Microsoft rumored to be buying...... [2020-04, 2020-07, 2020-11]

Tencent has stakes in over 600 companies, and far more video game companies than others.
Embracer Group owns stakes in over 76 game studios.

I didn't see people proclaiming monopoly concerns over acquisitiins done by those two but only concerns over Microsoft's acquisitios.

 

My view on monopoly is coloured by the fact I like a variety of games, and non AAA are always more interesting. I'm not sure there's any collection of companies that could be gobbled up that'd bother me. They'll be far more developers outside of the walled gardens of MS/Sony than will ever be inside them. Probably.

 

All the studios accepted the offer, but Nintendon't

 

Maybe Im wrong but I thought tencent were mainly about online & mobile and not console games?
never heard of Embracer Group (quick google) Oh I've worked for them (first Ive heard of them)

 

It's at least 40% stake in Epic Games and by extension the defacto game engine UE used by console games. They own Leyou which owns SplashDamage that worked on Gears Ultimate Edition, Gears 4 MP, Gears 5 MP, Halo MCC (PC), Gears Tactics. Leyou owns Digital Extreme which is Warframe. Leyou owns Athlon Games which owns Telltale Games. Leyou has 20% stake in Certain Afinity which is helping with Halo Infinite. Tencent now has a 22% stake in Bloober Team too.

From Wiki about their storefront that serves PCs as well:

In April 2017, Tencent unveiled its own flagship gaming platform, WeGame which will host games, content, and services from all over the world and will provide gaming info, purchases, downloads, live streaming and community services, creating an open ecosystem for gaming. WeGame is an upgraded version of TGP (Tencent Games Platform) that already has more than 200 million active users (compared to Steam's 125 million) and over 4.5 billion downloads. It will be dedicated to both global developers and players, and will assist developers who require help with translation. The gaming platform will support both Chinese and global users through a single storefront and is due to go online on 1 September 2017, Tencent has stated that the platform will focus on PC and standalone games and will no longer host web or mobile games, and will provide support to small and indie companies. Aside from mainstream games, the company has promised to also launch titles which include Stardew Valley, Rocket League, Portal Knights, Minecraft, Cities: Skylines, with 170 games promised by the end of 2017.​

So as you can see, Tencent ripples extend far and wide.

 

I always imagine some sort of embezzling going on at these huge megacorps, not because of them specifically, but because the thoughts that riches means power and power corrupts and people with power want more.

 

It's why bethesda was a huge purchase for MS , they have a viable engine they can offer to 2nd/3rd party devs. Its also why the crytek rumor keeps coming up. It would be a second large engine for them.

 

Confirmation that Undead Labs will be using UE5. Not much of a surprise as State of Decay 2 was on UE4.

What is interesting though, is that a new studio is being created under the lead of Undead Labs. Not one to create games, but a support studio focusing on animation that will support other MS dev. houses.

Interesting choice as Undead Labs was previously more of a high indie or low AA studio prior to the MS acquisition. I wonder if this means that MS has pumped more funds their way for State of Decay 3. I'd love to see what they could do with a AAA budget.

Anyway, I wonder if this means that out of all the MS internal studios, Undead Labs is closest to releasing a title on UE5?

Regardless, it's not the studio I would have expected to take the lead WRT creating an internal MS support studio focused on animation technology.

Regards,
SB

 

Yeah, it's curious really. Maybe it just comes down to managers/relationships etc, as these things often are. Not sure about location either. I didn't know Orlando was a hotbed for animators.

I think it was either Obsidian or InXile who answered "more animators" when Matt Booty was asking them what was on their wishlist post purchase. Seems like a sensible move to have shared resource across MS Studios.

 

So the Studio in Orlando is for Animation and the one in Champaign is for "normal" support?

 

Disney and Universal both have big foot prints down there. For a long time Disney did animation down there at MGM (Now hollywood) studios theme park and I believe off site places. How much is still down there I don't know. But Florida has seen a huge influx of people and its like the west coast with extremely nice weather for the majority of the year.

Also isn't Epic in North Carolina ? There are a lot of developers in Austin Texas and In NY state too

 

Florida has one of the lowest corporate ales tax rates in the US. Bottom 5 IIRC. If you have the means to start a business anywhere, you would likely look in one of the states with lower taxes.

 

https://news.microsoft.com/features...bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

 

Holy shit. From rumor to official in like 5 minutes.

 

This elicits a bigger wow than Bethesda.

 

Official Discussion @ https://forum.beyond3d.com/threads/wsj-microsoft-buying-activision-blizzard-2022-01.62702/

 

wonder if this will affect the other purchase I was hearing about. But compared to 70B that purchase is like a rounding error lol