Dude, I know there are some good reasons not to acquire Warner (or get into the Cinema/TV industry), but I wish Microsoft would buy them.
Warner would bring very good studios to Xbox. NetherRealm, TT Games, Monolith and Avalanche have had very good releases. Rocksteady and Warner Montreal unfortunately had some problems but probably linked to poor management. Warner is a good publisher, with popular games that are among the best sellers of the year (Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat 1, LEGO Star Wars). And of course it would be an opportunity for Xbox to obtain an incredible IP including DC Comics. Combined with future studio acquisitions, the development of the Warner universe into video games would be really interesting and would become a real argument in favor of Xbox.
There is huge potential with video games, but what I also find very exciting with this acquisition is the possibility of expanding the Xbox universe into film and television. Yes this industry is suffering, but damn, I would love to see Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft, Overwatch, TES, Fallout, Halo, Gears, Minecraft series and films on HBO. Maybe Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Borderlands, Hitman, The Witcher, Cyberpunk or Sonic depending on future acquisitions…
The potential is incredible, and as a spectator and player I think Warner would be a very good acquisition. In addition, I find that there is good synergy between the two companies. It wouldn’t be shocking to see them merge and they could benefit from each other.
Going to be an interesting next year on the financial side of gaming which is going to lead to a M&A segment that isn’t going to please a lot of the gaming community. Mixed news by some of the biggest publishers and platforms. Nintendo are doing very well but it’s been a mixed bag from a lot of others. Despite small revenue growth, we’re seeing shrinking profits which will inevitably lead to more job losses. Add to that venture capital into new projects and studios has dropped to pre-covid numbers it’s going to be messy.
We’re also seeing central banks pause rate hikes or in some cases continue to increase them making money expensive to borrow so unless it’s a small deal the only players that can make big purchases are the cash rich which will be tencent, savvy, Nintendo(if they want to) and big tech. Sony do have cash in hand and are looking to offload their financial services which will bring in more cash to invest but I would be suprised if the company as a whole would be willing to spend it all on gaming. Wouldn’t be suprised to see some of the small/medium sized publishers and a lot of studios start to actively look for buyers to insure their survivability.
Yeah I’m surprised that Microsoft hasn’t stepped in yet and secured CD and EM, especially now that there hands aren’t tied now that ABK drama is behind them.
Going off SteamDB global bestsellers and player peaks. I’m surprised Behavior Interactive hasn’t been acquired by any major publisher yet, the creators of the hit survival game Dead by Daylight.
Selling extremely well at #19 global bestseller, mind you the game released in 2016 and is free on Game Pass!. Steam even had a healthy 40,144 peak today
Speaking of Game Pass, the game is sitting at #20 most played Xbox game.
Some quick notes on the Studio
the company employs roughly 1,300 + employees
based in Montreal with 4 subsidiaries (UK and WA)
Atomic Monster and Blumouse are teaming up with Behavior Interactive to create a Dead by Daylight movie
This would be a great pickup for any publisher trying to get into the GaaS craze lol.
WBD is on my wish list for sure. I feel like that would give Microsoft the biggest bump in western/worldwide IP they could get that should still pass regulators with ease. They would own everything from Mortal Kombat, Scooby Doo, to the rights to Harry Potter and Batman. I would be looking to make almost everything exclusive to Xbox/PC/ and gamepass where applicable. I would maybe keep Mortal Kombat multiplat, but include it on Gamepass and have crossplay across all platforms. The next Harry Potter and Batman games would be exclusive though. I would also license off some Ip to other studios for some smaller games based on the cartoon properties, but I would 100% have an in house studio working on games for some of the more famous IP like Scooby Doo, Flintstones, and maybe Johnny Quest. A Tom and Jerry game might be cool as well, but that could be licensed to another studio with stipulations that it is in Gamepass and has dev priority on Xbox over other platforms to look and perform the best. Include Max in Gamepass move all of the WBD servers to Azure. Hire someone to run the movie/TV side or let the studios go with licensing deals to work on the Microsoft owned IP. I would think if Microsoft agreed to pay off their debt and the 20 million they are worth the 60 million should cover the entirity of WBD. I believe debt can be included in the price.
MS will have to buy a media company with a big library and IP pretty soon if they want to stay competitive because Netflix is pretty serious about gaming right now. Ted Sarandos again talked about investing big in gaming a few days ago. Netflix supplying games to their already built-in 250M subs is going to make them the netflix of gaming too before MS will have a chance to do anything.
I am more worried about Xbox taking the foot off the streaming pedal than I am them not owning a gaming company. Seems premature to deem that market a failure and leave a opening for new competitors.
That said, any new competitor is going to have a content problem no matter how much cross media IP they own. Netflix would need to make multiple publisher acquisitions to make a dent. Any competitor except Apple I suppose, third parties would jump on the ability to leverage the amount of devices in that ecosystem.
Just something interesting I saw with some aspects that go into acquisition besides “owning big IP”
“Looking at the books, IO had not made money for almost ten years in a row” by the time Square Enix started looking to divest it, said Abrak, and that fact made acquiring it an unappealing prospect for other potential owners.
“Some companies would offer $1 to take over IO, because of the responsibilities and running costs,” said Abrak, while others discussed the possibility of reducing the studio to a fifth of its size and “just [doing] free-to-play with Hitman.”
