It is not like publishers are not replaced. I mean we saw the collapse of THQ & Midway, we saw the collapse of Bethesda and ABK, we are seeing the collapse of WB and Ubisoft. But we get new publishers that replace them. It is not a big deal.
In fact it seems like unless you have tons of studios, you cannot survive anymore. You either find a huge money cow (FIFA, GTA, FF14) or you go down (Ubisoft, WB, Bethesda) if you are unable to produce a lot of games.
I think this news is proof of that, where was Embracer a few years ago that they’d be buying Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal today.
But consolidating that much power into one company for an industry doesn’t seem dangerous at all to you?
That’s my point here.
What is the dangerous there? We have tens of publishers big and small. New games pop up left and right.
This deal shows you never know what is gonna happen. We didn’t hear a thing about this deal from anyone just like the activision deal
An additional thought, my biggest personal hope out of any acquisition involving Square Enix’s western teams was that Microsoft would get a hold of Life is Strange (and a studio to work on it, since both Dontnod and Deck Nine are independent). I think that is a franchise which is on the edge of success/failure right now and being on a service like game pass where it can find an audience without a hefty entrance fee would be of strong benefit to it. Plus I think story driven content like this would be of benefit to game pass in general, particularly if it was episodic. Interesting to note that these were not included in the sale, so, I guess it’s still sorta possible.
I have to disagree here I’ve heard this one speculated about often just the buyer that is surprising. Embracer group definitely got a great deal though. Also all will definitely remain multi platform unfortunately the quality will dip because the games I’ve played from embracer group as a publisher are not top quality. They are definitely not a top tier publisher that puts loads of budget behind their games hopefully that changes.
ubisoft doesn’t have huge bro assassin creed is one of the biggest IP lol
This is the stupidest take
Do you all realize that Gearbox is owned by Embracer Group yet they continue to work with 2k on Borderlands?
Not every game that Embracer Groups studios works on is even published by Embracer.
We’ve definitely been talking about Square Enix selling it’s Western branches for a while but I have no idea if this started from a rumour or if we’ve just been speculating. Either way my general reaction was “Eh they probably wouldn’t sell their Western teams alone” so shows what I know.
Also it miiight be a little too soon to say what this would mean for any budgets, Embracer has bought a lot of small studios that get appropriately small budgets but I’ve seen nothing to say they’d cheap out on the big ones.
Imo there are a few possibilities why Microsoft didn’t pick them up.
Just woke up did I miss anything (;
i think they r going for wb nd thats why they didnt risk for CD
Which ones to you think would be less than likely and more than likely, in regards to Japanese dev, in partnering or being acquired by Xbox?
Biggest bet would be Itagaki Games, Cyberconnect2, Platinum Games, Mistwalker, and White Owl being top contenders in my opinion
I would include Tri-Ace, but i do not recall the last time they released a game to an xbox platform.
That’s a lot of talent for dirt cheap. But the fact that Sony couldn’t even get that deal, which is entirely in their miniscule budget, says a lot.
CD, Eidos, and SE Montreal, under the watchful eye and assistance of PlayStation Studios, could have resulted in AAA blockbusters with the same level of hype and anticipation as all of Sony’s other cinematic games.
And we all know MS could have used these sorts of games, but I know that Sony would have taken their hype levels to another level in a way MS can’t.
MS missed out on having 3 big narrative heavy titles every 2-3 years, a hole in their game roster, but Sony having that in addition to its roster could have really made the PlayStation THE place for cinematic games. Sony themselves know how to add that 10% of polish to raise these games to another level, it’s undeniable.
Maybe the most succinct way of saying this is that PlayStation Studios would have been a multiplier effect on the output of these teams.
So MS definitely missed out. When fanboys say “Xbox has no games” a lot of them are really saying “Xbox has no cinematic games”. To them, Wasteland 3, Psychonauts 2, State of Decay 2, and Forza Horizon aren’t games. It’s silly and ridiculous but brand perception is brand perception. So MS missed out on filling a hole with high quality devs for dirt cheap.
But I would argue that Sony missed out a bit more. For $300 mil (completely within their budget) they could have had a lock on cinematic titles and they would have been a force multiplier on the output. They also could have added a decent backlog to their new Playstation Plus revamp.
These games will now hit both platforms, but at levels of hype and fanfare that typical 3rd party games get. I think PlayStation Studios (even from a marketing perspective) could have really elevated the attention the games would get, in addition to their quality.
From an industry perspective, it’s also interesting because it might change how people view MS’s growth. Embracer was flying under the radar from so many gaming news outlets that they finally have to address the elephant in the room.
Has MS picked up these devs, the “monopoly” rhetoric would have went into overdrive from these same outlets. This now has people finally paying attention to Embracer, even if it’s not with the same vigor.
I don’t believe Microsoft will go for any small studio. Some publishing deal at best. I don’t see Satya discussing with Phil the acquisition of Cyberconnect2 
Your picks line up with mine basically.
tri-ace is coming back to Xbox with the next Star Ocean. Their track record is quite spotty lately IMO but that could be because of Square Enix mismanagement.
Hand wringing over any of this is pointless. It comes down to the simple fact that MS decided not to do it and they have their reasons, whatever those may be. The how, what, why of it is irrelevant because it is done.
And if it is them playing it safe with the ABK deal, that is fine. A single COD title likely sells more than everything produced by Embracer’s 124 studios combined. As was mentioned, there is a reason why ABK sold for ~226x the amount.
We don’t know if there is any legal obligation regarding Borderlands. And the studios went to an owner that obviously values them higher than SE.
The chance that partnership continues got obviously smaller and is far from “the stupidest take”
These studios are some of the crown jewels for Embracer. I don’t think they want to waste them, by letting them work on IP they don’t own.
Oh, that’s another clear difference to Borderlands 
How many AAA titles you can afford before collapsing? There is a reason why Sony and other companies are going after GaaS. They can always produce AAA single player games but you need something to sustain the output. The budgets of AAA games is comparable to this whole acquisition.