ChuckeRearmed
Regular
Really? I thought XCloud was in beta for a long time
Microsoft rumored to be buying...... [2020-04, 2020-07, 2020-11]
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September 2020 was the public launch of xCloud. Before that it was insider betas and employee alphas before that stretch.
November 2019 was the public launch of Stadia. Not sure how long it was in internal beta phases.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
Oh, wow. I for some reason thought that XCloud has been there for a long time.
nah it was in testing for a long time and a public beta for like half a year I think.
They aren't rolling out a lot of xcloud servers because they are waiting for the new blades built on series x. Series x will allow 4 1080p streams or 1 4k stream and the hardware has a new built in encoder . With the xbox one they had to use an external encoder and while better than what was in the xbox one its not as good as what is in the xbox series x. I think they will start getting installed in the spring to summer time.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
With all these rumors about Paradox, if MS to acquire them then they will basically own the whole RTS genre and ironically Sega Europe will be the only remaining RTS maker.
D
Deleted member 11852
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I love Paradox games and I am super happy that SEGA have been utterly hands off with Creative Assembly (Total War) since acquiring them, other than releasing some actually pretty good mobile Total War ports. It is kind of crazy that just two companies have such massive segment of the RTS mindshare.
I still play Rome Total War on my iPad and it's GREAT!
honestly buying paradox + sega for ~6-7B to dominate strategy games seems like a good idea... plus you get some Japanese games with SEGA, plus the E rated IP.
paradox is ~$3.2B right now, call it $4.5B with a (generous) buyers premium
Sega Sammy is $3.8B and has two main parts the pachinko business and the gaming business, contrary to popular belief the pachinko business actually makes more money than the gaming side of the company. I would be surprised honestly if Sega Sammy wouldn't be interested in offloading the sega gaming business for ~3 B, they would get a massive influx of capital to allow them to capitalize on any post covid market opportunities that they see. Sega sammy was the only japanese game publisher to lose money in 2020, due to all of their pachinko games being in closed businesses, but with a vaccine rolling out that will likely quickly change
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Huh, so Gearbox got acquired by the Embracer group. Rumor is that MS were looking into acquiring them as well, but backed out.
Regards,
SB
Regards,
SB
Gearbox would have been a mess I think. There's been more than a little litigation around Randy Pitchford on a number of fronts. Very easy for that to turn into a PR nightmare for a company like MS.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
I think MS' wanted to buy Gearbox without Randy - like they did with Mojang, but Randy decided to stay.
As far as I know Sega also produces toys no? And also has anime studios. I wonder how it is gonna be handled if MS were to acquire Sega. Gaming division has better future than pachinko so I doubt Sega Sammy would want to sell them. Sega + Konami has the monopoly on pachinkos right? Maybe they can merge together or something..
Then again considering that most of the stocks in Sega owned by a single 80+ old dude...Other divisions might be also interesting for MS as producing anime, or making - they make Halo toys in 343 right?...Sega is the best I think.
D
Deleted member 11852
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Do people really believe Japan, a country that is already cautious about foreign investment in Japanese companies and concerned by western influences on their culture, would approve the sale of SEGA to an American-headquartered firm?
Really?
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
In case of Sega yes. In case of Kadokawa - probably not.Do people really believe Japan, a country that is already cautious about foreign investment in Japanese companies and concerned by western influences on their culture, would approve the sale of SEGA to an American-headquartered firm?
Really?
The thing about Japanese purchases is that the company should not be critical for Japan. Sega is not critical. Hell, Konami is more important I think because they make medical equipment or something.
D
Deleted member 11852
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If by 'critical' you mean CNI then you must know that Japan's regulations go much wider than this. SEGA is a sixty year old company with a deep Japanese culture. Has there ever been a US acquisition of a Japanese gaming company?
I can't find a single one. Japanese companies acquire each other (Bandai / Namco, Square / Taito) and Japanese companies acquire foreign companies (Sony / Gaikai, Square / Eidos, SEGA / Relic) but a US firm getting approval to buy a sixty-year old Japanese seems damn unlikely given the Japanese government's stance on this.
Not a gaming acquisition but an interesting discussion
Microsoft tried to acquire Pinterest, FT reports - The Verge
Pinterest has a ~50B valuation without any buyers premium
Seems that it would be an acquisition to bolster azure, to be used as an example of a large online service that uses azure.
I would have to imagine that they are considering buying twitter as well, which has a ~59B market cap.
Although thinking about it pinterest is much more 'politically safe' than twitter, by a long shot.
Are there any other companies like this that you guys can think of?
To go crazy, I think a merger with adobe makes a lot of sense, Microsoft already has a productivity subscription in the various permutations of office 365, it would make sense to add a creative subscription to the portfolio with creative cloud. The merger would be accretive and wouldn't negatively affect the financials of Microsoft really, because they both have similar profit margins and P/E ratios that are somewhat close, (adobe with a P/E of 45.5, Microsoft with a P/E of 36.2).There's also a lot of cloud stuff that they could do with adobe.
Microsoft tried to acquire Pinterest, FT reports - The Verge
Pinterest has a ~50B valuation without any buyers premium
Seems that it would be an acquisition to bolster azure, to be used as an example of a large online service that uses azure.
I would have to imagine that they are considering buying twitter as well, which has a ~59B market cap.
Although thinking about it pinterest is much more 'politically safe' than twitter, by a long shot.
Are there any other companies like this that you guys can think of?
To go crazy, I think a merger with adobe makes a lot of sense, Microsoft already has a productivity subscription in the various permutations of office 365, it would make sense to add a creative subscription to the portfolio with creative cloud. The merger would be accretive and wouldn't negatively affect the financials of Microsoft really, because they both have similar profit margins and P/E ratios that are somewhat close, (adobe with a P/E of 45.5, Microsoft with a P/E of 36.2).There's also a lot of cloud stuff that they could do with adobe.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
Bethesda purchased Tango gameworks for example.If by 'critical' you mean CNI then you must know that Japan's regulations go much wider than this. SEGA is a sixty year old company with a deep Japanese culture. Has there ever been a US acquisition of a Japanese gaming company?
I think it will be fine. Age does not matter in that regard. Considering MS' approach to Bethesda and its structure it will be fine.
Sounds interesting but I think it won't happen.
100%. I mean AWS is dominant in that area whether it is social media - like Facebook hosting on AWS, or movie streaming like Disney+, Netflix (not to mention their own Prime). MS is a good gaming cloud but they want diversify that, especially now that AWS got into gaming too, which would that make AWS experienced in gaming, movies, social networks, online shopping etc.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Tango Gameworks was setup in March 2010 and acquired by Zenimax in October, after the company effectively went bankrupt. The environment for acquiring dead Japanese companies with 12 employees and zero assets and IP in 2010 is a bit different from profitable, sixty-year old Japanese companies in 2021.
ChuckeRearmed
Regular
It does not really matter. Age? Size? Profitability? Japanese government encourages Japanese companies to merge, that's true but Sega is not the important asset for Japan anymore. Your rhetoric reminds me of they guy who said that all the staff from Atlus will resign if MS purchases Sega. It will pass just fine if MS will decide to purchase Sega, nothing ideological there.Tango Gameworks was setup in March 2010 and acquired by Zenimax in October, after the company effectively went bankrupt. The environment for acquiring dead Japanese companies with 12 employees and zero assets and IP in 2010 is a bit different from profitable, sixty-year old Japanese companies in 2021.
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