I think the teases tends more towards interest and they have officially asked for approval to enter negotiations towards M&A.
SEGA is the only publisher XBOX should focus on. Everyone else working partnerships and relationship building is fine. SEGA was created as a US company during WW2 in Hawaii.
I keep picturing the XBOX SEGA Dreamcast VR in 10 years when its viable, or the XBOX SEGA Gamegear handheld.
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GamepassGear™ make it happen Phil.
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Now you’re being silly. But maybe GamepassGenesis™…
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A new Game Gear would be good especially with all this handheld boom.
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I know it has been talked to death about for Microsoft to acquire CDPR, yet I had to bring it up again, because of a chart they released.
It is interesting to see the breakdown between different regions on how Phantom Liberty sold.
In North America it sold the best followed by Europe, then Asia.
It says it sold .8% less in Europe which isn’t a surprise seeing as it is from a Polish game company, yet it still is interesting to see how close it is.
I will say I wish the chart would have given a bigger breakdown between countries though.
The next thing I notice which shouldn’t come as a surprise, yet it is nice to see the game sold the best on PC & GOG at 68%, then PS5 at 20 and the Xbox Series at 13%.
If you look at that, it does make for some discussions, like how CDPR could be a benefit for PC Game Pass.
Now having looked at the numbers, mind you the chart doesn’t include the breakdown how Cyberpunk 2077 sold on it’s own, it is interesting how well it sold on PS5.
That tells me a few things A. PlayStation gamers are hungry for RPGs, B. Xbox gamers are still having a blast with Starfield or C. A mix of both.
Even though marketing showed the game more for Xbox Series, over the other option. That being said marketing means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
If Microsoft could in theory get these PS gamers hooked on the world of Cyberpunk, have them go out and buy a Xbox Series 2 in 7 or 8 years from now, you could make a reason why acquiring CDPR would be a good investment.
Then on top of that, you have Witcher and their new IP.
There is a little something that could make it so Microsoft doesn’t look at them, CDPR is making a live action movie set in the Cyberpunk universe.
So you decide, what should Microsoft do?
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Witcher 3 and CP2077 were both huge games. Even despite the initial screwed up launch, CP2077 was a hugely popular game and it sold strongly on PC the whole time, even while it was messy and broken on console. Now, this is not a guarantee of future success or relevance, but it’s a strong indicator that so long as they can ship games in a timely fashion and in a more polished state, they are a very important studio.
I would classify them as being on the same tier of success as Bethesda Game Studios (their games sell 20+ million per entry over time). They’re also similar in terms of audience match (strong PC skew, popular in both NA and Europe).
That is all to say - yeah they’re obviously a big player and anyone would be happy to own those games. It’s a question more of whether Microsoft considers themselves to be in deficit on those fronts. ABK is certainly a titan globally. Exclusive or no, that is all on gamepass and mobile.
This is true for most things people will propose. I cannot really think of any priority areas identified in their 2021 doc that weren’t covered by ABK. So it comes down to whether they calculate (internally) that they still have large unmet needs, or whether they think they’re mostly fine unless an amazing opportunity drops into their lap.
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For those that do want CDPR, it looks like there’s opportunity there with the stock price down a lot this month:
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why is it dropping? Phantom Liberty seems like a big hit?
Crazy to think their market cap was $11b just 3 year ago, now down to $2.5b
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No new release in sight.
I just don’t see Microsoft going for CDPR, I just don’t think they have much to offer Microsoft like the rest. Microsoft seems to be thinking globally which is why they are more into publishers, and I think they are good in the west. Asia and the rest of the world is where I think they will focus their attention. If anything, I’d say Sega for Japan and then something in South Korea like Pearl Abyss or a smaller publisher like Blueside.
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They are probably good in North America. However they have low market shares in Europe. They have quite a lot of room for growth there.
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I doubt they have much interest in CDPR, yeah they make very popular games and 2077 has had a resurgence but it’s one game, and it took 8 years to release or maybe 11 if you consider it only now to finally be good
Witcher 4 is who knows how many years away and we have no idea how any of these other spin-offs or whatever they are being made by other teams will work out
Would they be nice to have? Sure but they don’t really bring what GP needs which is consistent content and content that appeals to different audiences
They already have the WRPG market on lock for GP, they already have more than enough content to appeal to the west to the point where if it doesn’t, it never will
They need to focus on the East now, something they’ve already hinted at
People do like to focus on Xbox growing in the East. While that is certainly a big opportunity, it is likely much more difficult to grow significantly in the east compared to growing in Europe where they have a very small market share.
I personally would be happy to see continued growth in either area, but I do think people skip over the opportunity in Europe too quickily.
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I think people forgot how much potential there is in Europe and with many emerging markets in Eastern European counties, there is more room for growth than North America.
If Microsoft can get these markets, get them online and addicted to Game Pass, they can bring in some really big cash.
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It’s not about growing in the East, it’s about having content the appeals to people who like that content worldwide
They already have content to appeal to western audiences including Europe, they don’t need CDPR for that
Buying something like SEGA or Square or whatever isn’t to suddenly give them a bunch of console sales in Japan but to make GP more appealing everywhere
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they have at least three very expensive games in development that are legit 4-5 years away.
If they had that content to appeal then they would be doing better.
Well, giving up in the region for 10 years and letting PS become the default there didn’t help… And it seems to me they only started becoming active there again as recently as only a few months ago. And from what I see, PC Game Pass is what they push in regions where they are weak.
Europe to me seems to be a “visibility” problem more than a content problem. Asia is a mix of both but visibility still being the bigger anchor, which is why just buying a publisher in these areas wouldn’t fix everything.
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That’s not really true and there’s many factors that go beyond just having the content, Xbox lack of appeal in EU comes from many things beyond pure content, Cyberpunk/CDPR aren’t going to change that
Terrible marketing and Sony having a stranglehold there for decades are way bigger factors that Xbox not having the content
Well content is definitely a big factor but not anymore, they have an absurd library of IPs, the vast majority of which havn’t even been utilised yet, we’ve basically had four big games from Xbox this gen with Halo, FH5, Starfield and FM
I think using those and saying well, they don’t have the content, lets get CDPR is a tad silly