A man can dream can’t he. FromSoft, is a dream acquisition. Not likely, but would be incredible.
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Things take time no? The only problem is announcing things in a advance by they take time.
I don’t think the situation is as definitive as you make it out to be. Some of the usual support partners already got bought and that most likely had an impact on the development of current and future games.
Not hard to imagine that Microsoft re-evaluates the situation, especially for important partners.
Didn’t Amazon do this with Crackdown 3? I remember they went as far as to take the tech that was being used and denied it for Microsoft to use, then again I am probably remembering wrong.
Absolutely, but people keep ascribing every little thing on that shelf to a big acquisition, Game Pass deal or major partnership. However, we’ve seen nothing yet to suggest that the majority of the things on his shelf are much more than things Phil just thinks are cool.
Obviously there could be something to everything and they just haven’t come to fruition yet, but I don’t know why each new shelf item is worthy of speculation considering how little has translated into actual announcements thus far.
I don’t get the obsession with Square Enix either, every game they’ve made has flopped, yes even FF7 Remake underperformed and FF14 is pretty much carrying the company right now. Also they’ve had more duds than any other major publisher recently. Balan Wonderworld, Quiet Man, Babylon falls etc.
Capcom is so far above Square Enix that it isn’t even funny
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I see square as a more likely pick up due to their recent flops but I think capcom is a much better pick up. Like they have veriety, massive IPs, tons of talent and amazing tech like the RE engine
I personally prefer Capcom too, I like quite a few of their titles past and present.
The only titles I like from Square are from CD or Eidos. Final Fantasy is a beast (even though I don’t like it).
Issue with junk that SE produces can be resolved (just watch Dark Age of Bethesda videos), but SE has impressive output and some big IPs. And heavily relies on FF14 (aside monehats) for their revenue streams thus can be a realistic acquisition (I for example don’t see Sega Sammy selling off Sega Corp. and Capcom is very successful right now)
Maybe, but I think their philosophy is hiring what’s needed than buying out a studio, especially if they are creative, Xbox has plenty of engine makers and specialists studios (T10, Playground, TC, Id and etc) and now they’ll add more with ABK, plus the spawn of new studios and such also means support studios will be always needed if not more than ever in the industry.
The issue was entirely with 343i and their reckless overuse of outsourcing rather than having effective employees, Halo Anniversary and especially MCC were developed by 3-4 third party studios.
IMO they will return to be title creators rather than support studio (fucking hell, the whole side of Activision became one IP company) the cadence is definetely to help that.
MS would only ever buy the western side of SE. The Japanese side have no need to sell.
Final Fantasy hasn’t been on Xbox platforms for a while and the most successful game in SE history FF 14 still isnt available.
Selling off the western division though to fund more games from the Japanese devs to me makes a lot of sense.
what do you the mean the Japanese end has no reason to sell? To maximise shareholder wealth seems like a good reason to me, like thats the only reason for publicly traded companies existence, they are legally obligated to try and maximise shareholders investment so if they sold to microsoft they would basically just let their shareholders cash out
Anyone else think acquisitions are no longer as exciting if all the games hit other platforms anyways?
I still can’t understand the logic of call of duty still releasing to Playstation, much like I don’t understand why new Minecraft IP (dungeons) hit other platforms.
People are always saying call of duty is too big, well, if we quote Paris Lilly, “You don’t spend 12 billion to keep things the same” and this Activison deal is magnitudes bigger. If I recall Phil even liked this tweet. Why spend 70 BILLION to keep it all the same ? Make some big plays MS, this is your chance to dominate the market after all these years…
Sure, more “free” games on GamePass is nice, but if MS buys stuff it should be exclusive to their ecosystem.
No, I find it quite the opposite, why would I want less people to be able to play a game
they aren’t keeping it the same though, thats just 1 IP and that IP probably won’t touch another game subscription service either due to the acquisition, the rest of the IPs will probably go exclusives
They are making good money with thier current portfolio, Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts are the healthiest they have ever been by being mainly on Playstation platforms.
There is no sense especially in selling to MS and I don’t believe MS would ever be interested.
As I am not in “all the games are hitting other platforms camp” I am excited for acquisitions.
I can’t speak on MS being intrested but lets say Microsoft did approach square (this is just a hypothetical) and made a good offer, why would the shareholders care past the acquisition, they have already cashed out, thats like saying the activision shareholders would be worried about all future activision games (minus CoD obviously) missing the PlayStation release
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It was in the best interest of both Acti and Bethesda to sell due to the lawsuits that were coming and the games that were always underperforming.
For SE, they have a lucrative brand in FF and KH, DQ which are all mainly PS. Selling to MS where these games have no mindshare makes no sense. Instead, selling off the western division then channeling that money into thier eastern side would be wise.
For whom? Looking at how SE operates they do not even care about their own IPs or games. Like EGS time exclusive deal for FF7R PC and a crappy port at that - it is a combo even 
I wonder how many of their stakeholders are even playing games. They also did not bother to buy Nixxes (the studio that made a lot of good ports of their games) and it went to Sony.
They are not bothering in growing their own IPs, constantly make junk and rely on FF14 for everything (and unable to find money to upgrade the servers). I have no idea what are they doing at this point.
I’ve said it more than enough times: bitching about exclusivity and console warring are off-topic, and the latter isn’t welcome on the forums.
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