Sony Game Studios Acquisitions and Divestitures
- Thread starter BRiT
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Inuhanyou
Veteran
So what are they working on? Vr titles?
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Sony really on a roll acquiring game companies that most gamers have never head of, the last six being:
2021 Firesprite (PSVR games)
2021 Fabrik Games (indie games)
2021 Bluepoint Games (game ports)
2021 Valkyrie Entertainment (game support)
2022 Savage Game Studio (mobile games)
2023 Ballistic Moon (no games published).
2021 Firesprite (PSVR games)
2021 Fabrik Games (indie games)
2021 Bluepoint Games (game ports)
2021 Valkyrie Entertainment (game support)
2022 Savage Game Studio (mobile games)
2023 Ballistic Moon (no games published).
Ballistic Moon a Southeast-England studio? It sounds like the ongoing Guildford talent pool recycling. EA/Bullfrog/Lionhead people roll out their own studios and Sony seems to like them for some reason.
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Woking.
Guildford's little brother.
Most studios Sony bought recently mostly have tiny to non existent portfolios. It looks like a fast way at expanding their strategy without having to build studios from ground up.
Bluepoint is the most notable company there, with Valkyrie probably being another one due to their support for other big games.
cheapchips
Veteran
With Demon's Souls they're in full remake territory I'd argue.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I am desperate to know what they are working on now
cheapchips
Veteran
Yeah. Demon's'es Soul's is still one of the few current gen looking titles imo. They're inching towards a game that's their own from the ground up, whether that's the next title or the one after.
Hopefully it's Blast Factor 2. 8k 120hz.
Not a game studio, but this expands their anime distribution monopoly:
I guess the difference between this and MS buying anything is that suddenly Anime won't stop working on your LG TV or Samsung TV because Sony want all of it on their TVs only....
Silent_Buddha
Legend
MS buying a developer doesn't suddenly make those games not work on your LG TV or Samsung TV either.
Just because anime or games will still work on any TV, it doesn't mean that Sony or MS aren't interested in controlling how they are distributed or who you have to subscribe to or which services their content will be allowed on or restricted to.
Sony are very much interested in having as much control over Anime distribution as they can get away with so that you have to pay them and use their services if you want to watch most Anime.
Regards,
SB
The TV bit is a metaphor
MS buys entire publishers and the dev studios are now beholden to not make games for Playstation - that would be the same as MS buying Anime studios and then deciding that after them being available on every TV they now will only work on MS owned TVs and not Samsung or LG. Sony buying Anime studios does nothing to restrict the access and choice for anyone.Are you saying that Crunchyroll/Funimation doesn't have exclusives?
Is this a too long and late april fool joke ?The TV bit is a metaphor
And so does HBO, HULU, NETFLIX, Disney, MS, Nintendo and Sony. All have exclusives. Problem isnt exclusivity itself but controlling accessibility by owning content makers that were originally distributing content to a wider audience and services.
The difference here is that Crunchyroll was an anime standalone service with its own content. It didnt make much of a difference when Sony acquired it. Sony just owns the platform. It would have been a problem though, if Sony started buying out content makers that were distributing content to other service platforms and made them exclusive to Crunchyroll and then forcing unfair contracts to their competitors if they wanted accessibility.
Crunchyroll just has anime, while its competitors like NETFLIX, and HULU have anime and other genres. Its market is thus smaller than its competitors. It is barely the "monopoly power" it is made out to look like. It was an anime dedicated platform before and after Sony. It is what it is.
Sony Has Yet to Win Anime Fans to Its Post-Crunchyroll Strategy, but Opportunities Remain Strong
Sony Pictures Entertainment announced earlier this month that it had completed its $1.18 billion purchase of anime streaming company Crunchyroll from AT&T, but it has done little to calm the ne…
variety.com
Getting the deal done involved overcoming a U.S. Department of Justice probe into the takeover. The organization was concerned that a combined Funimation and Crunchyroll, which has five million paying subscribers and almost 120 million registered users, would become the dominant player in anime streaming outside Japan. But in the end it determined that Sony would not have a monopoly.
Data from market researcher Parrot Analytics shows that other players may be much larger. Its figures for content demand among subscription streamers in the U.S. in the second quarter of 2021 showed Hulu as the market leader with 21.4% share of viewing time, followed by Netflix with 18%. Disney Plus had a 4.6% share. Crunchyroll and Funimation claimed 3.5% and 2.7% shares respectively, despite being specialists in the genre.
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Well, yeah. Remember when Sony bought Funimation? Once contracts ended they started pulling that content from other streaming platforms, like VRV, thus removing content and value from VRV. What you are describing is what Sony did. Then, when they were in a weakened state, Sony purchased them. I know that post makes it out that Sony just acquired VRV, but they didn't. They acquired them the same time they purchased Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll was owned by a subsidiary of AT&T, or Warner, or whatever they were called at the time. Sony purchased that subsidiary and got Crunchy Roll, Rooster Teeth, and VRV. I think they also got a stake in Gunpowder and Sky. What's happening now is Sony is merging Funimation, Crunchy Roll and VRV content into a single streaming platform. Meaning that there will be less choice in streaming but more content on the resulting final platform.
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