I won’t even be so sure of that. The whole Bethesda thing was kept quiet from nearly all important insiders. Many didn’t know what was happening. jeff Grubb knew about a huge investment in something from MS, but he thought it was just a Game Pass deal with a publisher. He was pretty much surprised it was about the Bethesda acquisition.
I would say the bigger the potential acquisition is, the less we would know about it until it is happening. Now, will the next acquisition be a publisher the size of Bethesda ? I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. However, with Google and Amazon, based on Nadella, Spencer and Brad Sams, they are definitely looking for other big names.
Bethesda was one of the bigger mid tier publishers. There are several more around their size or smaller (especially in the Japanese market).
I think it makes sense for them to go for a non-US publisher if they did acquire another one, but like I said, they’re definitely exploring their options.
I still think Studio Wildcard has a ton of potential as an acquisition.
Going through your list, Gearbox is a possibility but Pitchford is… a character and he has gone on some public rants against Microsoft in the past but they do still have a decent working relationship. Techland has some potential especially with plenty of CDPR devs jumping ship, they just seem to need some tighter control. Team 17 is a great fit but public, same with Paradox. As for Nacon, their internal teams have a ton of potential and some good games under their belt, but when you own the trifecta that is Bethesda, Obsidian and InXile, AND throw on similar studios like Zenimax Online, Compulsion Arkane and PlayGround’s RPG team on top, there is less of a need to buy more. Funnily enough, I think if Sony bought them and invested more into them and put the ICE team on them, they could end up with some competitive WRPGs by the end of the gen.
There’s a reason I keep calling for Sega, its price is so low especially when you consider the fact that a decent chunk of Sega is non-traditional gaming properties (pachinko, amusement parks, etc.) and would be likely split off in any acquisition (thus lowering the purchase price). Considering the amount of teams and incredible IP, not to mention the long and storied relationship between MS and Sega, the acquisition should be a no-brainer. I know they’ve looked and walked away in the past but this is a different Xbox (and a different Sega if we’re being honest).
I still think a Remedy purchase would make sense considering how much the team’s output has increased the past couple years, and the fact that their technology is some of the best in the business.
Remedy sure as hell are a much wiser purchase than someone like CDPR; I keep seeing them brought up again and again, but sorry @Hindle it’s not happening unless they’re on the verge of collapse (which they aren’t). CDPR simply has far too much baggage from a PR/toxicity standpoint, not to mention the fact that their output simply isn’t good enough to justify their rather ridiculous valuation, they have almost no owned IP, and GOG is directly contradictory to Xbox/Windows Store’s foundation. Would I be happy if Xbox eventually picked them up, assuming they were able to correct the HR/management issues? Sure, but I’m confident that everyone on staff here would describe CDPR as a bit of a poison pill right now, and their value for Xbox just isn’t that high.
I could not agree more. The team’s gotten a lot more efficient and Northlight is a gem of the industry; imagine an Alan Wake 2 running on next-gen only with the improvements the new build of Northlight could bring.
Great list. Some decent overlap with my master list:
Publishers
Sega
WB Games (assuming they were ever back on the board)
SE Europe
Small/Medium Studios
Asobo
DONTNOD
Interior/Night
SuperMassive Games
IOI
Techland
Crytek
Bungie
Remedy
Frontier
Bloober
JP Games
White Owls
Hello Games
Couldn’t agree more at this point, the team has redeemed themselves with No Man’s Sky when I thought it impossible previously. The Last Campfire is also a wonderful blend of cute and morbid, and the title shows they still have some breadth.
Sorry, but just like your assertions with CDPR, this line isn’t based in reality and is directly contradictory to what Microsoft themselves had to say on the matter; Matt Booty himself confirmed they were looking into it. I think the issue came down to the cost and licensing negotiations, but given ATT’s massive debt I wouldn’t count the deal out by any means, and the fact that Matt has a considerable amount of connections at the studios leads me to think that they’ll be the purchaser should ATT rebid the division. What’s really interesting about the situation with WB is the fact that they were mulling a $4 billion acquisition whilst they were finalizing the internal dealings with Zenimax/Bethesda (keep in mind, the latter acquisition officially started in 2018, so the $4billion would have been in addition to an already confirmed $7.5 billion at that point). I think that’s the loudest statement alluding to Microsoft’s aggressive stance for Xbox, even more so than the myriad of statements from Satya and Phil. Given how I’ve seen acquisitions go (not just in the gaming industry), I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they’re still in discussions and they’re simply “kicking the tires” on a reasonable deal before bringing it to the shareholders’ vote (which happens all the time).
As a side note, I wholeheartedly disagree with the claims that WB’s studios are worthless without the IP. Nearly every single studio has put out consistently high-quality titles over a course of a decade+, ignoring that fact and simply attributing their success to the usage of licenses is insulting to the talent of the team and ignores the myriad of licensed titles that still fail critically and commercially.
Ultimately, on the topic of acquisitions and who Xbox manages to target I’ll say this: the industry is in the midst of a major flux given the introduction of so many Microsoft-level competitors (in terms of financial clout), so whether we like acquisitions or not, they’re going to be commonplace for the next several years. If Codemasters, NLG, Typhoon, and all the studios The Embracer Group has purchased haven’t convinced you that it’s not just Xbox in the purchasing game, I don’t know what will. The reasons many of us should be rooting for Xbox to acquire a number of these studios that might be on the bidding block soon (Asobo, Bungie, IOI, etc.) is because Xbox under Satya, Phil, and Matt’s leadership has shown to be a wonderful publisher for developers to flourish: they’ve taken a laissez faire approach to allow creativity to bloom, they’ve built and provided a number of resources and tools that few in the industry can provide, and they’ve generated an environment of inter-team communication and collaboration rather than of competition. Plus, of course all that content is part of our Game Pass subscriptions, so it’s a clear win-win for all involved.
With how quiet Techland has been and how much of a struggle Dying Light 2 seems to be, I wonder if there’s something in the works there.
Remedy makes a lot of sense. They have a track record of making great games, that review well, sell okay, and become cult classics. The biggest issue always seemed to be they took their time making them. They seem to have ironed out a lot of their production issues. I think having a respected studio with a good track record and a handful of beloved IP makes a lot of sense. Add in that they make third person cinematic action games which MS is lacking at the time, it just makes a lot of sense.
Because ultimately these companies’ duties is to the shareholders who have invested in the company. If amazon, google, microsoft or anyone else comes by and says hey I see your company is worth 9 billion dollars square enix, i will give you 15 billion for your entire operation.
As a shareholder, I would want to know what you are doing to give me a better return on my money than I would have gotten by you selling. If you cannot give the shareholders a viable answer you are then out of your job, either by them voting you out, or by the stock prices tanking so much. As when you are a publicly-traded company it no longer becomes about doing fine or are you profitable. It’s about maximizing the return of the shareholder’s investment.
This is why when you see a publicly traded companies bought you will see things like we are paying share price plus 15, 20, 30%, etc. extra per share as the kickback to the shareholders. As if i bought square enix stock for lets say 50 dollars share and lets just pretend it’s worth 100 dollars a share now. if company x purchases them and i get 100 per share plus an extra 30% per share that means im making 130 dollars per share on my initial 50 dollar investment. So square enix would need to explain how they are going to do better 130 a share to each investor with actual evidence.
So it becomes harder to say no unless the person at the top owns enough controlling interest to where teh other shareholders don’t matter.
As I said on the other forum Sega isn’t selling off its most consistently successful studios. If you want Creative Assembly/Amplitude/Sports Interactive/Hardlight you need to buy all of SegaSammy.
This. It was after the Bethesda deal when Nadella said they will continue looking for opportunities to buy established names to grow in gaming. I interpret that in context as they may have more deals in the future similar to the one they just announced to accelerate their growth in the gaming industry.
Doesn’t mean they will work out, but I’m sure MS have been exploring opportunities of all shapes and sizes in the gaming industry. They have a unique opportunity now to set themselves up to be the Netflix of gaming in the years to come with the most subscribers. They need more big names in gaming to do that and leave everyone else in the dust.
MS have never shown much interest in working with licenses they don’t own. My thinking is they were looking at WB and Zenimax at the same time and decided to pursue the latter
I mean the license comment is historically incorrect; they’ve funded quite a few over the years for Xbox starting with Star Wars with KOTOR all the way to Kinect projects like Disney Rush. Again, I think you’re missing the forest through the trees in that Zenimax and WB were wholly, mutually exclusive for Microsoft. We don’t know the details of why the initial talks fell apart, but Bethesda was all but finished internally by the time WB even entered the fray (based on everything we do know about the timing).
Edit: And of course, that’s ignoring the most recent/obvious licensed title with Indiana Jones, which will indeed be funded by Microsoft by the time it gets off the ground; not to mention that Microsoft would have absolutely known about the title before finalizing the deal with Bethesda (part of the acquisition process, once things progress to the pre-signing stage, is a disclosure of the project pipeline)…
The other thing to consider about working with licensed properties is that star wars was the ip that irrc was most used in licensed games by microsoft, with kinect star wars, KOTOR, etc etc, this was obviously not possible after the EA exclusivity deal, so for all we know they would have continued making licensed star wars games if it were not for the EA deal
To be fair, I think they’d strongly, greatly prefer to own the franchises they publish. There’s far more opportunity for monetization when you own the IP. Also things like sequels are more directly in your control. That said, this is chess, not checkers. Sometimes you need to give to get. Other people’s licenses may be necessary to draw the mainstream to your platform where you can then expose those same customers to your IPs. Netflix used Disney IPs for years. I don’t think they have regret now that they’re nearing 200 million subscribers and are now relying on their own.
Yeah true, I suppose its possible for ms to get a licensing deal in place for a game set in the star wars universe, like KOTOR is for instance, that would be a prearrangement between ms and disney. This would allow for microsoft to develop a series within the star wars but still have the ability to grow a franchise by itself