The Initiative is situated in Santa Monica/LA for a reason.
Then again despite that in the current situation, it’s just incredibly hard to scale companies quick enough to maintain reasonable dev times on the project which is why CD had to come in.
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Oh right. Thanks mate. Didn’t think of that. Also forgot about that 
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I don’t think Sega will be an option for acquisition now. They are allready putting there game on Xbox/PC and now that they are using MS tech to develop their game, they are a very good customer (30% on games/DLC on Xbox + fee for licence software + fee for Cloud base infrastructure ).
Do you think MS want to buy someone that bring money in like that ? I don’t.
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I’m not sure if this is sarcasm or not…
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I mean, it’s true for SEGA west and for most of SEGA east, they have even an Azure deal for PSO2 in place, but there is the giant glaring issue of Atlus. XD
Anyway, there are several roadblocks for buying a japanese publisher (and no, I’m not speaking of imaginary government rules XD), for example the user base of their games: with Bethesda, it was a situation where most of their customers are on pc and Xbox already, thanks to their history (they landed on PS much later and that’s another reason why the two dreaded moneyhats were so surprising), with japanese publishers it’s totally another thing:
_ SEGA: old ties with Xbox, it’s probably one of the two most “compatible” acquisition target, there are only few niche series which skips Xbox and mostly for budget/old thinking reasons (Sakura Wars, Virtua Fighter 5, Hatsune Miko, VERY niche things). Xbox has even some exclusive (in the west) with PSO2 and FM, lol. The issue here would be Atlus, which seems to avoid Xbox like the black plague, who knows how it would go with an hypothetical acquisition.
_ Bandai Namco: another big Xbox supporter, the only games which skip Xbox are the very niche things OR games from developers which (allegedly) don’t want to partake with MS, like Level-5 or Arc System Works, lol. It’s huge on licenses, some of them are as popular as Marvel/DC/SW things, like One Piece, Naruto and Dragon Ball. Just saying, but Bandai Namco would probably be THE turning point of Xbox destiny in Japan/Asia, more than any other publisher.
_ Koei Tecmo: Xbox HAD a history, but it’s mostly long forgotten, it’s sufficient to see the list of recently released/upcoming games:
https://www.koeitecmoeurope.com/games/
Gust and niche series simply don’t land on Xbox, Team Ninja games are a toss-up (the crown jewel of old Xbox japanese arm), only Omega Force is (mostly) certain. Here there would be issues of userbase and historical weak support, I don’t see a MS acquisition except for hostile takeover, considering they are big on supporting Nintendo and Sony.
_ Capcom: all their big games land, except for Street Fighter and the niche series of Ace Attorney, but they are far more close to Sony and Nintendo, also any game of theirs is susceptible of skipping Xbox with the right moneyhat, I don’t see a MS acquisition except for hostile takeover.
_ Square Enix (east): considering how weak and volatile are their relationships, I don’t see a MS acquisition except for hostile takeover, there is not much to say here.
All Paradox games already land on GP day one since a couple of years (and the next one, Victoria 3, is already scheduled to do the same), also their hypothetical console exclusivity is not worth much objectively, I think Paradox is not needed as an acquisition, only if some malevont party would try to swoop in (like Tencent).
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Nobody is going to buy Bandai Namco, Capcom for now they are in safe spot so no acquisition will happen anytime soon unless MS decided to do hostile take over. SE expect they sell their Euro Division for highest bidder.
as For Sega they need buy their parent company Sega Sammy but it will come with other business. this is from wiki
Pachislot and Pachinko machine business
- [Sammy Corporation
- [Sammy NetWorks Co., Ltd.
- Ginza Corporation
- RODEO Co., Ltd.
- Taiyo Elec Co., Ltd.
Entertainment contents business
- Dartslive Co., Ltd.
- DARTSLIVE INTERNATIONAL Ltd
- iDarts Group Ltd.
- DARTSLIVE ASIA Ltd.
- DARTSLIVE USA, INC
- DARTSLIVE EUROPE LTD.
- TMS Entertainment Co., Ltd.
- Jinni’s Inc.
- Marza Animation Planet, Inc.
- Liverpool Co., Ltd.
- Telecom Animation Film Co., Ltd.
- TMS Entertainment USA, Inc.
- TMS Music Co., Ltd.
- TMS Music (HK) Ltd.
- TMS Music (UK) Ltd.
- TMS Photo Co., Ltd.
- TOCSIS INC.
- Sega Toys
- Sega Toys (Hk) Co., Ltd.
We’ll see, for now chinese/korean publishers like Tencent, NetEase and Nexon have invested in stakes of japanese publishers, so it’s not that farfetched. I hope MS wouldn’t stand still if any of these companies would be on sale.
The SEGA structure diversified in Pachinko, leisure business, manga, anime, etc…is common practice for any other publisher, they are all horizontal companies, it’s a japanese tradition which goes back to imperial era (it’s true also for their biggest corps like Toyota, Sony, etc…), so if MS is interested in ANY of these companies, they can’t avoid it. That’s another roadblock for a potential MS acquisition.
As I said mutiple times, there are three ways for MS to improve their japanese/asian position: small steps strategy (indie support, marketing deals and better overall support), which is the one they are following now (clearly). BIG moves, like drop a Zenimax-level bomb acquiring one of the five aforementioned publishers, which would change Xbox perception there permanently, but it has several inherent hurdles. A somewhere in between strategy could be acquiring some independent studios along with the current plan, to speed up their progresses over there, which are still sloooow (I mean, the one and only studio they own over there is locked down until end 2023 most likely, SE and Atlus are still far from Xbox and overall support is better, but not stellar). Like everywhere else, there are many studios eager to sell, the issue is finding the right match for Xbox in Japan, not really easy. XD
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edit : my bad it does have some business outside of gaming but it’s not bloated like the others
Acquiring koei would be a good start
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I mean, they also have a pachinko sub-division and even a football accessories selling one. XD
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yeah i edit my post lol, but it’s not bloated as the others. their pachinko business is not that big.
“In our Amusement business segment, we run our Pachinko & Pachislot business and our Amusement Facilities Operations business. In our Pachinko & Pachislot business, we license KOEI TECMO IPs for use with Pachinko and Pachislot machines. We also plan and develop LCD software for those machines. In our Amusement Facilities Operations business, we operate the amusement facility “Tecmopia.””
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I still don’t find credible MS acquiring Koei Tecmo, the relationship is not there, nor the market share and user base for the area and customers they cover for the most part. SEGA and Bandai Namco would be the best targets, also Capcom, but as I said, it’s too entangled with Sony and Nintendo, while the other two are not (except for the Atlus situation).
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yeah i agree but i think everyone here knows that Sega or Capcom the best option/target. here i am talking about a start in market they haven’t invested in it yet. i mean let us be honest they only got tango just because zenimax owned them.
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Yep, from an external pov, they are making small and slow steps, because overall support is better than X1 gen, but not stellar and it comes from developers not really trusting (yet) their commitment. Tango, yeah, is a by-product of Zenimax, it was not the target of their move, not by any stretch of imagination. Considering their weak position over there, Ghostwire should have been “freed” by Sony moneyhat even more than Deathloop, but no, we have to wait until 2023 for that game and who knows until when for any Xbox game from them. So much for improving exclusive japanese line-up, which is still at 0…
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They can separate the Sega side though, I think the current structure makes it even easier.
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yeah kinda but i don’t think they will let go of sega that easy, remember they use their games IPs/tech in gambling business which is huge part of the company and why Sega Sammy net worth is more than $5B.
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Sega as company is in healthy position, their PC division doing very well and JP/Console side have been good and next year would be better with Soinc and maybe Atlus game. it’s hard to break through company in good shape unless you buy the parent company.
it’s why i always say Zenimax was such perfect deal came in perfect time that won’t be repeated
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Well the $5 Billion is probably what MS would pay. But there net worth(market cap) as of right now $3.75 Billion. And has usually hovered around there for the last few months.
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people forget Zenimax was in a very rough place a few years leading to the acquisition. Arkane’s games never sold anyway, Wolfenstein fucking up with New Blood, Fallout fucking up BIG with 76 launch, ZOS fucking up with ESO launch, TEW 2 sold considerably worse than TEW1 and Ghostwire seems to be in dev hell, etc. Perhaps DOOM was the only saving grace amidst all this. And this is ignoring all the weird politics at the board level.
Neither SEGA, Square Enix, Capcom (which is having its golden age), Take Two, EA, Ubisoft are anywhere close to having such a bad time in their history right now and have much fewer reasons to be up for sale compared to Zenimax. Zenimax type deal will likely never happen again, at least for several years.
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A perfect storm of sorts that lined up with xbox’s growing ambition and renewed focus on the gaming space.
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yep. Like it all just fell into place. Also btw, one of the few remaining private publishers that was genuinely massive int their IPs and studios. There’s literally no other publisher as big as Zenimax that’s private, let me know if I’m missing someone.
And just so happens Xbox is all in on WRPGs and shooters (like the OG Xbox days), who better to get than some of the best WRPG and Shooter devs out there all in one swoop?