WB IP licensing is the biggest issue holding back a purchase. The main issues are the uncertainty of rights towards streaming. DC IPS have royalty agreements with different owners with regards to specific characters. WB would have to be owned in full and I don’t think that’s what Discovery wants.
I’m sure most of them ‘can’ but it’s whether they ‘want’ to. I suspect the Coalition could make a fantastic racing game if they wanted to but it’s not currently their ‘thing’.
The studios I mentioned either have
made these style of games or are currently/still making these style of games.
It’s not necessarily budget limitations but comes down to whether the studios want to make those style of games. Therefore IMO it makes sense to acquire studios which clearly enjoy making those style of games (and the relevant IP), so that they will continue to make them post acquisition.
We don’t know the details how Square West ended up on Embracer hands, but one could wonder that there’s no “legal exploit” to buy assets from a publicy traded company while being under an acquisition review. So my guesses for this E3 would be
How many of you said “people don’t buy Sonic” or that Sega isn’t as viable a pickup as Capcom? A lot, and yet Sonic Colors sold 5.8 million units, which is literally right behind Capcom’s biggest hit during that same timeframe - Resident Evil: Village. Let that sink in… for all the talk about Capcom (despite only having a title that sold above 8 million units after MHW released - meaning 40 years of games that never sold that much), I think it’s time for some of you to recognize that market cap is not necessarily reflective of popularity in every instance. Beyond that, Sega had several titles within the multi-million selling range - nearly all of their titles actually. Thus, they’re definitely more popular and consistent-sellers than a lot of you seem to realize; Japanese games, in general, don’t sell the numbers that I think some of you believe they do (with a few rare exceptions - FFXIV, for example).
Sega’s catalogue is more spread on the numbers, Capcom is concentrated on few new releases and some evergreens, MHR and RE8 together sold like 15 million units. Whoever is saying Sega is not viable is completely on the 2000-2010 mindset, the last time they had a flop was a Sakura Wars mobile game that supposedly cost them millions of dollars, outside of that all their sequels surpasses the previous ones in sales.
Me personal opinion is, I don’t mind if future publisher acquisitions remain multiplat (especially the Japanese pubs), but either way works. It’s all about fueling Game Pass.
I think clearly the best two options are SEGA and CAPCOM, and Square literally shot themselves in the foot when it comes to being valued.