Probably someone most of us have never heard of before in that space lol. 
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Their new strategy will definitely help them, as will the FTC changes however I don’t expect another huge publisher (especially the big 3).
We know they are actively looking for acquisitions so I suspect either a handful of studios, a small publisher or a mobile publisher in the near future.
The remaining 3 ‘big’ publishers are all still huge amounts of money:
- Take-Two and EA would likely be around $45-55B.
- Epic would likely be around $25-35B.
Ironically looking at my last post in this thread Embracer currently only has a market cap of $510 million which contains CDE Entertainment (Crystal Dynamics and Eidos).
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Really hate that Microsoft can’t acquire Ubisoft due to those streaming rights from the ABK acquisition as I would have loved to get Ubisoft and all their games in Game Pass Ultimate day one instead of having to sign up to Ubisoft Plus. Oh well.
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Embracer is a good smaller publisher that could add alot to gamepass with IOI of course 
I still like the thought of adding focus/pull up with Asobo and dontnod as it would be a rather small investment with big returns and create a rather good french publisher. I do have my concerns however with Microsoft shuttering studios. Sega of course will always be on the wish list, just a perfect pairing.
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To think Ubisoft and Embracer’s market caps combined is now just over $2B.
A few years ago that would have sounded implausible. I guess it demonstrates how volatile the industry is.
I always said that the Ubi games would be perfect for GamePass. Their single player games are massive time munchers and their other games such as Division and FarCry are fantastic co-op experiences.
I just tried to look it up again (the CMA ruling seems so long ago now!), however I can’t see any reference in the final CMA decision that MS cannot acquire Ubisoft, only that they had to divest the rights to Ubisoft before they could acquire ABK.
Therefore Microsoft might still still be able to acquire Ubisoft (this may need written consent from the CMA).
As unfortunate as their situation is, if Ubisoft continues to struggle and further redundancies look likely it may actually give MS the evidence it needs as to why the CMA should allow it.
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Out of all the cinematic narrative type franchises out there I’m still most excited about A Plague Tale (from Asobo). I really can’t wait to see what they do with the third game. Flight Simulator is also incredible, it’s not usually my thing but I do jump into it occasionally just to chill.
Unfortunately I think Tencent will likely gobble up the rest of DontNod soon. Again I think their games would be a good pairing for something like GamePass.
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I agree completely and hope you’re right. Would love to see Microsoft acquire Ubisoft!!
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Agreed Ubisoft would have been probably perfect for the multiplatform move especially if they had most work on porting and constrained their output to a few IPs. However I think they will be aiming for a publisher in Asia.
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UBI is just not a good buy right now. Way too much staff bloat. It’s a negative asset, they need to massively downsize in ways they aren’t really able to by European laws.
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This and I’m glad they can’t buy them anyway, they are a shell of what they used to be
Very likely and I don’t pay much attention to mobile but afaik most of big stuff is coming from eastern regions
I don’t expect any western acquisitions anytime soon, they seem absolutely stacked with the content they need for over here
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To add to that, the cost of development is just insane in the US. A team based in California is going to cost 2x or more what that same team would cost in Poland. There’s a reason we see games like Cyberpunk and BG3 able to be so big with much smaller budgets than a game like spiderman 2.
I think future acquisitions will target low cost development areas.
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They will more likely partner up with a gacha game studio or publisher, that type has been making more money then anyone can count. I don’t think they outright acquire one but i won’t say its a strech to say the least about that possibility of one or two being timed exclusive and easy access on multiple fronts.
Now, i think they will partner up with Netease on this parcially because of their partnership.
Now if it were to acquire studios, i would imagine studios that are small in scale but have the backing of well known industry vets.
So the likes of YellowBrick, RiffRaff, Gravity Well among a few others feels feasible although given certain things that occured Heart Machine feels very likely.
However i think the attention will be in countries like Japan, South Korea, Spain, China, France and Poland. As the amount of games made in those countries have been massive.
I personally think that it’s very unlikely they would go after new studios like these, regardless if they are formed from vets or not. New studios are incredibly risky and fail most of the time. If I remember correctly the stat I read suggested that over 80% of new studios fail (and it’s even higher in the mobile sector).
Based on their new strategy I also expect to see even less timed exclusives unless they own them, in which case they might stagger the release.
I see a massive rise in the slavic countries as these countries typically speak English as a second language and the labour is cheap. They have touted Asia for years and then say the communication is always too challenging so I don’t personally see it.
If they go for studios I think they will be well established and have been proven to be self-funding for a long time.
I think the days are gone that MS sweeps in to ‘save’ struggling studios unless the IP they own is so valuable that it’s a no brainer.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if they just focus on PC/Mobile from hereon out e.g. someone like Playrix and/or Dream Games:
Here is the expected game revenue for 2025 by platform (according to Midia research):
If anything it makes a mockery of the ‘console war’ when mobile is the biggest market by far (and consoles continue to shrink).
Yep, this also
I know people want studios like Crystal to get bought but I just think it’s unlikely, those Cali studios are crazy expensive
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Sure would be a nice fit to work on Killer instinct if they would want to be acquired. Sounds like they are in big trouble. Hope everyone lands on their feet.
It’s been such a long time since they worked on the Killer Instinct DLCs that I doubt that many of the people who worked on them still work at Iron Galaxy.
Some of them are still there… They did a big networking update last year. Plus the balance update and skin update. So there are folks.
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Can someon say if this is full acquisition or something else that i do not know about?
Paradox have fully acquired Haemimont Games.
They have acquired a few studios over the years, nothing particularly exciting here IMO.
Reminder, this thread is for Xbox acquisitions. The subject has been broached many a time so I just want to maintain that consensus; non-Xbox acquisitions belong in their own thread or mentioned in community chat.