Yeah, no thank you. How about not.
Feel it is fair to say, we are not at the end of this and Bethesda is a mighty bit domino. It will suck a lot at hyper speed
There’s…not much else left to buy! Off the top of my head…Capcom, EA, Certain Affinity, Deep Silver, THQ Nordic (shout-out to Mark), WB’s interactive entertainment division. Maybe Namco or Konami’s game IP? I assume that Ubi would be too big for Microsoft to eat. Even EA might trigger a funny look from the anti-trust people. Maybe Avalanche (the Just Cause people).
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If they’re going to do another big buy my money is on SEGA.
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Already putting out games on both console and PC with both being of good quality
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They get Relic for RTS games, who they’re already working with on the next Age of Empires
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They get Creative Assembly so now they’re in the war gaming space
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They get Atlus who have a pretty solid fan base and a huge JRPG catalog to pull from and entice a Japanese audience to buy an Xbox
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Sony losing Persona would be a slap
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They get into the arcade space in Japan if they want to some how start tying xbox live into that which would incentive people to buy an Xbox
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They get mobile game development
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They get another major MMO in the form of Phantasy Star Online
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They get a huge catalog of IP for all of their studios to start pulling from
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They get a studio that has experience making sports games
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They’ve already got a great business relationship
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I wonder what Sony’s response to this would be? If I was them I’d offer to do the same but with Capcom, Atlus etc and then give them that sweet sweet first-party funding. Kojima Productions would also be a smart buy. Basically they’re current first-party strategy is more than enough to hold its own against Microsoft’s agenda, they just need to up the number of big and exclusive games they’re releasing on their platform. This really isn’t much different to Nintendo’s strategy if you subtract the need to make a profit on each unit of hardware sold and a lot of people seem to think the Switch is an essential platform regardless of whether you also have a console/PC (although the fact that most of these games are coming out on PC going forward muddies those waters a bit for Sony).
I don’t know what Sony’s overall corporate situation is like, but Microsoft probably found the money for the Bethesda acquisition in the couch cushions in Phil Spencer’s office. I don’t think they have the cash to go studio-for-studio with Microsoft. They’ll probably pay for (presumably) timed exclusives like Ghostwire: Tokyo and Deathloop moving forward while they look to make a larger acquisition if they can swing it, but I imagine they’ll probably continue doing what they’re doing moving forward.
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I do wonder how likely it is for a Japanese company to sell to a foreign one, although it is possible
Definitely not. However, Bethesda is probably the biggest publisher/developer conglomerate behind EA, Activision, and 2K. Even your Capcoms of the world are not going to go for Bethesda money. Locking down the Japanese Market, esp given the global success of Japanese games in the latter half of this generation, would make a bunch of sense and probably cost as much as MS spent on Bethesda alone.
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Microsoft as a whole is around 20 times bigger than Sony, thus their pockets are 20 times bigger. That doesn’t mean Xbox has 20 times more to spend than Playstation, while Playstation makes Sony most their money, Xbox doesn’t make Microsoft most of its money so how corporate resources are allocated is likely a different ratio. Either way Sony can’t compete in spending but their board might allow a bigger bid for smaller publishers that Microsoft’s might not be willing to spend.
Let’s say Sony wanted to buy Konami’s IP and publishing arm, I could see them having a better shot at that than Microsoft. Then again Microsoft could “offer you can’t refuse” any publisher they want. It’s just a matter of if they want.
What I’m saying is I want any of Sony’s talented studios to take a crack at a Silent Hill.
Sony coming out with “We bought Konami’s IP and we’re throwing $150 mil at KojiPro to actually make Silent Hills and another $150 mil at From to do a Castlevania game” would be a pretty nice riposte, wouldn’t it?
I think it’s THE move to make. It would also be met with less cynicism than the Bethesda acquisition because it’s generally accepted the those IPs are wasted in Konami’s hands.
Yo, just give me MGS2’s tanker chapter with current gen physics and tech, and just take all my money.
I was saying this to someone else the other day. I’d kill for an MGS remaster because hoo boy those are a chore to play.
I mean, sick Bluepoint on MGS 1-3, replace Kiefer with Hayter. Get all the good gamer will.
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No need for 1, just fish out the source code for Twin Snakes out of Niagara Falls and we’re good to go.
Sony buying Konami is the only sale I can get behind. Konami has their goldmine of IPs in pachinko hell and Sony would do well by them since they put a lot of stock of these big, single-player games that aren’t littered with microtransactions and other terrible, predatory garbage.
360 era Microsoft would have been great too but those days are long gone.
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Yeah, I really wish SOMEONE actually in the gaming business would just buy out Konami’s gaming properties already. Let them retain the pachinko rights in perpetuity or whatever, who cares.
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I’m just here to say that bluepoint style remakes of the MGS series would actually make me quit video games forever.
That might be a good thing though! I’m sure my RSI would get better, which would make it easier to get into climbing/mountaineering again.
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Sony paid $230 million for Insomniac, just 3% of Zenimax’s price. Bargain.
Konami does seem a likely target for someone, but they appear oddly reluctant to get out of video games even if everyone wishes they would. If the Sony-made Silent Hill rumours turn out to be true, perhaps they figure there’s more effort-free money to be made in licensing out their IPs then outright selling them.
Also, I couldn’t quite figure out how to shoehorn this in so let’s just pretend I had proper justification for including it:
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you, a fool: Sony should buy Konami so Kojima can make Silent Hills.
me, an intellectual: Level-5 should buy Konami so Hino can make a Yu-Gi-Oh! game.
/joke
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