I think an Asian company is more likely since they dont have any problems right now other than an extremly weakening currency.
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If I remember well, they where sold already which is a shame, but atleast their is always other options like the guys behind lies of p
And I hope ms will take a break from publishers and go with the same route of 2018 bringing a ton of independent studios, from small ones to mid size developers
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One thing I can feel confident after some months is that once ABK is closed, Xbox won’t be touching a $10+B publisher for a good while.
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Can someone please explain why doesn’t MS invest in other companies. I get that gobbling an entity in its entirety works but why isn’t Xbox investing minority stakes in other gaming studios the way Sony and Tencent do. They seem to be securing future partnerships by doing these long term investment.
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Xbox needs content for gamepass, securing publishers is a reliable way for that. PlayStation isn’t all in on the subscription model.
They may lay off the publisher acquisitions for a bit and go back to individual studios after activision.
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According to Wikipedia,“List of mergers and acquisitions by Microsoft - Wikipedia”, Microsoft does make small investments into companies. It just doesn’t make sense to buy small stakes if your goal is to have content on your platform.
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Erm…There are not many publishers that are bigger than 10b. I don’t expect EA, T2 (30/70) and Bamco.
- my stance on EA is well known.
- t2 just does not have a solid roadmap and company is literally 60% GTA, 40% NBA
- Is Bamco possible? Who knows. They recently complained that due to acquisition season they cannot secure partners, but maybe with Microsot coffers they will be able to do that?
There might be an unexpected move like Nexon or NCSoft but I doubt.
It leaves us with Sega, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Capcom
- My stance on Ubisoft is well known
- Sega with Sammy I doubt, unless Microsoft will sell Sammy to Konami or Sammy decides to sell their profitable division (considering that even Kadokawa decided to double down on FromSoftware I doubt)
- Square Enix will probably go FromSoftware road with stakes acquired by other entities
- Capcom is a nice possibility
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This is just another example of “Sony does something, Xbox must do” where MS are doing the indisputably superior investment that involves ownership and control of content and you have some people thinking they should invest small stakes because Sony does.
They seem to be securing future partnerships by doing these long term investment.
What’s any evidence for this?
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That would honestly be what I want. It’s not like most publishers will all be gobbled up by other buyers, most of them will still be available later. I still believe that after ABK, a handful of other major acquisitions need to happen (like Amazon gets Ubisoft for example) and then MS will look again into major acquisitions. That’s said, it’s been established many times already that we don’t know shit about what makes sense or not anymore, ABK being example of that, nobody would have ever thought of that as a possibility, so, nothing is off the table really.
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You are confusing with 4A Games, aren’t you? It seems to me that A44 Games is still independent, in addition the studio is located in New Zealand, which could be an interesting destination for Microsoft.
Yes, I agree with you, there are very good acquisitions to be made with independent studios.
No, I mean a44, the guys behind ashen Stuff
I don’t think that is necessary (Microsoft will look into other acquisitions anyway) but for safety we need to sacrifice one or two publishers to other tech giants. I still don’t think that Sony will buy Square Enix and it will be just an investment (similar to From Software). I think Ubisoft won’t be acquired either and it will stick to Tencent investments. Thus EA has the biggest potential to be acquired and it will be some other tech giant considering EA’s desire for transmedia IPs. Amazon or Apple. But it is still unknown if tech giants really are really into gaming (Microsoft spooked off Google though).
I think that Microsoft’s big acquisition story has ended on the west, simply because there are no other publishers that are a necessity after ABK deal. But the east…This is gonna be so much fun.
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Microsoft wants to influence subscription uptake in a big way. They could buy 50 indie studios tomorrow and the needle would barely move.
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Ah yes, but it’s just an editor that was created by these studios. The studios themselves remain independent, right? These studios always claim to be independent, I don’t know what it is from a legal point of view. In any case, they managed to bring together good studios.
The question was more why Microsoft does not act like a stakeholder company.
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It’s true ABK offers ridiculously so much for a single purchase. As for the suggestion that this would be enough for the Western market, it could be - it even covers some of the Asian market with Blizzard - but I doubt they view it that way, but I would like they do stop for a while, Western publisher acquisitions are getting boring 
Yeah, they don’t generate enough salt anymore. Now some japanese acquisition 
Square Enix
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While I don’t believe that Microsoft will acquire Square Enix, the amout of salt it would generate would be enormous. SE and Capcom are basically the two publishers Sony folks consider something like “the first party”.
I can understand Square but Capcom?! Well, delusion runs wild there, since they also consider Stray first party apparently.