Witcher 2 was exclusive to Xbox cdpr do have a good relationship with them. Also cyberpunk previewed at an Xbox event if I’m right.
Witcher is just published by WB Games, and not owned. With the rest, he’s assuming that no licenses would come with any purchase of WBI/WBD whilst simultaneously devaluing the storied talent that’s at the studios under WB.
For the latter, I missed the discussion when @anon98342452 was getting justifiably frustrated with the way some people in this thread/forum talk about the human beings that make the games we enjoy as entertainment. To begin with, this “but talent can always leave” is such a self-defeating argument because talent absolutely is part of the equation when looking at acquisitions. Or do people here think Todd Howard’s presence at BGS had nothing to do with the decision to purchase Zenimax? Sure, the IP would have been there, but Todd has some of the most successful titles under his belt and while I’m against deification of one individual at a game studio and placing all success at their feet, it’s still an important (and easy) example to prove my point.
Also, with a few rare exceptions, a person(s) leaving a studio doesn’t have nearly the negative impact some of you seem to imply it does; it also simultaneously undermines the work that the remaining team does, and the inherent expertise/value they bring to the table. Furthermore, for all the “IP is all that matters” crew out there; I could name dozens of massive IP that have terrible entries because they were made with lackluster talent (TMNT: Mutants in Manhattan, MGS: Survive, and I could literally go on with dozens of examples). Talent is very much part of a studio’s value and part of the consideration of any acquisition (Sony wouldn’t have paid $1 billion+ to retain Bungie’s talent if that weren’t the case).
Honestly… it’s such a tired argument made from ignorance that I really wish had no presence on this forum; both because of the devaluing element of developers and the lack of basis in reality.
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thats a single IP
those would require licensing agreements
ownership
For Witcher I was referencing CDPR (I forgot WB published them too!). It would be my impression if Microsoft (or anyone else) ever acquired WB games it would come with the gaming IP rights too, not that the talent there couldn’t make something else equally as impressive without the WB IP.
100% - I am equally annoyed when certain users often treat the high volume of Ubisoft employees as a negative rather than the assets which they truly are.
I also agree that popular IP’s don’t necessarily mean great games, but I do feel Microsoft are targeting the biggest IP’s right now to get those player bases (numbers) over to GP. The same could be said for TV shows like the Kardashians which for me is torture but still (somehow) have huge fan followings.
Which happens to be one of the biggest RPG’s with a popular Netflix series 
.
That makes more sense, they could ultimately buy the Gaming IP rights from WB like Sony brought the Movie only rights for Spider-Man from Marvel yet do not have the Merchandise, TV and Gaming rights (although you’d think Sony did have the gaming rights too!).
I understand the Witcher rights are not as straightforward either with Sapkowski.
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Welcome to the forum, we are a wild bunch, yet we all get along… well mostly. Ha ha
Everyone here knows my opinion on CD Projekt and Larian Studios, so l 100% agree with you on these RPG developers. I also agree WB would make for a great publisher purchase too. Again, glad to have you here, mate.
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But we know that Lego license is not coming because Lego licensed it to Take 2 already no? Granted MS can renegotiate contracts for future releases (but we don’t know if Lego would allow exclusivity). HP is not owned by WB either I believe. I think DC IPs are only the ones that owned fully by WB (due to them owning DC comics).
So what’s gonna happen when Todd retires then? BGS will continue to exist with all their stash of IP that will be wildy recgnizable (and people will still ask for New Vegas 2 from Obsidian 
).
The whole discussion was about buying studios that do not own IPs. Sony did actually that with Jade Raymond’s studio though 
But I wonder if there was something more to it.
There is a line between being bloated and having a lot of employees.
Anyway I stick to my prediction that Ubisoft will have to go through restructuring because having 2 times more employees that ABK, while simultaneously having several almost annual series that are relatively big sellers (COD pattern), also having a couple of GaaS games and even its own subscription service their performance is nowhere near other publishers (add to that a couple of games that were in dev hell or cancelled).
Oh that’s right Witcher ip is owned but the author I actually forgot that… Regardless I don’t think cdpr is a good pick up myself.
But if you could get a good licensing deal with wb (like long term) for the ips then I would say they should jump on that
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Xbox really could use all the workforce on ubisoft, as support for another titles or for brand new games
Microsoft is laying off people due to recession fears (as most companies) so I dont think they are in a hurry to add more than 20.000 employees any time soon.
I assume there will also be some layoffs on the ABK side after a while post the acquisition. Fuck layoffs man, I got recently laid off but I was prepared for that and got some compensation, it still sucked and I wish no one experiences it. These big corpos should be able to afford to keep people unless it’s critical performance related, but who am I kidding this whole system stinks we shouldn’t be surprised.
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Ufff sorry to hear that, specially in these times we are facing (not quite catasthropic but still, not quite good) hope everything is going fine over there with your family and/or friends. Is that compensation enough or do you think it should have been more? Reading some coments about people who are going through the same and it is really sad to see how cold-hearted companies can be in these situations.
I imagine there has to been some kind of “redundancy” in those 10000 employees so it wouldnt be a surprised. It would be great to see MS relocating them in different parts of the company or something like that…but I know thats not how these things work and current world and economic conditions make that more unlikely.
While Microsoft is having some layoffs they are ramping up in other areas:
Microsoft Corp. cut some jobs on Monday as it realigned business groups and roles after the close of its fiscal year on June 30. It said it plans to keep hiring for other roles and finish the current fiscal year with increased headcount.
The layoffs, affecting less than 1% of the 180,000-person workforce, spanned a variety of groups including consulting and customer and partner solutions and were dispersed across geographies, the Redmond, Washington-based company said.
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It’s not the worst thing that ever happened to me for sure, but it was still bad, and very stressful and especially that it involved moving between two cities. I’m thankful things aren’t bad for me and here overall, I have enough support, I don’t particularly support a family, and and I’m debt free. The compensation was decent and they have promised to help me if something comes up. But I’m willing to excuse smaller companies that are actually affected by what’s going on post pandemic, not those giant conglomerates that should do better and can afford it easily.
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Shit sorry to hear that, and yeah it can be a mess I work for a massive corporation, and we have lay offs like Microsoft in some dictions but my group is hiring like crazy and cannot get enough people currently
To the employee point Microsoft has 181,000 adding 20000 employees is only a roughly 10% increase in employee head count as long as there are value adds in many other areas Microsoft won’t bat a eye at adding employees to a core business piller, don’t get me wrong it is a lot of employees but the value would bare that point out in other areas like support for all studios under the Xbox banner ,XGS, Bethesda, and ABK I’m sure would all love to have that kind of support. That kind of acquisition would also solve the contactor issues that Xbox seems to have as well.
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A few market cap numbers for everyone to digest. EA and T2 are both top ten market cap gaming companies, in my opinion I don’t think Microsoft risks drawing that much legislative attention acquiring another top 10 after the ABK deal is complete. However adding another studio or publisher outside the top 20 basically Capcom and down would draw far less attention. WB/Discovery however would be a massive purchase and draw tons of attention but is a whole new business category, so probably less scrutiny.
EA- 34 Billion
WB/Discovery- 33.5 Billion
Take 2- 19.7 Billion
Bandaid Namco- 16 Billion
Embracer- 8.8 Billion
Capcom- 5.5 Billion
Square Enix- 5.4 Billion
Koei Tecmo- 5.4 Billion
Ubisoft - 5 Billion
Sammy Sega- 3.6 Billion
CD Project Red- 2.1 Billion
Nacon- 470 Million
People Can Fly- 320 million
Focus Home- 270 Million
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Man, CD Project were like $8 Billion not that long ago, IIRC.
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It’s crazy how cheap Focus are right now, I think they will become one of the biggest publishers within the next 10 years.
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That’s a good point.
Microsoft should just acquire all the developers and publishers mentioned in here to please everyone 
This nicely puts it perspective that After ABK, MS can purchase anyone … It’s just about the right price