Capcom was a better buy before the Embracer acquisition IMO.
Now CD and Eidos are gone I would rate Capcom way over SE.
My personal favourite is still SEGA.
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The only strong thing that goes for Square Enix is FF14 and FF IP. Also a lot of ties with various studios - considering the amount of games they produce. A lot of junk of course.
Capcom has more in-house IPs, also has big GaaS IP aka Monster Hunter and unlike FF it does not rely on a single MMO but has multiple GaaS like games. The only bothersome thing is that ties that Resident Evil franchise has with Sony - especially after REVillage marketing deal etc. Other IPs seems moved away from association with Sony.
Not a GaaS.
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Is not updated often. Gets a few updates early on then goes dead for over a year till a big expansion. They don’t do these “10 year lifespan plans” for them
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No seasons or battle pass or item shop (not necessarily required for GaaS but most have them)
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Highly important - No microtransactions which is the most salivating part of GaaS. Closest thing is a small few amount of cosmetic packs that almost nobody buys
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Can’t even play the story modes in Coop. Again, not necessarily needed for GaaS but it’s highly a part of them
MH games are pretty much content complete at launch and then get a few updates for the first 3 or 4 months, then go dead for a year+ till the G Expansion is released.
Now MS could try and turn it into a GaaS pillar but they’d have to be really, REALLY fucking careful about going about this.
The MH Team already said they don’t want to make it into a GaaS as well.
I don’t think they would force that on the Monster Hunter team when that have like 20+ GAAS titles either out or coming soon. I think they would be fine
That’s only a rumor from Tom Henderson
As much as my first thought of MS missing out on Square Enix, after more time to reflect and think on it, I have to think MS has bigger fish in mind.
The fish that I think they’d want is Warner Bros. Interactive’s video game studios and then change the publisher’s name back to Midway.
Getting this company would give MS a fighter studio to make Killer Instinct, another developer to make family friendly games maybe bring back Viva Pinata as MS’ version of Animal Crossing , the third person action adventure studios people want and give a few more RPG developers to make it truly known Xbox is the home for RPGs.
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I don’t think that WB is a bigger fish there. Without DC IPs they are essentially a group of studios (NRS aside of course).
But I do agree that after a second though Square Enix is not a good deal for Microsoft simply because Square Enix is a mess internally and aside FF14 they literally have nothing else in comparison to ABK or even Bethesda. Yes FF14 generates a big engagement but FF mainline does not have long legs like Bethesda games and other IPs that SE are mostly partial (KH and DQ). They do make a lot of JRPGs though, games that Xbox lacks.
I think Capcom is a bigger fish for Microsoft. But they do need to plug the hole with JRPG one way or another. Square Enix can plug that hole, but their internal mess might not worth it. All in all, we should rely on Phil Spencer - he has some acumen there looking at the history of acquisitions since he has taken over.
Game Pass needs diversity. Reliable diversity. They cannot miss the whole genre of games - Xbox simply is not a reliable platform if you are into japanese stuff. That’s not the way.
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By bigger fish you mean a publisher that has iconic ips aswell that it generate a ton of funds like abk with cod?
Went through various japanese publishers
- Bamco: 15b market cap, 7.4b revenue, 0.85b profit. A lot of licensed IPs aside probably Soul Calibur & Tekken
- Square Enix: 4.8b market cap, 3.14b revenue, 0.57b profit. FF IP, Nier, KH (partial), DQ (partial)
- Sega: 4b market cap, 2.7b revenue, 0.3b profit. Sonic mascot, Yakuza, Personaa & bunch of dead IPs
- Capcom: 5.6b market cap, 1b revenue, 0.42b profit. RE, DMC, Monster Hunter, SF
None of them are that exciting to be honest. None of them are comparable to the revenue and engagement values of the western juggernauts (though that is basically why their market caps are so small I believe). Literally buying T2 is a better option, but as Phil Spencer said multiple time that they want to have a strong position in Asia too so they will probably get something there.
Out of them only Square Enix has big engagement values (due to FF14) and arguably Capcom (a lot of solid IPs). Sega is building their Super Game initiative but they are essentially a lesser Bethesda there. Bamco mainly relies on third party properties for now and their inhouse IPs are not that big at all.
There is also that notion regarding what’s gonna be exclusive or what won’t be. I think for a lot of Capcom’s IPs nobody will care much. And unlike Square Enix, Capcom does not release much on Switch either (Monster Hunter can be kept “available”).
Bandai Namco owns the Souls IP and (likely) Elden Ring. Publisher on both series.
Square has just become dramatically less attractive for a purchase for either Sony or Microsoft, imo. The loss of multiple veteran AAA studios (including one literally working for MS right now) and one big (+ several not so big) IPs is a blow for both, and Sony in particular would have wanted to retain proven cross-media IP like Tomb Raider.
Out of the remaining ones, I’d say Capcom and Sega are the only ones particularly attractive to Microsoft. Capcom is very strong in terms of core AAA gaming, but has marginal mobile and service game representation.
I am not convinced we’ll see MS make a move at any of these people, though. You can make a case for several, but once they’ve digested Activision I think they have plenty of lucrative global IPs, plenty of big service games, a strong mobile division, and so on. They can supplement this with (non-acquisition) deals quite happily for under-represented areas. Or found new teams. Or buy smaller individual developers rather than publishers.
Now, of course, after ActiBliz I’m not ever going to say “definitely never again”. OTOH I do think they’re unquestionably in an extremely strong position to grow in marketshare and revenue without more.
Sega would be the best out of the big Japanese devs to go with Sega, they have a good history together since the first Xbox, the supergames on their way with that MS partnership for cloud just solidifies this, and their games, while Japanese in nature, are still quite popular with the Xbox western audience.
Plus it has the potential of bringing Virtua Fighter back to Xbox and the huge Sega back catalog to Gamepass.
To me a Sega purchase is written on the wall, it’s only a matter of time!
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I think Bamco owns publishing rights at best. Similar like Gearbox, Borderlands and 2K. FromSoftware are very strict with their IP ownership (Bloodborne aside though).
Not really. For Sony they don’t really need those studios as their in-house studios produce the same content. For Microsoft - hard to say - but I think the problem with Square West was those Marvel IPs and support of Avengers. So it was offloaded. Considering the low profit margins, Square Enix has become more attractive as they now will have bigger profit margins. People overestimate Square Enix West value there.
After ABK they will become stronger ,but they still won’t be in unquestionably strong position at all. They will get serious presence in PC and mobile market (King + Blizzard games). But they still need a reliable japanese studios. Only then they will become complete all rounder. Maybe some superhero IP for collection too. Ideally they need to fill these niches
- Fighting games
- JRPG
- Superhero IP
Miyazaki has gone on record that Dark Souls is an IP owned by Bandai-Namco in an interview. Namco also owns the Trademark.
Elden Ring we have not had the same kind of official comment, but B-N owns the trademark and publishing rights at minimum.
I believe the Sekiro IP belongs to FromSoft. You might expect that Elden Ring “definitely” would belong to FromSoft, however we cannot be certain of that. It’s plausible it belongs to B-N.
Microsoft and Sony are both thirsty for studios in North America and keep buying and opening them. They want more staff, too, aggressively hiring at every single location in America and Canada they own - literally hundreds of open jobs for studios in MUCH more expensive places than Montreal (where ~700+ of the 1100 jobs are located from the Eidos sale). Microsoft has multiple Canadian studios, Sony just bought a Montreal based studio less than a few months ago. Montreal is the tax-break capital of the gaming world, there is nowhere on Earth where you have the same combination of generous government fiscal assistance and such a high concentration of developers in the talent pool. Crystal Dynamics is good enough that Microsoft hired them to be the bulk of development resources for Perfect Dark.
Square Enix’ HD games division has wobbled in and out of profitability on a quarterly basis, and sometimes even an annual basis over the last 4-5 years. However, according to Square Enix’ own statements during the sale announcement, the Eidos component that they are selling off now was slightly profitable over the last few years, meaning that it was not actually the least profitable part of the “HD games” division.
Even if you think that the studios would be undesirable for Microsoft or Sony (imo, not true at all, even if they just wanted them as staffing resources on their existing projects), they would both still want the IP, and they would both still want the back catalogue of games. Microsoft is running Gamepass, Sony is retooling their own subscription option. Guess what both subscriptions benefit from? Loads of games! S-E just sold off the publishing rights to over 50 games, many of which could have been directly, permanently added to any subscription service.
I’m not arguing there aren’t “holes” where you could imagine something else fitting in, but rather, that the subscription service is undeniably incredibly attractive. Activision-Blizzard allows them to, if nothing else, add almost every year’s best selling game going back to 2009, one of the top selling franchises of all time. Tens of millions of people buy Call of Duty every year like clockwork. That’s massive, no matter what. Then add a bunch of Blizzard games, a back catalogue of other games (Tony Hawk, Spyro/Crash), whew lad that’s a big get for gamepass on all platforms.
Then add that to what Microsoft already owns and operates including Bethesda, I don’t see how anyone could be like “oh, that’s not an unquestionably strong position”. It’s an extremely strong position! It could still be even stronger if you added more, yep, but it’s very, very good.
Yeah I posted this a few weeks ago.
https://twitter.com/KoreaXboxnews/status/1514634714212335617
All those game announcements were from that single week. So many PC/Switch/PS releases. Remember when NISA announced a big set of Trails games “Coming to All Platforms”, by which they meant PC/Switch/PS?
I should also note that almost all of these are: JRPGs, Visual Novels, and there’s a Fighting Game in there. Made in Abyss is from “Good Xbox partner” Spike Chunsoft and Super Robot Wars 30 is from “Good Xbox partner” Bandai Namco as well.
The game at the bottom, Kuro no Kiseki, was later announced for PC and Falcom wants to put it on Switch too, so that will join the exclusively not on Xbox gang. And I’m sure NISA will get Grimgrimoire and Yomawari on PC once it comes to the West. so another exclusively not on Xbox. Blazblue is on Switch, it’s just not getting rollback netcode so it wasn’t listed there. Another exclusively not on Xbox.
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Priority after Activision/Blizzard closes is to diverse content to appeal to more in North America and Europe.
The only thing they need for that is WBIE
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Great post with all the acquisition info since 2018 but wanted to let you know that Sony acquired Insomniac in August 2019, not February 2019.
I hope you keep updating the list as more acquisitions happen.
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I think Microsoft will acquire big in Japan. I just don’t see Satya sitting there and discussing with Phil how they will acquire some minor studio.
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I agree based on what we’ve seen they will either buy big in Japan or not at all.
It may be the case that they just continue buying western publishers, most of the ones left have loads of studios in Asia anyway (e.g. Ubisoft have over 10 studios in Asia).
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I’ve long said this. I think we may still see a “smaller” acquisition where there’s a right-to-refusal in place following a successful project, or another developer that is critical/revered but is in dire straits, but I think given Xbox’s place in the organization now and the clear focus on growing Game Pass, we’ll be seeing larger, higher-value acquisitions predominantly.
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