No, they are not. Those are just streaming services. Anime IPs are owned by completely different entities. Sony does own some anime IPs though (via Sony Music I believe). Fate/Stay I think is one of those.
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I feel you know what I meant, but are simply being argumentative for the sake of it.
Crunchyroll, Funimation and VRV (i.e. all of the largest anime streaming services).
It would be like one company owning Disney+, Netflix and Amazon Prime.
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Yes, but the point is that just because Sony owns streaming networks, it does not mean that Microsoft won’t have anime games as Bamco licenses those IPs themselves (I think they own some IPs, Sega owns some IPs, Kadokawa too).
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And who do you have to pay to access that content? Sole distributor of a good is still a monopoly… I swear people need to do a bit more homework before arguing one way or the other on this subject. Stop being so unnecessarily contrarian and ignoring the points being discussed to argue… whatever the hell you are again. Lastly, on-topic.
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yeah and namco isn’t a great get in general when compared to others being honest. Don’t get me wrong they have good stuff like pacman is an iconic in every way, tekken is one of the biggest fighters and I will stand by tales of (my favourite JRPG franchises) but compared to someone like capcom or Square Enix or even SEGA (a company I am pretty harsh too) they pale in comparision. If they were going to jump though those hoops of other businesses being involves with said company I doubt they would do it for namco
Buy Scarlet Nexus IP and hire people who worked on Scarlet Nexus to make a new studio! 
If I remember Bandai Namco’s market cap is ~16 billion
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Yeah, Bandai Namco is worth roughly $16 Billion (they are worth a little more but it still rounds to $16 Billion)
I am in the same league as you but thats exactly the thoughs I had on activision before they announced the acquisition, sure maybe namco will not gonna be the next acquisition but at this point who knows whats gonna happen next
And yea I know comparing acti with bamco is like apple and oranges
I don’t think B-Namco is a likely target for a variety of reasons, but they’re worth as much as they are for good reason. They are the most expensive Japanese independent publisher with a market cap of roughly 2-2.5x Capcom or Square Enix. Their profits in FY ending 2022 were higher than the other Japanese publishers that get talked about in here, roughly 1.9x Square Enix and 2.5x Capcom.
Roughly 45% of their revenue and 60% profit comes from videogames. The 2nd largest driver is “toys and hobbies” with a lot of nerds buying gundam stuff, accounting for ~45% of revenue and ~30% of profit.
Some of their “licenced games” are actually not licenced - for example Gundam is a franchise owned by Bandai Namco. Other transmedia IP like Idolmaster is an internally owned franchise too. Dragon Ball and Naruto are licenced, that much is true, but having popular licenced games is no bad thing!
They have zounds of IP, some of it famous, some of it obscure - Pacman is not really a market presence anymore but it is extremely iconic. They own a lot of mid range stuff - Tales of ___, Tekken, Soul Calibur, Ace Combats, Ridge Racer, Katamari Damacy (a personal favorite of mine). There’s some old millennial nostalgia stuff like Klonoa or Xenosaga.
The biggest recent hits in the core gaming space were via their ongoing partnership with From Software. Dark Souls is owned by Namco (confirmed by Miyazaki). Elden Ring’s IP ownership is unknown but they’ve used language implying that it’s maybe a similar situation to Dark Souls. Even if it’s not owned by them in IP terms, they do at least own the publishing rights to Elden Ring. I don’t think I need to remind people that Elden Ring is a very significant seller - already crossing 13 million units sold, in addition to it’s critical acclaim. They’ve implied that the series will be continuing as a partnership.
The question of whether or not Microsoft wants to own something that is only 60% a videogame company is why I have doubts about Microsoft wanting them. But the videogame side itself is very attractive.
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I’m still of the opinion MS would be best served by acquiring “mid-sized” Japanese studios (150-300 developers). Studios like Tri-ace, CC2, DIMPS, h.a.nd., Eighting, and yes Platinum.
(Besides Sega).
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Platinum to me seems like a no brainer. They are begging to be acquired and are probably relatively cheap. It would be a good start to getting a strong dev presence in Japan with Tango and Platinum, plus both could be expanded over time. As far as other single studio acquisitions I would go after A44 games if Flintlock plays as good as it is looking. I believe they are independent. Last on my wishlist would be WBD in it’s entirety. game, film, streaming, and all of those IP in one swoop. I would think Xbox would be set going forward minus a few smaller studios here and there.
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Tri-Ace made so many great games and then got acquired by a mobile publisher which didn’t help them at all.
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I don’t see Microsoft going after any small studio.
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Indeed. Think we’re past the point of them looking at an individual studio to move the needle. If they want to make headway in Japan, they should buy a Japanese publisher, Capcom, Sega, Namco…whoever. They can then make further purchases through them as a proxy.
If they want to WIN Japan, they should buy Nintendo.
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SEGAAAAAAA
I think the fromsoft stuff is weaker considering they don’t own fromsoft so even if they own the IPs if that relationship breaks apart they would need to get someone else to buy it which could be an issue, on top of that I think quite a lot of MS moves suggest they are not massive interms of licensed IP like them ignoring kotar remake and ignoring the chance to nab the rights to make a spiderman game. Namco has pluses but they don’t compare to others even ignoring the issue of a lot of the company being for other stuff like toys or arcades
I am mixed. I won’t wrote it off but publishers seem to be way more of a focus, their are studio’s/cases I could see like if they hypothetically did buy sega (not saying they will, its just the easiest example) I could see them buying platinum since they work on the bayonetta franchises and put them under sega
Nintendo is a weird one but at this point I wouldn’t write MS trying to buy them again granted I don’t expect it until the switch is done at bare minimum. I am really mixed on the topic of Nintendo being honest in terms of what MS is looking for they got perfect scores or even got higher than perfect cos ranking them on the same level as others felt wrong. Either way if MS did make a move in Japan I would rank the best to worst publisher acquisitions like this (this isn’t the most likely so issues like price or other business branches weren’t considered with the exception of Konami since they lack a lot of studio’s now)
Nintendo > Capcom > SEGA > Square Enix > Namco > Koei Tecmo > Sony > Konami
Why people often come up with Nintendo acquisition? Is that some kind of inside joke? I know about MS’ attempt to buy them in the past, but c’mon - it’s not gonna happen unless Nintendo crashes.
I think just by sending thousands of consoles there every month, they will move the needle. They are able to sell the consoles even without games.
I think the main criteria for the publisher (aside being on the market), is having popular IPs and having high engagement values and no strings attached.
I can only see NRS (MK IP + fighting game studio) or some WB studios if DC IP are attached.
Why wouldn’t it. Nintendo is publicly traded like the rest and would cost a lot more than ABK, hell depending on the performance of the next console potential less than ABK. I think it just sounds impossible because of how big Nintendo is more than it actually being impossible…that being said, not happening which the switch is this successful most likely, I doubt MS or anyone will want to buy them when they are at one of if not their highest point
then capcom lol
I am not listing anyone specific but I am more iffy on NRS granted they are one I could see. I could also see sony eyeing them up (or WB games in general tbh and MS probably ain’t intresting in a licensing agreement considering some of their moves and I don’t picture them selling off the game rights personally)