Sony Game Studios Acquisitions [2022]

From a generational exclusive, it is now a timed exclusive where one of the newer Mortal Kombat 3 games didnt even come on PS1 and was exclusive on Saturn.
You are jumping from generational, to timed, to full generational of the old version.
I mean, surely if you want to provide a strong argument you should try to find a better example.
Ultimate MK3 and MK3 are different games. Like Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. They had different release date (about a year apart), different marketing, different titles, and different rosters of characters. I'm not sure why you don't understand that. Or that MK3, in it's vanilla form, did not appear on any 32bit home console except Playstation, where it was published by Sony. To think that Sony didn't take steps to ensure it's generational exclusivity ignores the facts as they exist. Sony published MK3 on Playstation. They were the exclusive publisher of vanilla MK3 that console generation.

I don't need a better example of Sony making deals for exclusive content, this one is just fine. It happened early on in the Playstation's life, and it's only one example.
 
The difference is hiring a bunch of people for hundreds of thousands of dollars and buying a company for hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.

The difference is a lot of zeroes that could otherwise be channelled into the actual games and technology itself, not just getting to the starting point of having a team who can develop games.

As it turns out, some creative endeavors are worth those extra zeros.
 
Ultimate MK3 and MK3 are different games. Like Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II Turbo. They had different release date (about a year apart), different marketing, different titles, and different rosters of characters. I'm not sure why you don't understand that. Or that MK3, in it's vanilla form, did not appear on any 32bit home console except Playstation, where it was published by Sony. To think that Sony didn't take steps to ensure it's generational exclusivity ignores the facts as they exist. Sony published MK3 on Playstation. They were the exclusive publisher of vanilla MK3 that console generation.

I don't need a better example of Sony making deals for exclusive content, this one is just fine. It happened early on in the Playstation's life, and it's only one example.
You are comparing a dust particle with an asteroid and you are expecting me to take you seriously? Is there so much desperation to find a comparable argument?
Eventually UMK3 arrived on the Saturn, PS didnt get Ultimate, and Trilogy came on both, even the N64 got MK4 . Doesnt matter how you spin it. All MK3 games are MK3 with the later ones trying to fix the problematic gameplay of the first. And who cares about SF2 when SSF2 or SSF2 Turpo is the more complete game?
The first was imbalanced and didnt even give the option to select the amazing and memorable boss characters. So basically you are saying that people should be crying over an older version when an update was available. Poor me I dont have the vanilla SF5 instead of the Ultimate SF5 that has more characters, modes, stages and balanced gameplay. :|
 
Last edited:
https://www.nintendolife.com/featur...jagLpWa0h2eyuSs3eQGFrmd09VyqzcnProxRDiUdB8fMo

This is arguably a particularly disruptive period, with technology shifting and enormous companies like Alphabet (Google) and Apple continually linked with entries into the dedicated hardware market, while Valve (Steam) is testing the handheld waters with the Deck portable. All companies are doing what they're designed to do — assess the market, make the right moves and maximise profits and opportunities. Yet some consumers seem to think it's all a bit of a laugh, as if Sony and Microsoft in particular should build mega alliances of gaming IPs through acquisitions and then fight to the death.

The problem with that is the potential dangers of giving one or two companies too much power and clout in the industry. It's always a balance, but while the current PR talk after acquisitions is around maintaining relations and support across platforms for the 'good of gaming', it's all just soundbites. No company will spend billions of dollars on an acquisition only to gather its rivals around for a sing-song and a sharing of the spoils. To think that would be naïve.
 
I mean it was pretty obvious.
However I like how the narrative regarding live service games changed as soon as Sony showed interest in them.

Like with aquiring studios, 3.6bn is by no means a small amount, neither is Bungie insignificant. But its all good. MS with zenimax was very disliked, not talking about Activision…. Or when crossgen was announced by ms first, the non-generational leap looking halo while gt7 does the same thing, for example.
Its not the topic for it but i think if we respect each others favourite companies abit more it could be less hostile.
 
Nintendo fans still mad about Rare.

(I kid)
:LOL:
I can understand their frustration in the whole thing as Nintendo is the only company that is left behind from the grand vision that Sony and MS plan and probably Nintendo either cant join or is too far from at this point to catch up.
At this rate Nintendo will be the company that probably will be starving the most and consequently its user base
 

A bit cynical, but I can certainly see why they would be. And while it may turn out that way, I'm seeing a different trajectory for MS.

I see Microsoft Gaming potentially following in the footsteps of MS productivity software groups. That means eventually embracing all platforms regardless of how outsiders think that might impact Microsoft's bottom line.

In the earliest days of MS, the OS was the bedrock of the company WRT revenue and profit generation and it's still a large part of that. However, despite that they committed fairly early on to releasing their Office products and other productivity products on MacOS machines.

Of course, back then when MS was still a cutthroat company, MacOS represented little threat to the company. Fast forward a few years and Linux becomes a serous threat as it eats away at the more lucrative server and commercial revenue streams. Fast forward some more years and suddenly Android and iOS become very serious competitors to Windows OS.

So, first things MS attempted to do? Isolate and compete head to head by extolling the virtues of Windows, keeping their products off of those platforms and even going so far as to buy Nokia in an attempt to offer a competing MS products for smartphones. All attempts to limit or blunt the effects of rivals to its lucrative Windows revenue.

But then something interesting happens. As MS did with the MacOS ecosystem, they've mostly embraced those competing platforms. Linux is now a first class or almost first class citizen in Windows. Android is starting to get to that point as well. If MS could allow iOS to be installed within Windows they would likely do that as well. They now offer their productivity suites on Android and iOS devices and have for years. Their productivity suites are availble in the cloud making it available across all competing platforms (OSes).

All of that comes at some cost to the Windows OS revenue stream, but MS sees benefits to having as much of their products available across as many platforms as possible regardless of its impact on the Windows OS.

That brings us to gaming. We see a similar trajectory here, albeit still at the stage where many MS games are still limited to certain platforms (Xbox consoles and PC). But we do see some outliers like Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons, Ori and the Blind Forest and Cuphead appearing on NSW. At one point Phil Spencer talked about potentially allowing more MS games on Nintendo platforms, although he's gone quiet on that front recently.

We see Microsoft Game Studios games made available in the cloud, allowing them to be run on any platform that allows a client to be installed on it or has a performant browser capable of streaming it in a browser. Basically MS has already committed to allowing its competitors to have Microsoft 1st party games on their platforms if they want it.

The only holdout now WRT Microsoft games completely following in the footsteps of Microsoft Productivity software? Native gaming in competing OSes (hardware ecosystems like competing consoles). I see that potentially changing in the future as well.

But, that change hinges on one thing, IMO. Getting Game Pass and the Xbox Cloud Gaming client on competing hardware.

Making console hardware (R&D and selling at cost or at a loss) is expensive and making a profit is predicated on locking as many consumers to your platform as you can manage. MS (the corporate entity) likely either [a] wants out of the console hardware business or have it transform into a premium hardware tier (like Surface devices compared to OEM PCs) which can potentially be sold at a profit at the cost of a smaller console hardware footprint in terms of install base.

But there's another play being made here WRT to a future where their games appear on any platform capable of running their games. And that is Azure. If they can also leverage that into increased usage by game developers then that's a win in their competition with Amazon and Google cloud services. An even bigger win would be getting Sony and Nintendo to switch to using Azure for all their backend internet services.

Looking at the Activision-Blizzard acquisition, it (IMO) makes a lot more sense if the long term play is getting Game Pass, Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft Games and Azure adopted on all gaming platforms. For Azure that would be in terms of increased adoption across gaming platforms as it's already available to any developer that wants to use it on any platform.

Currently Microsoft Gaming is the outlier when it comes to how Microsoft operates in the modern day. It's one of the few Microsoft Products that is still somewhat limited in terms of what platforms it's available on. I see Microsoft wanting to eventually align that with how their other software groups operate.

Regards,
SB
 
Last edited:
Sony's 10 live service games by 2026 seems like a lot?

Other than Bungie, I wouldn't have thought that's a natural fit for any of their first party studios. Obviously they now have someone to look to for help on that front.

I know they have a couple of third party deals that could be GaaS as well, but that's still quite a gap without first parties mucking in.

If their future acquisitions are for live service games, I'm not really sure who'd be good targets.
 
At this rate Nintendo will be the company that probably will be starving the most and consequently its user base
I think Nintendo has a couple of tricks under their sleeves. They have been existing since the late 19th century no?
There were also rumors about Nintendo and Microsoft deal.
 
@Silent_Buddha
Not going to quote you cause that is a lot of text. However MS doesn't care if Game pass is on the playstation. What they care about is how much of a cut sony would want. I doubt they would give up 30% of every game pass sub made on the PlayStation to Sony. On the flip side I am sure Sony doesn't want a service from a competitor that can take away sales of third party software. Remember EA play is part of game pass and there are a bunch of third party titles on there that sell on sonys store. That is where I see the issue with sony being.

It's similar with Nintendo however I think there could be a happy medium where MS makes a game pass that doesn't allow the games that actually run on the switch or switch next well. We see how bad the switch streaming games are .

But aside from that MS has game pass on andriod , fire os , ios and so really almost all platforms
 
That brings us to gaming. We see a similar trajectory here, albeit still at the stage where many MS games are still limited to certain platforms (Xbox consoles and PC). But we do see some outliers like Minecraft, Minecraft Dungeons, Ori and the Blind Forest and Cuphead appearing on NSW. At one point Phil Spencer talked about potentially allowing more MS games on Nintendo platforms, although he's gone quiet on that front recently.
Yes, he mentioned that he kinda regretted releasing the games on other platforms as that created the false expectation that other games would follow the suit.
I even suspect that the idea of getting Game Pass on other platforms was entertained because Microsoft was not sure if Xbox would be able to compete. I think their plan is different right now.

Currently Microsoft Gaming is the outlier when it comes to how Microsoft operates in the modern day. It's one of the few Microsoft Products that is still somewhat limited in terms of what platforms it's available on. I see Microsoft wanting to eventually align that with how their other software groups operate.
It really depends. The difference between productive suites is that Game Pass relies on the third parties, while Office 365 is purely Microsoft offer that leverages their Azure offering and they can make people join Office ecosystem on other platforms. Unless Game Pass becomes purely an offer consisting of only first parties without third parties, I don't think it will appear on competitors platforms (except maybe Nintendo but there are a lot of factors in play). And it will be cloud only too.

I do think though that Microsoft wants Apple to lose control over its store and make MacOs into something akin Windows, where - while Microsoft makes Windows - it does not have control to leverage it against the competitors anymore (due to anti-trust issues in 90s) like Apple currently can. It is fascinating how duopoly of Goolge and Apple, helps both of them.

It's similar with Nintendo however I think there could be a happy medium where MS makes a game pass that doesn't allow the games that actually run on the switch or switch next well. We see how bad the switch streaming games are .
I think they can negotiate with Nintendo as unlike Sony - Nintendo relies on first party first and foremost. If Microsoft grabs a japanese publisher, it will be even easier.
 
Of course across the internet. Fortnite and COD are the post popular games outside, but people hate them online lol

That's very much NA centric, however. If we look at Europe then FIFA is probably the most popular game. If we look at China, then PUBG stomps all over Fortnite.

Regards,
SB
 
Back
Top