And also explains the value of ABK - King (mobile stuff, Candy Crush), Activision (COD) and Blizzard (WoW, Overwatch).
BGS was an interesting case but I guess, it is due to the legs of Bethesda games.
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I don’t see them getting away with anymore publishers or super large acquisitions. With regulators and scrutiny so high for ABK, another major publisher would only get worse. A smaller studio here or there would be fine, but they already have gotten or will get one of the big 3 of which I call ABK, EA, and Ubi. One of the smaller pubs in Bethesda. If Xbox was it’s own company and not a part of Microsoft no one would even look twice, but being arguably the largest more powerful company in the world the more they buy up the harder it is going to be. I would love to be surprised though, nothing is impossible. I so think when they start having to make concessions is it worth it at that point when they are smaller fish around to look at?
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Bethesda games are insanely huge, Skyrim and Fallout 4 sold really well.
I think Capcom is a nice fit, isn’t super huge and has big IPs like MH and RE.
They wouldn’t get Dragon Quest. That IP is owned by Horii, through his company Armor Project, which I believe is actually just him and his wife. Armor Project just has an exclusive publishing contract with Square.
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The conclusion is that acquisitions are unpredictable.
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TT with Lego games?
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It’s funny, when people were freaking out about the WB rumors I was going to say we need to get use to Xbox not being able to grab everything.
I would expect the same for WB. Might be able to get a studio or two (unless they’re able to lock them down for after the ABK deal).
Personally, if I was at Xbox I’d be going for the independent partner studios (and NetherRealm) if at all possible.
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No point as Microsoft will have E-rated studios with ABK. I see T2 getting TT. Simply because T2 got Lego license recently.
It is not about getting everything. It is about getting something that make sense. They hired CD to make The Initiave. And keep in mind that they did that in September - before ABK deal at all. If Square West was for sale for quite some time - why did not Microsoft buy them earlier? They certainly could. But they decided to hire them instead.
The same reason why I believe Sega acquisition won’t happen - Microsoft would not enter the alliance then.
It shows two things - despite having tons of money Microsoft won’t purchase random studios and their goal in acquisitions is not just getting studios or some IPs at all.
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You say this, but there have been a few people posting in here acting like Microsoft can buy 1-2 more major publishers with no issue just because of the importance of a few IP.
If Microsoft goes for another publisher, I believe it’ll be on the medium to small end (in comparison to the big ones like T2/EA/BN).
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What? I am not saying that Microsoft is not gonna buy publishers anymore. I actually believe that Microsoft will acquire more big publishers if the opportunity arises. It has no relation to CD acquisition. If T2 is for sale, Microsoft will go after them.
We can just write off anything that does not provide the big engagement value. GTA, FF14, Monster Hunter are certainly provide big engagment numbers.
That’s a fact that they are not willing to sell the IP with the studios?
But if we look at the early acquired studios by Xbox they didn’t come with any real IP either. Obsidian, Compulsion to name a few. With Rocksteady, Monolith, WB Montreal for example they’d still get very talented teams and also devs that can close that AAA action adventure gap.
It’s not likely they will go for another humongous acquisition like ABK after that’s done, they’ll go back to buying smaller ones, these WB ones are perfect.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, because grabbing major publishers like T2 is exactly what I mean by “buy everything” mentality.
I’m not saying that they won’t buy WB studios, just saying they won’t come with IP.
It would be crazy to sell the MK IP off for instance.
Except that’s literally not buying everything, just your personal definition lol.
It’s not literally everything, but acting like Microsoft going for the top 3 game publishers (that aren’t first party or Tencent) isn’t overkill is insane to me.
But for example MS could make a deal to have a new MK be made by NR of they acquired them and have it drop on Game Pass, or any other WB game. Personally I don’t even care if it would or wouldn’t be exclusive neither. But Game Pass day one would be fantastic.
Sure they could, my initial post was just stating that none of interested parties are getting the IPs to own.
Eh, I personally don’t think they are after EA, Ubisoft, or Take Two. It’s just the latest game forum speculation.
There was the opportunity to clear that situation up in buying them.
It’s a lot less likely that Embracer would agree to a sequel, because they probably aren’t that dumb.
Square Enix on the other hand:
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Idk, Embracer is allowing Gearbox to continue working with T2 on Borderlands, so they seem to at least like a safe payday.
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