Every time a studio is acquired by someone else or there are acquisition rumors.
Us:
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people needs to calm down with publishers talk after Bethesda announcement people went little crazy on publishers talk , Bethesda was simply perfect scenario for MS and it will never repeat again no other publisher acquisition will beat Bethesda deal for MS.
what you should expect indie studios Acquisition and funding content made by externals studios(fastest way to deliver content for GP) for now
I think they will get another publisher eventually, specifically because of Satya’s comments toward content and acquiring large IP.
Aside from a few special cases, most large IP are locked behind publishers. Even now, many of the studios that own their own major IP are also becoming publishers (Gearbox, Bungie, etc.).
Plus, both MrMattyPlays and ACG (Jeremy/Karak) had mentioned that a couple years ago Microsoft was supposedly in talks with Focus Home.
Microsoft isn’t ruling out big names or publishers, as we’ve seen and heard.
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It’s interesting to see so many black/white definitive statements of what Xbox is going to do. I think the last few years have shown that we don’t know what to expect and when. That’s exciting.
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Honestly, they could decide to not acquire anyone in the next 5 years and still be in an awesome place.
I cannot wait to play most of these games.
that true but now they reached stage when they need to deliver big content for GP. so i won’t be surprised if they funded big games made by external devs it’s faster way to deliver content until they have enough studio to feed gp or make deals with big publishers to release games day 1
I don’t think we can rule out publishers because
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There’s barely any AAA independents left.
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indies won’t move the needle.
Never say never
No, they haven’t reached any stage and still they don’t have enough studios. Third party deals will also happen buy they are not reliable - just look at Killer Instinct case, where MS lost a studio and now there no studios that can replace them. MS will purchase a lot of because it needs a humongous first party and it needs reliable output.
For some reason people started to think that “MS should stop because that’s enough”, but that’s not the case. Another couple of time exclusives and MS loses a year or two of game development from the third party. Sony’s time exclusive from From Software means that MS might lose year or two of its output because MS won’t get the game and the studio will be busy making a game.
With the work ID@Xbox is doing creating a home for indies and launching so many on Game Pass that’s basically a third publishing arm.
We’re going to need an OT2. About 10-ish posts left.
From a pure first principles perspective -
- Not a good year to hold on to cash. Low interest rates everywhere.
- Many publishers and studios struggling during the Pandemic. Even journos are taking a 50% cut.Ask Venturebeat.
- Satya and Phil’s statement on studio acquisitions are very clear. And they have the Netflix model to guide them.
- In some cases you can see that the studios/publishers are clearly struggling due to the moves that they are making.
- Jez Corden mentioned that there are second party projects that are so ambitious that they might end up buying the studio.
- Colt mentioning that they need acquisitions that are self managing - that is, publishers
- Jeff Grubb reporting at the beginning of 2020 that the game industry AAA business is not as rosy as people think
- Just news reports of studios or publishers looking to sell since 2018.
Given all of this, deducing a likelihood is actually easy.
Not discussing acquisitions in the Game Studio thread is perfectly reasonable.
People suggesting Not discussing it or not theorizing about it here in the Acquisition thread is ludicrous.
If you see acquisitions being discussed elsewhere please do flag it as off topic. Reading the general posturing going on in the Game Studios thread was so tedious.
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I know Klob and other keep saying sega isn’t happening but xbox is going to need a self managing publisher in Japan. I think theyre going to go hard at making their own studios/acquiring smaller ones and they’re going to need be folded under an umbrella bethesda style and Sega just makes too much sense.
To be fair, I wondered if Bethesda could make acquisitions, Klob answered, I made a joke, Klob answered back and the whole thing spiraled out of control .
So clearly, looking at the cause of events, I fully blame 
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You touched a raw nerve somewhere. 
But the raw visceral reaction is helping me understand more data better.
Everything is data. You just need to figure out the right cubby hole where it belongs.
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Well we may as well make these last 7 points shitposts at this point.
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Last 5 posts.
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