We have three big spots
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TGS at the last day of the month
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Digital X021 if it happens
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The Game Awards
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Phil specifically said that he doesn’t like announcing acquisitions at events anymore (and that he wouldn’t if he could help it), as it takes away attention from the hard work their developers and partners do. So it would be wise to disassociate acquisitions with events.
I think people should listen to the people who run the company…. so I don’t have to make ad nauseam reminders every week 
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Will forever be devastated that Spiders got acquired by Nacon.
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Just wanted to say, I saw some of the votes in the poll and at least 4-6% of you are either purposely trolling or just genuinely sick individuals.
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We’re all just impatient! Especially because Tencent, Embracer and others have been making moves on seemingly a monthly (or even weekly) basis. Xbox is just moving too slow for this forum thread!
That’s fair, though I think they’ll have some news to announce during that period such as further xCloud expansion, GamePass additions etc. even if they don’t have a first-party title in that quarter.
I also think an acquisition could be announced early next year. My reasoning is that if I recall correctly the Xbox acquisitions positions were advertised for after the Bethesda acquisition was announced, and since then we’ve had multiple statements from leadership that they are all-in on gaming and indicating there would be further acquisitions.
So we know Xbox is strongly looking for further acquisitions. Even though acquisitions can take a long time, if Xbox was looking to acquire smaller developers than I think at least one deal would’ve been reached and announced since the Bethesda announcement, and as we haven’t heard anything, this might be because they’re interested in larger developers or a publisher.
The time frame for a larger acquisition would be pretty difficult to estimate, as we know they can take years in discussions, but if they’re as committed as they are indicating, and with how hot the acquisition market is right now, I think they would be pushing hard for a deal sooner than later. So to me, a larger acquisition within a year and a half of Bethesda could make sense. Of course, I could be completely missing a piece of the puzzle and all this is moot.
Personally, I think that Microsoft acquiring all of WB and DC would be amazing. Microsoft wouldn’t have to get involved with the movies, TV shows, etc. They simply license them all out and let the movie/tv studios pay for it all while Microsoft gets free money from licensing. I said this before - this is a deal that would literally pay itself back within a decade and after that, it’s all free money.
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Well I’d like to remind people that most of Embracer’s acquisitions are minuscule in comparison to Xbox’s (both in terms of value and IP), and Tencent has largely been making investment stakes, as opposed to full acquisitions. The latter, especially in terms of the stake percentage, means almost nothing and given the fact that Tencent has a full government essentially behind them as well, I’m surprised more by their relatively weak moves than anything (which I’m also grateful for, mind you).
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Agreed.
Until Embracer acquires Tripwire…… then I’ll be sad.
It never made sense to me for MS just to buy the gaming division, as they would be rinsed by WB. Buying the whole thing gives them permanent ownership of everything DC and a brilliant subscription service to match.
You know it’s insane but I I’m on the side of MS buying WB
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Agreed. Microsoft is all about digital subscription services. Office 365, gamepass, cloud services. HBO max would be perfect as another subscription to add to the fold. It’s just too bad they sold off crunchy roll first.
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Them owning the film rights means they could say license it all out to Disney who have the understanding. This gives MS access to Disney + revenue as well
Tencent and the other big chinese publishers are under chinese government microscope because gaming investments are not considered aligned with the nation core interests. We should remember that biggest gaming acquisition ever is still Supercell for $8.4B (Zenimax is the second one), so it’s a relatively recent shift. Netease is making similar moves along with Nexon (half korean and half japanese and third asian publisher aftrr Tencent and Netease), they are acquiring stakes everywhere under the sun.
I agree MS moves are slower because they are more difficult, Xbox is searching for premium studios and publishers, but I also think they should thwart the moves of these chinese conglomerates in Japan, it’s an already difficult area for Xbox, chinese interests will only complicate things further, expecially if they start to have a say into Bandai Namco, SEGA, Konami, etc…
Didn’t Brian Fargo mention in an interview that prior to InXile’s acquisition, Microsoft would thoroughly inquire on minute details like the amount of RAM in their computers? That’s a lot of RAM to document if they’re in the process of buying out another publisher.
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That might have been because InXile were penny pinching at the time (Might not be the right saying). I guess when you pay premium for a publisher like Bethesda who makes how much money a year compared to a struggling InXile at the time you expect them to already have sufficient hardware.
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Another thing to consider is how Embracer intends to be a conglomerate of gaming developers and publishers, if Microsoft wanted that they would have just been sweeping under the sun since 2018, they don’t plan to be a 100 studio division, and many of the Embracer acquisitions are on the technology side and newly founded small studios.
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While WB gaming would be good, I think they will do what they can to acquire a Japanese publisher because it hits both that target audience as well as a good portion of western gamers. I don’t know of any that are privately owned though, not sure MS is interested in public bidding wars for xbox acquistions.
Likely the easiest from the public ones is… Marvelous. Big private companies I can think of are ArcSys and TypeMoon LOL.
I can see Phil’s point but one of the greatest E3 moments to me is when Microsoft dropped they were acquiring seven studios. I remember them going one by one and about halfway through I was like they are still going? It was truly something amazing to see.
However, if people feel their work is belittled by that spectacle i fully understand not wanting to do it again.
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WB as a whole is a waste of money and its something Microsoft doesnt need at all.
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