The issue isn’t owning Asobo. It’s making sure the competition doesn’t.
If they wanna be independent or sell off small stakes to tech incubators? Cool. If Tencent, Amazon or Sony come sniffing and they are genuinely considering it, warchest time.
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I wouldn’t have a knee jerk reaction over Asobo. Xbox signing them to a 10 year contract is the sort of long-term arrangement that turns off potential buyers. If Asobo ever does decide to sell, I’m sure Phil and Matt are the first ones they would speak to.
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More and more companies are getting bought, where are you Microsoft
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Microsoft has a 10 year deal with Asobo on stuff and have invested in them. I’m sure they have language in the contract the same as they have with the Nvidia investment they made 20 years ago (at least I hope so)
https://m.hexus.net/business/news/corporate/30718-microsoft-right-refusal-nvidia-takeovers/
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I guess no little big planet and sack boy anymore. Also Microsoft where are you tencent is going to scoop up many studios. But I guess @Shpeshal_Nick was right it is acquisition season
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Sad to see that Tencent is picking up Sumo Digital, they made a really good game with Sackboy.
I know at the moment Tencent is known as a hands off silent owner, but sadly I don’t think it stays this way. Once they have enough content creators, they are probably trying to establish their own platform.
And censorship is a topic that concerns me deeply as well.
To bring it back to the Xbox side of things. I think this goes to show that Xbox maybe could use a network of their own support studios, IIRC they made a lot of support work for Xbox at Sumo.
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And why is that? Some of the studios acquired by Tencent are still making exclusive games. Moreover, it seems that they don’t interfere too much in the studios’ policy, a bit like Microsoft since 2018. But yes, I would have preferred to see Sumo Digital in the Xbox family.
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I never said it was for MS (only)
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If any of the studios/publishers we’ve been saying are legit targets ever take a small investment from Tencent start to worry(Stage 1 of a Tencent acquisition is a small percentage investment). Otherwise meh.
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Sumo are really good for E rated games but what IP do they actually own because $1.3 billion seems too much.
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It does seem like tencent is willing to pay a big premium to tempt anyone to sell at the moment
but but but the monopoly…
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Sumo Group? Nothing interesting and nothing to cry about. Too big too acquire by Microsoft in my opinion. Another 1,000 people to handle within a group of numbers of studios? They’ve just bring more than 2,000 people with ZeniMax.
Their portfolio is mostly mediocre.
- Hood: Outlaws & Legends – 66/100, 23% on OpenCritic
- Sackboy: A Big Adventure – 81/100, 87%
- Hotshot Racing – 75/100, 67%
- Team Sonic Racing – 75/100, 60%
- Crackdown 3 (better to say nothing) – 63/100, 19%
- Snake Pass (their first only one original IP) – 74/100, 51%
- LittleBigPlanet 3 (the worst game in the series) – 79/100, 64%
- F1 2011 for Nintendo 3DS – 54/100 on Metacritic
- Dead Space Ignition – 35/100
That group of studios doesn’t have any own identity. They mostly did some ports and outsourcing for different publishers. Their only one original IP is Snake Pass. Do we really need them in the Xbox family? Of course not. Does Microsoft need to everyone and everybody, because they had at least one whatever partnership with some company? Absolutely not.
There are some studios which Microsoft should buy, like Asobo Studio. They don’t need to have 50-60 studios just to have them and to release more mediocre games (like Netflix with its tv series).
Sumo Digital is not a top tier league. They’re so far from that level. Maybe they’ll be some second-party partner again for Sony or Microsoft. We will see, but I don’t know what they could develop for Microsoft. Another Forza port? Another Crackdown for another big faux pas? I wouldn’t give them money for original first-party IP.
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Snake Pass 
Only one original IP…
They probably earned enough money and revenue on these games which they did for publishers with outsourcing job as well that they value increased.
If games that they did would have much better quality then sales could much higher and their value as a whole group could be probably bigger as well.
They also did Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed which is the greatest kart racer of all time.
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Does this mean sack boy won’t be exclusive in the future
Remember, Sumo Group has 1200 employees and does a lot of work for the industry. They’ve made games for Sega, Sony and Microsoft, but are also a very large support studio. Working for IO, Activision, Bethesda, Xbox Game Studios, etc.
To me it has always looked like a very well run studio organization.
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And that was nearly 10 years ago. 2 years ago SEGA released Team Sonic Racing from Sumo Digital and it wasn’t so great.
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No.
Sackboy: A Big Adventure is a spin-off to PlayStation’s owned LittleBigPlanet.
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Yeah agreed, Team Sonic Racing was way to simple.