Xbox Acquisition |OT5| Talking Exclusively About Xbox Acquisitions

Despite the person raising this as a joke, I did want to chime in about Konami for some context on their current position since they do come up a lot and people might be curious.

Konami is showing signs of being interested in leveraging more of it’s IP for traditional videogames to some extent. I say “more” because they never actually exited traditional videogames, they just slimmed operations down to it’s most profitable core - the soccer/football games, Yu-Gi-Oh, and a smattering of other things that most forum-going hardcore gamers don’t care about.

In 2019, they published a new Contra game developed by an external studio. This was small scale. In 2021, Bloober Team officially signed a deal with Konami to work on a game for them. That’s not a rumour - that was publicly announced (the rumour aspect is that it’s Silent HIll). Bloober works at the high end of AA or very low end of AAA in budget terms, but it is something.

Currently, Konami USA is hiring for a producer with the following description:

This would signal to me that they’re definitely planning to use more external developers to make games, even beyond what is known with Bloober. For like 4+ years now, Sony fans have been memeing or trying to manifest a bunch of Konami IP exclusive games, but in all seriousness, external companies partnering with Konami to develop games based on their IP now seems quite plausible.

As far as internal development, it doesn’t seem like they’re currently moving to expand much. They have internal teams but mostly just for some mobile games, YGO and E-Football (formerly known as Winning Eleven). This isn’t sexy or exciting for people ITT, but it does actually have value potentially. Just probably not nearly enough value to be worth pursuing in favour of the many other options. I don’t think even Sony would have significant enough synergies with the company overall to want to pursue something like this.

OTOH, I do also think they’re now interested enough in re-exploring traditional gaming that the other possibility of them selling off various IPs I think feels very unlikely. Based on their recent history, their hiring and so on, I think they’d rather just dip their toes in as opposed to selling the lot. They still enjoy back catalogue sales of a lot of stuff too, they leverage the IP for secondary things like Pachinko, etc.

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This may not exactly be a game studio acquisition but I think Microsoft should acquire a comic book/manga studio or build their own comic book/manga studio.

Unless they purchase the whole of WB/Discovery I don’t see that happening. MS tried getting into TV it failed. They partner with third parties when doing comic books or anime adaptions see the Halo comics and anime movie.

They don’t really need to get into the business unless they buy a super popular IP catalog like DC or something like the Shonen Jump Cato log.

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Is Disney on the table?

I chuckled. You’re kidding right?

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People forget that Microsoft used to make internet tv boxes, so it’s not too out there for Microsoft to dip its toes into purchasing some one like WB or Paramount. The most funny potential purchase would be Disney.

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I was just wondering why Tencent is trending on Twitter lol

honestly, yeah MS could really use some support studios, Halo infinites launching as it did was sort of disappointing but forgivable but the fact it is yet to get those modes or many maps (has it even got any post release yet) is laughable, honestly halo infinite had a great oppitunity releasing between a broken battlefield and one of the least popular CoD (granted it was still CoD but you know) so it could of really had a great chance to stand out and be big this year but 343 really failed

I stick with my prediction that if Microsoft buys a movie/TV company they will get paromount but unless apple, amazon and other big companies Microsoft is competing against start getting agressive in those areas I doubt Microsoft will but if they do I could see Microsoft picking up 1 or 2 things as assets to carry onto in the future

yeah but I doubt anyone will buy disney, in 2020 they were in one of their weakest states and apple was positioned in a great place to pick them up but they didn’t and if no one picked them up then I doubt anyone will now

While WB/Discovery would be a huge get I don’t think it would be possible anytime soon. I was more thinking about them acquiring just any comic/manga publisher and growing them because comics/manga would be a good way to have a continuous flow of new IP and if one becomes successful it could eventually turn into a game. Or they could do something similar to the way Webtoon’s are formatted and allowing users to create their own comic series.

It would be a way for Microsoft to not have to deal with licensing issues if they own the IP.

it feels like a bad get in my opinion, haven’t comics been losing popularity for a while now and I can’t really speak on manga but isn’t that usually outsourced by an artist by a publishing branch, I am not certain but I believe the artist usually retains the rights (if I am wrong let me know)

Definitely not with Manga and sites like Webtoon where there has been a ton of growth in that space the past few years.(Top 25 Best-Selling Manga of 2021; Jujutsu Kaisen, Tokyo Revengers & More)

I think the issue with comics is that there really isn’t much of a competitor in that space other than Marvel/DC. But imagine Microsoft getting into it and developing comics based off of Halo, Gears, Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Sea of Thieves, Minecraft, Ori, Banjo, Conker, Fable, etc.

With the ABK acquisition Spencer indicated he’s focused on gaming. Recall he said he believes Microsoft can be to gaming as Amazon is to shopping, Google is to search, and Facebook is to social.

Obviously that doesn’t preclude Microsoft from expanding into more types of entertainment, but if their goal is to be the market leader in gaming then they have a lot more work to do, including gaining market share internationally, and staying focused is the right move.

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What world do you live in? It’s all work for hire.

I think if they were going to expand it would be with movies either way not manga or comics and the only way I see them expanding into movies is if apple or google start scooping up large companies but unless that happens I agree

I thought the stuff like daily jump only distributed and published the mangas

Buying Disney now come on, thats just silly

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The ultimate acquisition. Phil bringing Marvel’s Spiderman to Xbox by force

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I think Asobo would be a good fit for Xbox. Especially since I would love to see a Crimson Skies reboot using the Microsoft Flight Simulator engine. Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge Playthrough - YouTube

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Its funny seeing twitter suddenly become like this thread over the SoP. Its all “sony must have bought wb games”. Gives me weird deja vu

Let them dream lol