I can see FF being exclusive, FF is more oriented towards Western audiences than Persona or DQ
Ninja Theory has Project Mara on pause, they could scale it up and make it a launch title
Saint’s Row studio Volition has had to close down completely, while Tomb Raider developers Crystal Dynamics have been forced to lay off 10% of their workforce too
Phil send the rescue chopper.
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I’m pretty sure Microsoft will buy Crystal Dynamics. The Initiative needs them on Perfect Dark and the plan is to make perfect dark a mainline Xbox franchise like Halo and Gears. If Embracer refuses to sellCrystal Dynamics then I don’t know what we should expect for Perfect Darks future.
If MS is not greedy on Tomb Raider IP, which is landed to Amazon right now, then CD could be cheap to buy.
I was a big CD fan of the early ages. I think they deserve moret than being a Tomb Raider factory.
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I think it might be the case of talent is more important than the IP. However, Tomb Raider name still holds a lot of weight, but I don’t think it’s wise to spend $600m+ for it because Amazon would want that. I am sure Microsoft and Amazon could work out a deal where they own multimedia rights, but Microsoft owns video game rights.
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Tomb Raider could be one of those problematic IP where the pressure is strong to keep it multiplatform.
Just rename her, Janet the brave adventure girl. What is needed is a studio which is good at THAT AAA kind of game.
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Or let’s see a completely new IP from Crystal. No TR, no licensed IP. Since 2005 Crystal have only made TR games and one Avengers game 
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Microsoft is ready for acquisitions in 2024 
https://twitter.com/Psychobaker_24/status/1726670766815756629
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The frustrating part is the single player parts of Avengers were really awesome, for example the stealthy Kamala Khan section.
You can clearly see where Square forced them to adapt it into a live service game mid-development which sucks. I think if we got the single player game they originally envisioned it would have been fantastic (Modern Xbox wouldn’t have forced their hands like Square did).
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Live Service gaming was a bad idea at Bethesda, it killed Square Europe and now it is a menace to Sony.
Live Service gaming is ok, it has its place, but not every studio should and can do it properly and not die if it fails.
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Give Crystal Pitfall
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I stand by my position that Microsoft’s next acquisition is Take Two.
At the beginning (in 2018) the acquisitions were decided by Phil Spencer to develop the creativity of the XBOX portfolio. Phil Spencer is a true passionate gamer and has acquired small, passionate teams to bring diversity and originality to XBOX Gamepass. But now XBOX has the ambition to become the industry leader in terms of revenues and profits generated, they want to overtake Tencent and double their revenues by 2030, in other words they want to exceed 30 billion dollars.
GTA V is the most lucrative entertainment product on the market with GTA Online (Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold more than 52 million copies) You can imagine that the target of investors is Take Two, just watch the video of the games graph The most popular paid ones over several decades are Minecraft, GTA V, World of Warcraft, and Skyrim.
Just go to Twitch and look at which are the most popular games which have a longevity of 10 years and which are still among the most viewed (there is always World of Warcraft, Minecraft, GTA V)
https://twitter.com/NilOggier/status/1518557941955182593
If you currently have more than 143 billion in cash you will necessarily try to make the buyout that will bring you the most money and above all a huge fan base in your ecosystem adding 200 million GTA players is not something to neglect. MAUs (Monthly Active Users) are even more important than hardware sales.
GTA VI is coming and the action of Take Two is going to rise even more. I think Take Two will decide to sell when the stock is at its peak; they are obviously a public company and therefore can be acquired.
Microsoft has targeted Studios renowned for being the best of their genre
- Playground - Forza Horizon (Open World Racing)
- Mojang - Minecraft (Sandbox)
- ID Software - DOOM / Quake (FPS)
- Blizzard - World of Warcraft (MMO)
- Bethesda - The Elder Scrolls (Sandbox RPG)
- Arkane - Dishonored (Immersive Sim)
- Blizzard - Starcraft (STR)
- I mean they won’t have Mario for the platform game but they have Banjo, Crash, Spyro, Raz who remain platform icons who are over 20 years old. (Even if for me Banjo Kazooie remains to this day the best 3D platform game of all time and even Shigeru Miyamoto admitted preferring Banjo Kazooie to Mario 64, saying that he was jealous at the time because Banjo did everything better as Mario) …
But there is an important genre of game where they don’t have a representative of the genre at the top, it’s the spectacular 3rd person game (even if they have Gears, Hellblade, Fable I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that Rockstar is the undisputed master of this type of game (which is the genre that Sony represents the most but no Sony game reaches the quality of Rockstar despite their involvement in this type of production) by buying Take Two Microsoft ensures to dominate another genre with the best representative. When you master FPS, RPGs, TPS, platform games, racing games, strategy games (probably VS Fighting remains) you master the main game genres and the most popular.
That’s just my thoughts but I think that Take Two is really Microsoft’s number 1 acquisition target (although I don’t really like their games apart from Bioshock and Xcom) I think they are the most interesting of from the point of view of the income generated and profits, a solid active player base installed and a brand image for the Third Persons genre that Microsoft does not have and which is currently lacking because the press persists in comparing Microsoft and Sony only on this type of production which Microsoft does not yet master. Bioen obviously there is not only Rockstar but many IPs, Bioshock, Xcom, Civilization… there is obviously Zynga and interesting technologies which are the property of Rockstar like the Rage engine or even Mocap Studios at industry leader.
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Don’t think Microsoft could get away with a Take Two acquisition, nor do I think they are interested in finding out.
I think it’d also be terrible for the industry for them to buy 2 of the largest publishers. You guys should really be careful of what you’re asking for. There are more reasonable ways for them to fill the gaps in the lineup.
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Yeah, asking for Sega, SE, or Capcom is one thing, but I think asking for MS to buy EA or T2, the next most-valuable publishers after ABK, is the red alert scenario some have towards Xbox. Understandably so as well.
I know that I’ve been Team Sega from day one, but I think aside from a smaller pub like them or Paradox, Xbox should really focus on those studios that are independent and could use the extra resources (or will close otherwise).
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Although I see your argument, I personally don’t see how they get any of the remaining big publishers (Take-Two, Epic & EA) through the regulators after ABK, which was very touch and go. I also doubt Microsoft will want to risk another two years trying to secure it either.
Roblox however is possible and was featured higher than GTA in the video you embedded above.
I do agree with you that Xbox need to to get into the 3rd person action/adventure genre but again I think they would have better luck with the likes of Crystal Dynamics (Tomb Raider), Eidos Montréal (Guardians of the Galaxy), Remedy (Alan Wake/Quantum Break), Asobo (A Plague Tale) & IOI (Hitman).
Rockstar are incredible in this area though, I would say their games easily surpass PlayStation in terms of production quality and details.
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I mean Microsoft is a company first and foremost their interest is to make as much money as possible, generate as much revenue as possible and explode profits and I don’t see anything better than GTA for that. It also guarantees a colossal number of active players.
The video game market is so vast and there are still so many powerful IPs in the industry Fortnite, League of Legends, Apex, Valorant, Dota… the games of tomorrow I mean any Studio can create a game like Minecraft you just need to have an idea and luck but it could happen at any time the video game industry is not fixed there are still so many Studios and publishers which are created every year. Fortnite didn’t exist 10 years ago and look where it is now. It is not with Take Two, Activision Blizzard King, Bethesda, XBOX that Microsoft will have a market monopoly. They just want to overtake Tencent by 2030 in terms of revenue generated.
There is no chance Microsoft could get through another major publisher like Take Two, EA, Warner Bros, Ubisoft, Embracer etc, and Im not sure they need to.
They need to just aquire individual studios that either are strategically important for them, like Asobo, Relic, Crystal Dynamics and Edios, or studios that fit a need for them in their portfolio of games, such as Iron Galaxy or Remedy.
Their stated goal of having 4 AAA games a year is already met with their existing studio count, so any others should just be needs based.
One thing I am wondering is if the cutting of jobs at CD was a requirement of MS prior to purchase. As CD no longer have any IP of value, and the majority of the income is coming from Microsoft any way, you would think it wouldnt be an overy expensive purchase, and well below the cap for regular oversight. This would also make you think that they would do Edios and CD as two independent purchases rather than a bulk buy, as it would make it easier to get through.
I don’t think the regulators are a problem I mean all the countries approved quite easily (+30 countries) there was only the FTC which lost in front of a federal judge and the CMA which asked for concessions (they will probably just ask to leave GTA on Playstation and bring it to other platforms) Microsoft only wants to increase their income they said they are not in competition with Sony and Nintendo but Tencent and potential other GAMAM (maybe be Netflix coming) Tencent currently generates more than 10 billion more than Microsoft which has been in the Video Game industry since the 1970s with Flight Simulator. They are still behind Tencent even though they were first in the software sector. If they exceed Tencent by 3-4 billion they should not be considered in a state of Monopoly. The regulators will accept.
I think the problem they will find is the market isn’t as broad as that.
Yes Tencent is the market leader in the gaming industry but the majority of that is Mobile (the biggest market) followed by PC (almost exclusively Riot Games). As we discovered during the ABK acquisition regulators tend to carve specific markets out.
For example both the EU and CMA identified this cloud gaming market which is so niche that the average consumer probably wouldn’t care. When you factor in things like this and the ‘console market’ which they now technically surpass both rivals (in revenue) it will be near impossible to pick up another publisher of this size (at least in the near future IMO).
It took a two year legal battle to get ABK (which still isn’t finished with the FTC), the more they add/grow the more difficult it will become. I’m almost certain the UK, USA, Canada and EU would put up roadblocks for another big one.
Also with Take-Two it’s not just GTA but all the sports titles (NBA2K, WWE 2K & PGA 2K). Also they own things like the Borderlands publishing rights - all of these things will cause a headache with the regulators. They would also have to come to another cloud licensing arrangement which would likely have to be someone that’s not Ubisoft.
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