Xbox Acquisition |OT7| Come on down for your chance to win on “Who will Xbox buy next?!”

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1465

An important point about Sega is that MS is not interested in Sammy, so the value of Sega is probably half of Sega-Sammy valuation (based on 2023 profits). I do not think Sammy is very easy to understand how to manage Sega and considering the inflated money and risk about AAA game devs, they may just leave and take a big pay check.

My understanding is that Sammy and Sega merged to avoid being bought when japanese gaming consolidation happened in the early 2000s. The funny part of this is that Sega proposed to sell to MS just before at the end of Dreamcast life. Gates refused, he did not saw the potentiel of buying the company after Sega being defeated by Sony. He preferred to choose Rare, the “mature” pillar of Nintendo. I still think Sega staff would not feel attacked to be proposed by MS.

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Seen some good suggestions floated around here that I definitely agree would provide Xbox with great value going forward. While I don’t know Microsoft’s exact criteria for their acquisitions, I think strategically it’s good to focus on the following: quality of IP, size of backlog, studio prestige, and an international appeal. Xbox now has access to many excellent IPs and studios that solidify its position as an FPS and WRPG giant. Both PlayStation and Nintendo’s first-party line-ups aren’t as strong in these genres. From here, I think it would be good for Xbox to get a tighter grasp on other genres/subgenres. Here’s some sound, worthwhile targets I can see Microsoft pursuing and actually being approved by regulators, with their notable IP:

Studios:

  • Crystal Dynamics - Legacy of Kain and Tomb Raider
  • Eidos-Montreal - Deus Ex and Thief
  • IO Interactive - Hitman and Freedom Fighters
  • GSC Game World - Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
  • Frictional Games - Penumbra, Soma, and Amnesia

Publishers:

  • Sega - Sonic the Hedgehog, Like a Dragon/Yakuza, Persona, Shin Megami Tensei, Total War, Company of Heroes, Bayonetta, Angry Birds, Football Manager, Virtua Fighter, and Phantasy Star

Like many have said, due to Embracer Group’s financial troubles, Xbox would benefit from purchasing Crystal Dynamics and Eidos-Montreal with their associated IP. Tomb Raider would be a massive get and help compete with Sony’s third-person action formula, but I think Deus Ex has greater potential for good storytelling. CD and Eidos are also already partnering with Xbox on Fable and Perfect Dark. IOI is a likely pick, as the leaked FTC documents listed them as a potential target. Plus, they clearly have an amicable relationship with Microsoft, since their upcoming Project Dragon will be an exclusive (maybe to test the waters for a potential acquisition?). Issue is IOI currently only has two IP (Mini Ninjas and Kane & Lynch stayed with Square Enix), with only Hitman having notability. That is looking to change, though. Having Thief, Hitman, and Dishonored will give Xbox a lot of weight in the stealth genre. Unfortunately, Embracer’s deal with Square Enix did not include all the IP owned by the former Eidos Interactive (barring Just Cause, Hitman, and Freedom Fighters). Square Enix still at least owns Gex, Anachronox, Daikatana, and Fear Effect, according to trademark fillings. Not massive or even active IP, sure, but I do think Toys for Bob could’ve done wonders with a new Gex.

GSC Game World would be good to get an Eastern European developer. Cossacks builds up Xbox’s RTS backlog and the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series has a lot of potential. Frictional Games, while small, knows how to make great horror experiences. Amnesia is considered one of the scariest horror franchises for a reason. In my opinion, they’re a much better get than Bloober Team. Sega is definitely the most suitable Japanese publisher that Xbox can feasibly obtain. Square Enix might’ve been no. 1 if they kept their western studios. Sonic is the closest you can get to a platformer mascot as iconic as Mario. Having Sonic with Banjo-Kazooie, Conker, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro all together would be insane to me haha. Sega in generally super diversified with Relic Entertainment, Atlus, Sonic Team, Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Creative Assembly, Rovio, Two Point Studios, etc. Owning StarCraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires/Mythology, Company of Heroes, and Total War (devs also made Dawn of War games) would make Microsoft the undisputed king of RTS. That’d only really leave Command & Conquer at EA. Xbox can build up Phantasy Star into their own Final Fantasy. Being Japanese, having a bunch of great IP, and a strong mobile presence with Rovio, Sega is probably the best pick and the most likely to actually sell.

Other studios with good IP that they don’t own like Avalanche Studios Group could be good. Coping here, but I hope if this acquisition happens Xbox decides to purchase the Just Cause rights from Square Enix for them. Coping further, Xbox should also get the other Eidos properties too lol. I need Gex to be done justice.

Sorry for the huge post!

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First off, WELCOME! Great to have new faces and no apologies necessary - this is a great post :slight_smile:

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Welcome :wave:t2:, I agree with you that Xbox need to start concentrating on studio acquisitions that work on genres outside of FPS & WRPG.

For a while now I have suggested Xbox should concentrate on more of the action/adventure games which typically do well at awards.

Talking of which I posted this earlier today in relation to how Xbox could have more presence at these awards:

I thought CD still owned Gex after their departure, sucks that Square retained it.

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I really don’t think they care about awards that much to be honest. They’re more interested in making money and having games that draw people to their platform and services. If that goal aligns with them having more games that garner award attention, then that’s an added bonus. But, I don’t think they’re going out of their way to make acquisitions based on awards, because that would be a foolish endeavor.

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I don’t think they do either, just for clarification I think these studios would still be very successful too (I wouldn’t suggest them just for the awards :wink:).

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The narrative that the awards actually mean anything on the grand scale is mind-boggling to me; that joke of a show sure as hell didn’t seem to hurt Xbox’s rising profits, nor did it help Sony’s falling profits. So again, other than stupid online narratives driven by basement-dwelling losers, why do people care again?

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Very true, the majority of players will continue to play Madden, NBA 2K, CoD and EA FC etc - most of which will never win awards (or get high Metacritic scores).

PlayStation continues to show they have studios which make highly acclaimed games but don’t provide them with the profits they need (hence them now trying to get into GAAS). With ABK Xbox will now be generating more profit than PS.

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Please don’t take that as a disagreement to your statement about targeting those specific genres, I completely agree. I just don’t think Xbox needs to concern themselves with garbage like TGAs (seriously, I can’t count the amount of devs who hate the thing) nor do they need to copy Sony. Xbox has soared above PS in player counts and reach because GP allows them to try new things and take risks… if they followed Sony, they’d probably have shut the Xbox division down because it’s very clear that I was right for years when I said Sony’s failure to adapt would eventually bite the Playstation division… just as it has literally every other branch under that decaying corp.

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Yup, this is a point people always overlooked. The game awards might have a 100 million views or whatever, but in the end of the day, casuals don’t care and just play games like COD, Minecraft etc., which generate MS money, which is what a company cares about. The Game Awards is just a feel good pretentious event, which is good for devs morale don’t get me wrong, but for fanboys, it’s just console war ammo and ego stroking for them. It’s like the movie industry praising a film that is considered an art form to the critics, but casuals would rather watch recycled plot Marvel movies lol.

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I don’t think they should be bothered about the TGA’s. The views there don’t even amount to anything in my opinion. I have yet to see a game benefit solely from the TGA’s. Microsoft’s goal is to reach the 3billion plus gamers and 99% of those don’t give a hoot about the TGA’s. The way I see it’s Geoff using this to try to get business from all those 3 billion plus. Microsoft I would think are better going after foreign studios or publishers for more of a global effect.
I don’t see Microsoft going for CDPR, Capcom or Remedy. The rest are possibilities, but I think the next acquisition will be from Japan or South Korea.

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Cash-rich technology companies have begun giving their clients more options for cloud infrastructure they can use to run applications. Alibaba, Amazon and Google have done this for years. Microsoft, with about $144 billion in cash at the end of October, had 21.5% cloud market share in 2022, behind only Amazon

144 Billion already hope we get something good next year.

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https://x.com/shinobi602/status/1724840686304813186?s=46&t=x67OgPnK2PNMkoMLA_j70A

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Regardless of what happens, it is admirable that Xbox already managed to have Sega release many of their games in GP day 1 and even give the marketing to nearly all of their major games to them as well. Even without owning them they have managed to bridge a relationship that is closer than even many of the Western publishers.

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They clearly have a good relationship with them, that being said, you can never take these heads seriously when it comes to acquisitions

Any company can be for sale if the right offer comes along

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Yeah, It’s a standard answer that companies pretty much have to give. If they feed into potential acquisition rumors, it could affect their stock price and lead to a whole host of problems legal and otherwise.

I can’t remember who it was but wasn’t there an instance where a company denied acquisition rumors and then announced their acquisition a few weeks later? Was it Bungie? :smile:

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It was us… we broke the story based on a hire Bungie made and the press lambasted us (including a certain Chinese-mythology named analyst). Turns out we were right, even with the timing as we now know they were courting Xbox at the time… which the Bungie CEO also denied at the time. As I have always said, public denials mean absolutely nothing in these cases.

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Everything is up for sale at the right price, especially public company’s with shareholders desperate for more money.

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Bingo, luckily I’m pretty sure everyone here understands that :slight_smile:

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