Count the Japanese publishers out then. I can’t see them happening without at least Switch being allowed on at least some titles
How many titles Capcom released on Switch? Aside Monster Hunter platform-like game?
Their support for it is going up. MH Rise of course, but also MH Stories 2 (not a platform game), that Ghost n Goblins remake was a timed exclusive, and according to the leaks they may have an exclusive RE Revelations-type game in development for it.
We hadn’t this new info. XD
Serious question: Which scenario would you prefer?
- Amazon or Sony buys your favorite third party publisher and makes it exclusive
- Microsoft buys your favorite third party publisher, makes it multiplatform and available Day One on GP
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Microsoft buying a publisher and make the games exclusive (I mean if Sony can in your statement, why Microsoft can’t).
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The only correct answer.
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They can wish it happens, but no matter how smooth the talker they hire, Capcom has shown no interest in selling, so they’d need to offer significantly above market cap just to get them to agree, and then significantly invest in staff retention efforts, because Nintendo will absolutely leap to poach the Monster Hunter team (now more than ever with news that they are expanding). One reason that helped Nintendo kill the Vita was locking down Monster Hunter. They deeply care about that franchise. They’d try their best to get that team and put them to work on “Creature Slayer, from the team behind Monster Hunter”
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EA’s sports titles would be massive for Game Pass, even with the licensing issues. Imagine having a service that has Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Madden, and NHL dropping Day One. Even if those titles remained multiplatform, I just don’t see too many scenarios where a casual gamer says no to Game Pass.
Having said that, you are right about EA Play (more specifically EA Play Pro). That could be an issue for Microsoft and the regulators.
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And you know that because? I mean people underestimate how ATVI deal changed the gaming landscape. Though I expected Capcom being 10b-12b acquisition in the current market.
Microsoft will just keep Monster Hunter available on Switch.
Still, they are not owned IP and Microsoft doesn’t like to deal with licensed IPs. What is gonna happen if some company will get the licenses and will decide to remove the content from Game Pass.
For now - as I can see - out of big publishers the only viable options for Microsoft are T2, Sega, Capcom. Microsoft is deeply aware about their lack of Japanese content. Bamco relies too much on licenses, Square Enix is so so and so on.
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I was talking about Sony buying them
Oh. I suspect that even Sony would keep Monster Hunter multiplatform. At least some Switch version. But it is really hard to say. I would rather believe that Sony won’t go after Capcom.
Well for MS, that Capcom price is chump change. For Sony, it’s like, their entire acquisition budget? Maybe surpasses it?
I’m only going to say this one more time, since some apparently missed the last two messages over the last week. Bitching about whether acquisitions result in non-exclusivity belongs in the other threads focused around the source of such concern for some of you. This is the acquisitions thread.
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The question less about budget (Sony has some options but unlike Microsoft (no matter what people believe) they really can’t throw around billions on publisher acquisitions) but more about strategy. Sony doesn’t buy studios for no reason. To buy a publisher you need a specific reason aka - we need a lot of content. Sony doesn’t show any desire going into that direction at all. Even with Spartacus (in whatever state it arrives), I don’t see them going the same route as Microsoft which is “we need to produce as much content as possible”.
Microsoft buys publishers to get a lot of IPs and workforce that would produce the content for Game Pass. They realized that just buying studios is not enough - it takes time to grow and develop games. But publishers already have a roadmap, developers and IPs so it is just more effective to go after them.
Companies do not make consoles because they want to make PCs. Anyway, most of the people who want Game Pass on Playstation, usually want to play everything on Playstation and that’s not what Microosft wants.
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I would argue that when it comes to a yearly sports title, owning the IP isn’t nearly as important as having the title Day One. Very few people are likely going to hit up Game Pass to go back to play Madden 20.
Where I do agree is that Microsoft is not in the business of licensing IP as a general rule, especially for their story based titles. I don’t see them licensing a Star Wars, Marvel or DC IP anytime soon. Heck, I firmly believe Microsoft would not have agreed to the Indiana Jones deal if they were involved at the time, unless it was a ‘just keep Todd happy’ sorta deal.
FIFA is already pivoting towards F2P model and it will become F2P sooner or later. Maybe even coming day 1 on Xbox Game Pass (due to release Day 1 in EA Play).
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Ubisoft makes sense for EA to acquire.
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