After AB closes hopefully Sega is next then WB Discovery and then Take Two to finish with publishers.
Then go for individual studios again. I’d start with CD Projekt and seeing as now MS owns WB hopefully the problems would allow for the remake of the first Witcher to come out.
I remember 99% of the game was finished, but WB for whatever reason pulled the plug and CDP was unable to release it, so with MS having the code they can bring it out.
Get Techland too and MS will become a powerhouse in Poland. Both Polish companies could be great under WB Games.
If MS is able to get Avalanche, go for it and MS will have two Avalanche studios, plus a Blizzard. Ha ha and give them to WB to make it even more confusing.
Supermassive for cinematic games would be great for Game Pass. They would fit under TT. I also could see IO Interactive and Don’t Nod working under TT too.
Crytek to really show the world if you’re a fan of shooters MS has your back and Cryengine will be a plus for Game Stack too. I could see them being an asset to AB.
Behaviour Interactive could be a benefit for Zenimax and they have worked on Fallout, so getting them could make it so we all don’t have to wait so long for the next Fallout game.
Build up Sega with buying Mistwalker, Nihon Falcom and Level 5 for JRPGs and throw in Platinum, CyberConnect2, Arc System Works plus Vanillaware under Sega too.
Isn’t CD Projekt a publisher?
They own GOG.com and publish quite a few games in Eastern Europe.
For studios:
Asobo is a must IMO, they need to do whatever it takes to get them under Xbox. The work they’ve done on Flight Simulator and Plague Tale is incredible (and so different).
NeverRealm for a decent fighter studio.
TT Games for some kid friendly titles.
Jackbox Games for party games
Rocksteady for a superhero studio.
Then go to Embracer and get Crystal Dynamics and Eidos (once the SE deal completes). While they are there they may as well go after 4A too .
Not sure which Japanese studio they should focus on, I’d prefer they go for a publisher like SEGA or Capcom IMO.
Then I’d like them to go for some smaller publishers like Focus Entertainment and Ubisoft.
I could see them going for NetherRealm and the Mortal Kombat IP. While they have said the haven’t stopped acquiring and that they want to diversify their acquisitions (I’m fully convinced we are going to see a buyout in Japan from their part) IP has always been brought when talked about future acquisitions and since NR covers both IP and being the only relevant fighting studio in the west…
From a “what would make me laugh hardest” perspective, SE prior to offloading Eidos would have been the funniest concievable purchase because of how big Tomb Raider and the Squaresoft RPGs were on PS1. I don’t think it’s the primary criteria they’re assessing based on, however
These days I’m thinking that Microsoft is just as likely to purchase a mobile company as they are to purchase a core one. And probably more likely to grab Roblox at 25 billion than they are Capcom at 8 billion. Capcom has good penetration into the core market and some attractive franchises, but in terms of mobile gaming it’s pretty negligible and they’re struggling a bit to pivot into new areas outside of that core focus. Square Enix is sort of a rolling disaster for core game profitability, while they do have decent mobile offerings and a successful MMO.
Now that we know they’re willing to make truly huge purchases while also maintaining them in part-or-whole multiplatform, it’s hard to truly eliminate any possibility. A lot of companies I would previously have said “no way” I can’t really say that about anymore. OTOH, we should also acknowledge that they may believe that post-ABK they’re don’t need anybody else “big”. If we get more comments post ABK closing we’ll have more insight into what they’re thinking.
I never in a million years believe we’d get to this stage anyway, so it’s very hard for me to care whether they buy more to fuel game-pass internally or not - there’s already plenty there to do that medium and long term to make that subscription very valuable to me.
I’ll be honest I completely forgot about Asobo, get them too and put them under Xbox Game Studios.
They are a pretty big studio, so they could work on both games. But they can work on Fallout with Bethesda Austin, so it makes it more likely they don’t get stuck only doing Fallout.
Own Some Awesome IP (Final Fantasy, NieR/Drakengard, Life is Strange, Just Cause, Chrono Trigger, Octopath Traveler, Voice of Cards, NEO, etc.)
Have Some Great Licensing Partnerships (Kingdom Hearts, Dragon Quest, etc.)
Have one of the biggest MMOs in gaming (FFXIV)
Works with some of the greatest Japanese creators in the gaming space (Yoko Taro, Naoki Yoshida, Tetsuya Nemura)
Cons:
Lost a lot of valuable IP and talent through selling western branch
Have been very hit and miss on quality of output. Babylons Fall/Balan Wonderworld/The Quiet Man/Left Alive/etc were critical and commercial duds. Star Ocean looks questionable.
Getting involved in NFTs
Seems to have problems setting realistic expectations
That point I mentioned some time in the past regarding Square Enix - while from owned IP point of view, nothing aside FF is big enough, but Square Enix has a lot of connections with various studios and people in Japan (also quite often, Sony . A lot of those are old ties. Granted Microsoft did have something similar in the past, whether MS will be able to revitalize those connections or not is an entirely different matter.
I wonder if only in our eyes those IPs were valuable They were sold for 300m - all the people and IPs. That is the fact.
Nobody is touching Roblox - aside maybe Tencent. There is no correlation between MS going after ABK and them to consider Roblox.
With ABK deal, Microsoft immediately got a front row seat in mobile gaming so now they can pursue other things. ABK is essentially three-layer jackpot - strong PC offering via Blizzard, strong console IP via Activision, strong mobile IP via King. ABK is akin Microsoft’s acquiring three publishers at once.
The main strength of SE is FF - big IP with high engagement value (due to FF14). Everything else there is secondary.
Capcom is a diverse publisher they have Monster Hunter, Dragon’s Dogma, DMC, RE, SF. The only problem is that they still don’t cover the hole in Xbox offerings which is JRPGs. But if Microsoft will be able to make third party deals, then maybe it will be enough. I still think that Capcom is their next possible move.
I think Capcom is the next publisher after ABK because Capcom is one of the few natural fit for Xbox since they dont have other businesss like pachinko, manufacturing, anime, resorts, etc. and continue to support Xbox.
There are few more that are focused mainly on gaming but they either dont really support xbox so relationships are not really there (Level 5) or are pretty much Sony 2nd party ( Square Enix).
Plus if there was a time to do it, it would be now since the yen is getting pretty devalued against the dollar.
https://twitter.com/dannydiekroeger/status/1541563317528829952?t=wdqBFZS2kRDjLQ5OeP7PgA&s=19
Yeah, there are a lot of opportunities right now, the state of the economy within the next couple of years is gonna be crazy with all the things that are coming sooner or later.
Sadly even if MS acquires Capcom, they won’t be able to make the upcoming games exclusive because most of them have Sony’s marketing. They probably won’t be able to put them in Game Pass due to that either.
If only Microsoft pursued marketing deals more aggressively, they would have less issues. But they are hell bent on Game Pass deals so…
Roblox is massive and still growing.
Having both Minecraft and Roblox would be huge.
They could also advertise a Xbox Series S with Minecraft and Roblox on the side of the box, it would sale ridiculously well IMO, especially to parents around Birthdays and Christmas etc.
That said TT Games (with the LEGO License) would be equally as big and much cheaper IMO.
I’m guaranteed to buy a LEGO game every 6-12 months for my kids (I have brought 3 just in the past 2 months).
If in some crazy reality they had Roblox, Minecraft and Lego on the side of a Xbox it would go down really well with the younger audiences, plus it would more likely cause the “Mum/Dad can I get a Xbox for Christmas” convo.
I would note in the pro’s list that Square Enix actually has quite a high output of games once you factor in their remakes, remasters and smaller games - I mean they have 13 titles coming out this year alone even if a couple are duds like Babylon’s Fall. IF Microsoft were to acquire them that would mean pretty regular new game releases, as well as a large back catalogue of games (which thanks to their remake/remaster efforts includes a lot of their old titles updated for modern consoles). In addition, a decent amount of these titles just don’t currently come to Xbox, of those 13 titles due this year only 4 are currently scheduled for release on Xbox, so there’d be a lot of content to gain for the platform that simply wouldn’t be there otherwise.
I am not sure about Bandai as Bandai relies too much on third party anime properties.
Koei output is kinda strange, but at least they have a Day 1 Game Pass deal now.
Sega…It’s Sega.
Capcom is the best
I think in Square Enix nobody cares about anything aside FF. I do think that Microsoft has to do something with JRPG content. So far the platforms to go are Nintendo (for almost everything) and Sony (for FF)
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They were sold for 300m - all the people and IPs. That is the fact.