoly, thievery the studios and IP definitely would not.
That’s thier endgame.
According to Brad Sams Amazon and Google are now knocking on doors time for Microsoft to be aggressive.
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Microsoft is also knocking on doors according to that same video
I know this is very unlikely but i hope Microsoft manages to snag all that are in play right now.
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They won’t get all, but I wouldn’t count them out for any big players. Been waiting for the action to pick backup. It’ll be interesting to see where the cards fall.
I really hope that Microsoft does whatever they can to acquire Asobo, Bungie and Moon if any are being pursued.
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All would be excellent additions, and I would love all three.
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I feel like, if given the choice and a good offer, any studio would rather be sold to microsoft than google or amazon. Xbox is an established brand, and they wouldnt be getting acquired at the beginning of a service with a foggy future like stadia and luna
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Only thing is if a studio wanted to be the clear number 1 and get all the attention.
I agree, but there might be some who just can’t turn down a great offer from Google or Amazon, or just really like their ideas for the future of gaming. I don’t think it will be easy for MS, by any means, but as long as they’re willing, they should have a leg up on the competition for these acquisitions.
Everything I’ve heard tells me its Bungie who are interesting all 3 of Google, Amazon, and MS
I think theyre at the centre of a bidding war
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Microsoft still owns a portion of Bungie, wonder what that does to things
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