I wonder when we here about another aquisition from Xbox
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As a company, as a organization they could run very well and healthy. But in terms of products they’re not so great in general and not worth of that money. Especially – for some people – as a eventual candidate for first-party.
If Microsoft would go for shopping this time it will be definitely some single studios for Xbox Game Studios. Not another over billion dollars acquisition for third publishing wing.
I’ve never thought of Sumo Digital as a candidate for XGS to be honest. It just doesn’t fit. And that’s not because they aren’t doing good things, but Sumo Digital specializes in high profile contract work and support. That’s not what Microsoft needs.
With Tencent acquiring Sumo, Microsoft (and Sony) can still use the expertise at Sumo in the future, which is a good thing.
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Lul I swear every insider hops on to another insiders news and pretends they are in the know just so they can get credibility if it does go down.
No disrespect to Jez but following up on the acquisition season tweet and backing off of the Warner Bros docs, the 3rd news by Zhuge, all of it just reinforces my thoughts that no one is really sure what is going on. One person maybe gets a hint and then others try to latch on for credibility points. Sometimes they are right and they want the credibility but when they are wrong they don’t say a thing or just chalk it up to misinterpretation.
Let’s all just wait till official news. The last E3 was definitely harmed by the acquisition hype people were building up.
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Tencent’s approach is completely different to Microsoft acquisition strategy.
Microsoft of course wants to print money. They’re so big and they want to be bigger. But now they have capabilities to act as a very consumer-friendly corporation for gamers. They have a long term plan to build big gaming brand that will print more money for them with its high quality content.
Tencent? They just looking for very easy money in easy way. They mostly acquire just some stakes in companies to have a share in their revenues and income. Like they did with Epic Games with its 40%. In 2012 it was valued at $330 millions. Now in 2021 the same stake was valued at $11.5 billions. It’s +3385%! That’s why they last time acquire stake in DONTИOD Entertainment for example. They know that their games are selling anyway, so Tencent will have another easy money printer.
Microsoft could do that same with gaming and other division, but they have different approach. At least with Nadella in office. Another thing with Tencent is politics. In 2017, the company promised to increase the share of members of the Chinese Communist Party in its structures, including in management positions. Even then, they constituted 23% of the management board.
Of course, Microsoft, Google, Facebook and other big players are involved in politics as well, they could do some lobbing and they could have connections with some governments and they could spy on us in many ways, but I don’t think it’s the same like with Tencent where ruling party with centralization of country in their mind is directly involved in many companies in PRC.
The number of people correctly teasing/reporting an acquisition, before it gets official is a lot smaller than the number of people claiming afterwards that they knew.
That’s pretty telling, but I think from all the people ZhugeEX is the most probable to know such things.
He is.
Do you all remember that spoiler from him just one day one? 
https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1286032822524928002
That one was quite good as well
Tencent’s m/a team is probably bigger than a lot of big studios lol, they have acquired a company every day so far in 2021 according to ZhugeEX IIRC. They also buy a stake in lot of studios that probably puts off Xbox and other publishers from buying them.
There was that rumour that Tencent is gearing up for a big acquisition as well. It was like they were getting financial people to run the numbers whilst they would be in debt because of the size of the acquisition. It was inferred that they would try to do a takeover of Take Two, But i might be sketchy with the info on that so if someone knows better just reply lol.
…will bring them very easy money and more mobile/free-to-play/online games to Chinese marketplace.
I mean especially in the business side of things. That’s his job more or less.
Its one thing to know about the additional content of Ghost of Tsushima, but a whole different thing to know about acquisitions before hand.
I like Nick, but before he teases something in that area that turns out to be correct I’m always going to treat it as a speculation at best.
Tencent is on a buying spree for a couple of years. I watched the Interview the Satya, I know Microsoft is going to buy something, so vague teases that don’t specify anything are pretty worthless.
It’s also very smart low risk investment, if a company blows up like Epic did, they make a boat load of money.
Tencent also had stakes in Sumo it seems, 8.75%, so they might be targeting the companies they have shares in.
But not all companies blow up like Epic. Acquiring Stakes in companies is a risky strategy (it is a bet: will their growth strategy work?), requires a deep knowledge on the market, building trust with companies and, generally speaking, something that adds value outside of money (expertise, access to a new market, contacts, …).
Albeit some companies use these only as a financial instrument, I don’t think this is what Tencent is looking for. They see the opportunity to grow their chinese distribution business (help US companies to distribute games in china) as well as growing their gaming division outside china with content more appealing to western audiences.
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Then why have they bought Sumo? Sumos financial statements don’t read like printing easy money.
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I wonder if Tencent will be fully acquiring Fatshark this year…… sigh
Let’s go hunting…organically of course
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Sumo Digital is a great purchase, 1.3 Billion well spent. They are/were a support studio run by experienced industrial professionals, like Sperasoft or Certain Affinity. They have the 4-5 studios in the UK, but the Prune studio is a massive bonus. They also have Atom Hawk which is a video / mocap / concept art studio.
So over the next couple years, I’m expecting Tencent to acquire:
- Certain Affinity
- Fatshark
- PlatinumGames
Would not be surprised if they start investing in CDPR too……
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I didn’t want MS to acquire Sumo anyway. They don’t have IPs and I think huge IPs (like TES and Fallout were with Zenimax) is what is the most important for MS.