Are we really going to reduce all the quantitative data people have brought to the discussion about Sega down to “nostalgia” yet again? By you no less?
The real answer is value and diversity of offerings. The ignorant here may scoff but Sega has two of the consistently best-selling PC titles (Football Manager and the Total War series), one of the still most-successful mascot franchises (Sonic), a consistent seller in the Yakuza series, and a bevy of other low/mid-budget titles that bring in decent profit, which reaches the family sector (which Phil directly called a gap in their portfolio) and a global audience.
@hexbacon - don’t listen to the same two voices that keep banging on the nostalgia drum - there’s been plenty of data provided to back up why Sega’s value isn’t “nostalgia” and it’s constantly ignored.
I’d go Square Enix > Sega > WB Games > EA > Ubisoft > Take Two > Capcom
A lot of people on here are down on Square Enix but most of their recent flops have been external publishing deals (and even there they’ve still published some great titles between all those) - their internal studios are putting out some of the best content they’ve had in years and even if they lost the ability to make Kingdom Hearts/Dragon Quest (which could probably be avoided) you’d still have an excellent set of teams and a hefty list of historic franchises to fall back on - many of which have been supported with modern re-releases or remasters/remakes.
Not only would they bring a ton of content to game pass with their back catalogue (including all of their older titles kept new through re-releases), they’d also bring a lot of content that you just don’t always get on Xbox - between Final Fantasy being continually moneyhatted or smaller titles like Live a Live or Triangle Strategy on switch. With this one acquisition they’d firmly secure Xbox as the place to be for JRPGs, with content that has wide appeal in the West as well as Japan. If Microsoft can get them - I still think they’d be a fantastic get.
This makes the more sense to me too, besides both of them having a myriad of great IP’s buying one of them will strengthen Xbox’s footing in Japan IMO…and I am not talking about the Japanese market itself but the positive influence that this could have in regards to publishing and developing Japanese content on the platform in general. I can understand the folks here that want WB or Ubi because they like their output and want their games on Game Pass (which is completely normal since we are all seeing this from our point of view and tastes) but Xbox is more than well covered in terms of western support (it was always the best in the console space since back on the OG Xbox days and still is), where it needs a bump is the Japanese market/support and Phil is very well aware of that as we all know.
I’d also add From Software but this may be more complicated than we think with Kudokawa in the mix e.t.c., I guess Phil besides having a good relationship with Miyazaki nowadays he could always pursue a collaboration with them for an exclusive title even if an acquisition is out of the question.
I mean they fit the bill with all the other acquisitions. Strong IP that has a loyal fanbase. Huge back catalogue of games. Very little or no reliance on licensed games.
I would like to see them purchase the THQ Nordic publisher name with 4A and metro IP, crystal dynamics and Eidos with all square IP, Gearbox and Gunfire games and the Darksiders IP, that’s a great question Hue I’m sure I’m missing some other good studios and IP but these are the ones that I have right off the top of my head that Xbox could ask to be bundled with THQ Nordic
Those are the studios from Embracer which stand out to me also .
Unfortunately Embracer will also know this so I imagine the asking price would be phenomenal. Borderlands is the ideal type of game for GamePass (co-op play).
King David from ILP recently predicted that Xbox will buy CD and Eidos from Embracer, personally I think that would be awesome but I suspect unlikely.
No, it won’t. Embracer cannot ask phenomental amount of money - Microsoft is not that desperate at all and can go away from the deal. We also heard that Microsoft was interested in Gearbox but they did not want Randy to stay in the company.
Regarding CD…I think until Avengers game is retired, Microsoft won’t be interested.
I kinda agree with King David, if you look at Embracer as a business it’s more of a investment firm to me than a game publisher at least in a sense that we are used to, if you look back at the purchase prices of studios and IP I listed the purchase price for all of it is less than 3 billion, say Xbox comes in offering 4.5 billion they would probably jump at getting the return on investment and turn around and just acquire more studios going forward hoping for a chance of that next fall guys or Fortnite phenomenon.
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