Most of the JP Publishers are majorly family owned is the thing, that or there is so much “disassembly” required as most of them have a ton of non gaming divisions.
I think Capcom and Koei Tecmo are the only publisher options that don’t require disassembly but that just goes back to the family owned point as both of these are. And Capcom as we all know would require a very very big premium because of how successful they are now (not that MS can’t afford it, but rather would they want to pay it?)
The amount of publishers does not matter. It is all about market.
Until recently they were in the process of merge with Discovery. Before that AT&T offered to buy WB without any IP for 4b. Now that the merged is done, the situation is gonna be interesting and I won’t be surprised if the gaming will be sold (unless somebody will grab the whole Discovery at once).
Square is not cheap having a market cap of 5.7 billion so lets say they would cost 8 billion. Its a move Sony could definitely make but I wouldn’t put money on it, its a move that I see as a 50/50 but if other companies jump in and it becomes a bidding war which is possible then F to sony in my opinion
bruh, Microsoft is literally buying Activision, I think that shows we shouldn’t limit who Microsoft would buy/try to buy. I am not saying Microsoft won’t buy either of these (granted I doubt microsoft will buy WB games because without the licenses they just are not a great buy due to the lack of notable IPs which will drive people to game pass). My honest prediction with WB games is that WB discovery as a whole will be sold off and acquired by either apple or amazon (I would guess Apple)
they could just try to buy the gaming division or sell off the other divisions (like if they bought square they could sell the anime division to sony or namco)
after activision I 100% believe Microsoft would have 0 issue paying a meaty premium and most companies I am looking at as potential microsoft acquisitions like take two would require big premiums anyway
I will say this, Microsoft buying Square-Enix feels more likely than some people write off, I wouldn’t say its the most likely acquisition by a long shot but it makes quite a bit of sense as Microsoft already has a strangle hold on WRPG’s, buying SE would expand that to a stangle hold of RPG’s as a whole (Granted it wouldn’t be as strong as the stangle hold is with WRPG’s). I would probably put it in the top 5 most likely future acquisitions within gaming by Microsoft but I also wouldn’t be shocked if either sony or maybe even tencent picks them up
WB games without the IPs is a shell of itself, I think they should of sold it off with the gaming IPs (like mortal kombat) and a timed period with exclusive WB IP game rights, not permanent but like a 10 year contract or something, I think that could of boosted their value tramendicly and made them a better buy for companies like Microsoft focusing on a subscription service as it would give them a good period where they could get them on new IPs and build them up gradually and boost the subscription service numbers and console numbers due to all the back catolog on the subscription service and exclusive WB games on their console/subscription service
Discovery just bonded out 30 billion to fund streaming content for when the merger completes later this quarter. My opinion is they will sell those studios as soon as possible or after games start releasing. Hopefully Microsoft will be ready to pull the trigger. Hogwarts just shows how talented those Devs are.
But they already release various series on various subscription services. It seems like Microsoft is in favor of Paramount, while Bethesda was in favor of Amazon
Honestly outside of tomb raider I much prefer Square Enix’s games from their asian studios but if Microsoft bought Square I would just laugh and head to twitter to see the meltdown because square and sony have always been closly nit and had the strongest connection even if square has a decent relationship with all platform holders being honest granted out of the 3 Microsoft is probably the weakest but you know the fanboys would be having a meltdown
they have connections with nintendo which are just as strong as sony but I meant from a gamers perspective, I am a nintendo fan and before the switch most people thought nintendo and square still had bad blood since the PS1 from a casual perspective, people thought square was incredibly stingy with smash content and thought it was some result of an unsolid relationship until sephiroth where Sakurai straight up said the real reason. I would say since the Wii at lastest the bad blood between square and nintendo was gone but square jumping ship to PlayStation and FF7 being exclusive to the PS1 and not being on nintendo consoles back then is a big moment in gaming history
I’ve never associated Square and Sony. Square has always been associated with Nintendo to me. Sony just poached final fantasy after Nintendo got it going but even that was a Nintendo franchise
All these “historical” ties are completely irrelevant. People come and go and retire. And as old guard in Japan is retiring we see more and more games on Xbox. If Sony moneyhatted Starfield and TES6, would you say the next gen that “Bethesda is associated with Sony anyway”?
All this old ties and so on exist everywhere and sometimes they even drag the game down.
