Bioware would be a dream, and isn’t THAT crazy with the difficulties they’ve had - that said I think the reason we don’t see more studios getting sold by publishers is cause if they’re valuable enough that someone would want to buy’em why would anyone sell them. Xbox at least has some wiggle room here - game pass gives them a bit more flexibility in what kind of studios are valuable for them.
I think publishers in trouble would entertain the option (like Embracer seemingly), don’t see any others.
I Wonder if dragon age flops if ea would consider selling
They won’t, it would be bad press if the same studio works better with another publisher.
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Oh yeah, financial trouble at the publisher is at least one good reason. Plus, Embracer is a bit different anyway - they’re more looking at the investment than building a traditional games publisher. I don’t think they’ll be averse to flipping some of their acquisitions for a quick profit.
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MS should buy CDPR if they don’t want competition in the RPG genre. TW3 sold 50 million is hard to ignore.
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CDPR have nothing to buy, though. I don’t think they own the IP either of their two developed major titles. Also, yiu wouldn’t even be buying expertise as they’ve just switched from their inhouse RED Engine to Unreal Engine 5 for Witcher 2 Remake and Witcher IV.
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They own the gaming rights to those IP.
Also, suggesting that they don’t have expertise (engine specific at least) is like suggesting that The Coalition doesn’t. CDPR is planning to make massive contributions to UE5 in order to make it good enough for the type of open world games that they build.
That said, CDPR isn’t selling so the point is moot.
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I don’t think we can ignore that M&A is significantly slowing down in 2023 and will continue as interest rates rise. Embracer is one of the few publishers that is open to contracted development on IP they don’t own. Between them and Bandai Namco I’d like to see some 2nd party titles.
We don’t know too many details on what company backed out from the $2 billion contracted development deal from Embracer. If it was someone like Amazon, Apple, or Comcast I could see there being some opportunity to bid on any existing games (if any) they had in progress for that. However, my gut thinks that it could have been Disney or Netflix that backed out, and if so any existing progress would likely be scrapped for IP ownership reasons. That couple billion would be enough for 6-10+ AAA games, I’m honestly surprised more information about it hasn’t leaked.
Developers that fly under the antitrust revenue limits would be ideal at this point. Along with pursuing partnerships with CDPR, Embracer, WB Games, etc.
My dream still would’ve been WB Games, but that looks less likely after ABK.
Koei Tecmo seems open too, since they did a game with EA and one with Sony. Hopefully Xbox can hop on something there.
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Take Two really would be a dream company to buy for MS. That being said, I doubt it will happen.
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Only way Microsoft could get Take-Two is to pay the billion dollars to make GTA 6 permanent exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem that takes away any argument of it being a SLC because like the CMA said about Minecraft it’s a single purchase that doesn’t come yearly also they seemed to be ok with Sony buying exclusives (Final Fantasy etc). The sports games are multiplatform by nature nothing else is big enough to be a problem.
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Guys, Sega is next. Nobody else exists.
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Yeah, I think Sega is next, it is really a great candidate:
- History together with Xbox
- Not big nor supersmall.
- Japanese content.
- PC studios.
- Getting into mobile.
Bioware austin moving off of development for swtor. 
What?
Bioware not having the MMO branch makes them much more attractive as a potential acquisition target
I think that TLA is StarWars: The Old Republic, but could be some other words.
Why would EA sell them though