If that makes other companies reconsider Ubisoft acquisiton in order not to deal with the lawsuits.
Yeah, after Activision, I’m not sure that this type of thing would make companies reconsider. Selfishly, for the sake of long-term employee well-being and benefits, I would like Microsoft to be the acquiring party. I’m well aware that there may be better targets from a content perspective; the gamer-mind in me has several other targets (many of you have heard them all for almost two years now) but the compassionate-mind in me thinks that few could turn around Ubisoft like Xbox could.
I am not sure if Microsoft will want to go after Ubisoft.
I have no idea what Ubisoft can do from here. I mean to stop their stocks from tanking they literally have to make Guillemot and co. hit the road (Kotick manoeuvre) and then perform thorough check from top to bottom.
But due to amount of staff, oversee from various worker unions in Europe I am not who (even inside Ubisoft) would want to be involved in that or up to the task. Especially if Europe wants to scrutinize american companies more regarding acquisitions that might affect European market - and Ubisoft is a huge european game developer.
I do wonder how long can Ubisoft stocks tank. Maybe Tencent or NetEase could grab them for cheap, but that won’t change anything inside Ubisoft. Ubisoft+ in GPU would be nice though
I’ll never explicitly state any of the knowledge I have unless I’m told I’m able to, and I’ve learned the lesson not to even tease anything lest I want a handful of articles written (without even being reached out to by the authors). So it’s why I simply stated what I think could be a viable target, but I agree with most of this.
It’s also important to remember that the Guillemot family owns the majority of the company and has fended off several buyouts/takeovers up to this point. Obviously things change, but I just thought it was worth mentioning for the community.
It depends on how activision goes, if it goes poorly I doubt they will think its worth the hassle (I think it will go fine lol) but if their is no issue I don’t see a reason Microsoft wouldn’t look at ubisoft. I wouldn’t say they are the only pick up Microsoft would look at but like unless the EU doesn’t want a foreign company to buy big companies I really don’t see anything stopping Microsoft from looking at them. I don’t care for Ubisoft though and would rather someone else buy them…maybe the Vivendi will try to buy them again since they were really close to acquiring them though a hostile take over at one point
What Microsoft should acquire is the Ryse IP.
Well they did but it was at the time when Ubisoft was in a strong position right? I mean, at one point they were 12b company but I won’t be surprised that Ubisoft will drop to 4b by the end of year for example.
But I think they own Ryse IP no? Ryse is still amazing looking game though.
I believe Crytek still owns it.
Absolutely, it’s why I mentioned that things change; eventually value can drop to the point that the rest of the board can heavily insist that they be sold, much like ABK.
Why not all of Crytek? I personally loved Ryse and have a spot for Crysis, but most importantly the CryEngine is still an impressive player that just needs the additional funding and support that Epic received over the years, and being part of Xbox and Game Stack could do just that. Prey is still an incredible example of how much better some of the systems were in that fork compared to UE4.
https://twitter.com/ZhugeEX/status/1494363607093686272?s=20&t=4_8XPY0VfW_lVkE9vwkDvg
they are not in the same position that they were before and Vivendi almost acquired them via hostile take over at one point, it was very close even if they managed to fight it off
Even if it isn’t buy Microsoft, they will probably be acquired within the next few years at best in my opinion (honestly I would put money on them being the next major publisher acquisition but thats just me)
Embracer can’t and won’t be stopped!
True Crytek would be a great acquisition because then it would allow Microsoft to have both the IPs to Crysis and Ryse as well as having another big engine with the CryEngine. I’m not sure if Crytek is looking to sell though since they did mention they wanted to remain independent a few years back.
I could see embracer buying team 17 tbh
Well, Sony doesn’t technically have to acquire them. They could merge with Square Enix but if Sony leads the board of directors, they essentially would own them without actually owning them if that makes sense. Point being is why take the risk? Microsoft needs to go get Crystal Dynamics and the Tomb Raider IP sooner rather than later in my opinion.
I’m well aware; I’ve even quoted that same exact statement in this thread. Simply reminding people that they’ve been in dire financial straits before and still pushed off buyouts.
didn’t realise that you knew
Microsoft will hardly, if ever, buy a support studio, they wouldn’t have Certain Affinity developing a new IP if that was the case. They’d rather hire people into the studios.
Crytek would be One of my favourite next acquisitions. So much talent into Crytek but lack of resources.
Nothing has come out of the Sekiro, Kojima, Nintendo or Ubisoft rumors from that shelf yet. I don’t know that we should put much stock into it until more of those hints turn into actual announcements.
That said, FromSoft would be a very unexpected acquisition at this stage. Elden Ring is a massive hit and I can’t imagine they have much interest in selling to anyone anytime soon, unless Microsoft were willing to go wayyyy over market value.
They just acquired a bunch of them in ABK. We’ll see how many branch off to work on their own games though, as COD almost certainly moves to a 2-3 year cadence.