Is DC all that valuable from an IP perspective ? The movies (outside of Batman) have been a disaster compared to Marvel.
Rumour is DC Comics on the comic side is up for sale without the IPs.
Agreed. AT&T are partnered with MS at this stage. Why take on that debt and risk?
AT&T are slashing costs and jobs very aggressively now. If MS did purchase AT&T they would have to more aggressive then when they closed Nokia. Looking bad is something MS wouldn’t want.
But if purchased, you would turn all other communication companies into competitors instead of partners.
Why would anyone buy that? The whole point of dc would be the IP lmao
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Lol DC heroes way more valuable. Dont let this recent boom of MCU stuff (most of the movies are mediocre) fool you.
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Kids that grew up during the 90s are more familiar with Xmen. avengers were not nearly as popular in the 90s. Kids that grew up during the early 2000s seem to be very attached to DC because of the Justice League animated series that ran for 5 years.
I grew up in the 90s and my coworker who is 12 yrs younger than me has no idea who Beast from the xmen is. But he knows justice League.
This current generation is much more into avengers than Xmen or Justice League.
- Aquaman took 1.1 billion dollars on ‘so so’ reviews
- BVS took in 870 million on bad reviews
- Wonder Woman took in 821 million on great reviews
- Suicide Squad took in 750 million on bad reviews
The Batman: Arkham series was critically and commercially successful in gaming already.
Yes there is a lot of money in DC as an IP stable. Even when they’re awful movies they were still draw cards and they currently form an important pillar of WB as a film studio.
But this is a very academic discussion, WB games is no longer being shopped around and even if it was, 4 billion for the dev studios and one relevant modern IP (MK) was not worthwhile, which is why it didn’t sell back when it was for sale.
Anticipated response from some people: “But I think they’re very talented and worth the money” < Ok, but when studios sell without IP, they typically sell for pennies compared to when they do own IP. Insomniac for 230 million, 4A games for 36 million, etc. The only upside here is that you might get the back catalogue of WB games in perpetuity, even if you don’t have the rights to make any new ones - but even then, there may be some licensing concerns for some historical games.
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Maybe instead of buying AT&T, Microsoft could just buyout the WB/DC stuff completely? Whatever the cost, Microsoft would make it back easily and before the generation ends. They could license out the movies/TV shows, etc. which is money coming in and the only real cost besides that of upfront in buying WB/DC would be the games themselves which would make back the money anyway. Short term would be very expensive but long term, it would be easily profitable.
Too much complications with WB. MS would never be interested in all the complications that come with
It’s hard to describe how unlikely this is firmly enough.
Warner Brothers, outside of it’s games division, includes:
- 5 film production subsidiaries + 2 minority stakes in other production companies
- 5 television production subsidiaries, plus 4 operational television channels (Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, Turner Classic Movies, and Boomerang), plus an animation studio
- DC Comics and merchandising
- Global theme parks
- Music production and record labels
The loss of Warner Bros in it’s entirety would be a devastating blow to HBO+, which is AT&Ts most important media service push right now. It would also be an insane thing for Microsoft to want to buy in it’s entirety, unless they planned to themselves become a TV and film company, which is well above the level of Xbox.
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How many of the Microsoft aquisitions were leaked before MS announced them? With E3 coming up I was wondering if we would have started hearing things by now if they had any aquisitions to announce at E3.
There was talk about Obsidian that I can remember. Nothing was said of Zenimax, not sure of the others.
Obsidian’s letter of intent leaked.
Playground Games leaked as well, I believe. They’re the only two to my knowledge.
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What are the chances that Microsoft could acquire WB Games (all the gaming studios) and maybe an exclusive deal with AT&T to where they pay a set amount every year for the licenses but just for gaming? And thus, AT&T could keep all the other stuff.
This is the last thing we heard, from last year:
So, they officially took it off the market.
The new boss is not planning to sell to our knowledge.
If the new boss changed their mind and decided they were going to sell, IMO they wouldn’t have waited this long to do it, because 2020 and the first half of 2021 were their dead zone. They released 1 single product, a Switch game nobody has ever heard of in 2020, and they have released nothing in 2021. In October 2021, they will ship Back 4 Blood, then in 2022, a bunch of stuff comes out. So if they held out this long, it’s likely they’ll hold out a bit longer and reap the huge rewards of shipping Hogwarts Legacy, Gotham Knights and Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga all in one calendar year.
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@ThereAreFourNaan: Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad is scheduled for 2022 as well. You’re totally right: COVID hurt them, but no way WB sell to Microsoft at this point when the 2022 is right around the corner.
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Starting to think IOI happens soon. The fact they opened a new studio to work on this Xbox game strengthens this theory. MS would never open a new studio for an independent dev
Xbox should try to do something with Larian to further their dominance in the RPG market. Either an aquisition or a publishing deal, or at the very least get baldurs gate 3 console edition to be console exclusive whenever the game is out of early access
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So, in a theoretical WB Games situation, if Xbox acquired the IP rights to all of their gaming properties (Mortal Kombat, FEAR, etc.), what would they have left to license out?
Would it just be DC/Harry Potter/Looney Tunes/Cartoon Network?
Lord of the Rings (Middle-Earth) stuff is handled by the Tolkien Estate I’m pretty sure.
LEGO would probably have to be renegotiated with, well, LEGO.
Am I missing anything?
That’s just about right. Harry Potter is owned by Rowling estate, though.
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I think it is more the fact that IOI now has a contract to make a game and that allowed them to borrow money to open the studio. I highly doubt Microsoft is directly funding the new studio.
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