Even then, you still gotta look under the hood. You can’t just buy shit based on valuations. A lot of work goes into it to get things done.
Sony Game Studios Acquisitions and Divestitures
- Thread starter BRiT
- Start date
Silent_Buddha
Legend
CD Projekt Red (game developer) and CD Projekt (runs GOG) are 2 completely separate entities. CD Projekt (Optimus S.A. purchased them in 2010 then renamed themselves to that in 2011) is considered the parent company under which CD Projekt Red operates. In theory CD Projekt could decide to sell CD Projekt Red. They are unlikely to want to sell, but it's possible that they may eventually be forced to sell due to financial issues.
Regards,
SB
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
Yeah and I think that's part of what is currently causing issues for MS. Those publishers are large with a lot of developers and development personnel. While there are good studios and personnel there, there's also bad ones as well as good and/or bad development cultures at those places that MS have left alone in order to keep as hands free as possible.
MS might be trying a little too hard to be hands off with the new acquisitions.
Regards,
SB
I talked about a few of these but.
Devolver digital would be interesting but I agree they wouldn't want to be purchased unless things are going side ways. Take-two is just too big. It's market cap is 23B and with GTA 6 rumored to be coming out any day now its stock is going to jump.
Capcom could be an interesting purchase but i am not sure how relevant they really are anymore. SF6 will be pretty good but fighting games don't have the pull they once had and the majority of the other upcoming stuff seems just okay. maybe they would want them and push forward with revitalizing old ip
EA - well I said it in the MS rumor thread but I will say it again. I think too much of their value is tied up in IP they don't own. How valuable will EA be if they are forced to put out their license games on all platforms like MLB the show. I guess they get another gaas shooter in apex ?
Konami - what is even left over there , have they put out a new original game since Kojima left ? The value there would be the IP that is linked to Playstation and perhaps buying that up is worth while and putting smaller teams they purchased on that content ?
Sega ... isn't that still part of Sammy and so they would have to buy out the Sega portion ? As much as I love the sega of my youth they don't really have much going for them right now. There is of course a treasure trove of IP but sony would have to buy or build up new teams to take advantage of it like with Konami
For me I'd want to see Sony pick up development teams that make games that Sony doesn't. I'd be interested to see shooters and wrpgs from them along with tactics like games and 4x games. Those are the types of games that could get me interested in a playstation.
My guess is they are going to use some of the money to buy a larger stake in epic and from software and then some medium sized developers.
Ah I did not know that. Thank you for that information.
I think its a bit early to consider. cyberpunk is in a much better place and I believe more DLC is coming along with more patches and the witcher remasters did well and I believe a new witcher is in development. They also have a pretty good relationship with MS so I could see them doing more marketing deals with MS on future content
Silent_Buddha
Legend
SEGA actually has a lot going for it right now. Some of the hottest IPs are currently owned by them. The Yakuza (and derivative games by Ryu ga Gotoku Studio) as well as the Persona series are high in popularity currently. On the PC front Creative Assembly is still hitting it out of the park with their style of RTS games and the upcoming Space Marines 2 by Relic is one of the most anticipated games.
However, those are also the very reasons that SEGA (at least the digital gaming division) would be highly unlikely to want to be acquired by another company.
Sony isn't really interested in the IP catalog of a company, so it's irrelevant if SEGA's IP catalog isn't terribly relevant anymore. It's more important to them what the development studios are putting out now. That makes SEGA's digital games division attractive ... if they were available, which they aren't.
Regards,
SB
I agree with you however I think the redfall disaster was a wake up call for them. I am sure they have met or are meeting with every team at zenimax/bethesda to see the state of the games and the time lines for completion. Ms should have enough content coming down the pipe that if something is looking bad it could be shifted back without too much issue if its one or two games. Could become problematic if its more than that however. Of course the last 2 dooms were great games the wolfenstein games were pretty good although not as good as the doom games. So i don't see big issues coming from those studios . ALpha dog games is a mobile dev so don't really see it being relevant although those games may also appear on the xbox in the future like fallout shelter but i doubt it matters when they release. Zenimax online has been doing really well with elder scrolls online releases. Bethesda is gearing up for Starfield which got a year delay and it sounds like id and some of microsoft game studios is helping out on it. Tango just released Hi fi rush so I wouldn't expect much from them for another two years or so.
the likely places for problems to form is Arkane , Death loop was a solid game but redfall was a huge mess. I don't know what is next in the pipeline for them but I am sure MS is going to be looking it over with a microscope at this point and I think that is where games might get pushed back a lot. Then there is the new Roundhouse studio which hasn't yet released anything and was founded in 2019.
MS doesn't have to be micromanagement with them but they should start by having twice yearly reviews of progress and time lines and as the game gets closer to release (pre release date being externally announced) increase it to quarterly.
I think Ms has enough studios that they should be able to avoid these situations in the future. All this talk about starfield being MS's last chance or that MS should delay starfield another year just because of redfall are a bit too much drama.
Ha you are teaching me alot here. I didn't realize that Space Marines/ relic were part of sega lol. I can't say I'm a big Yakuza person so I wasn't aware it was that popular. I could also see an issue with sega not owning the Warhammer rights and so its highly unlikely that company would want that ip to become locked to one platform.
I guess they could, but it's far more likely they allow a Japanese company (Sony) to purchase another Japanese company (Square Enix) than allow a foreign company to acquire them.
If Sega is to be purchased, and we rule out Microsoft because of Japan's protectionist policies, I hope Nintendo gets them. Sony has proven, though it's releases on PSN+, Playstation Classic, and management's comments about people not wanting to play old games, I think Sony has zero respect for it's own legacy. While the emulation of NES and SNES mini, and the classic games on Switch Online don't have perfect emulation, they've proven that they listen to criticism and updated games to more closely match the quality people want. If I'm going to choose a Japanese company that I want to be the stewards of Sega's legacy, I'd choose Nintendo over Sony every time. I guess if I'm really picking, it would be Namco or Capcom, as they've both released quality compilations of their classic games in the past. But if we are talking about platform holders... Nintendo, please.
I suspect Nintendo would be significantly more active here in this merger than how they behaved with ABK for instance.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Out of the big 3 of Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony (listed alphabetically not due to any sort of importance) if we're looking for revival and preservation of old IP then it's basically down to MS and Nintendo with Nintendo probably more interested in preservation of old IP and reselling it.
If we're also interested in old IP getting remaster, reimagined or resurrected with an eye towards multiplatform (especially multi-console release) then Nintendo is out, Sony is in as long as it's only on PS and PC and MS has the best chance of putting on platforms other than Xbox and PC (we've seen them release content for both Nintendo and Sony platforms, although it's still inconsistent).
Regards,
SB
I don't think Japan would really care about MS buying Sega from Sammy. I also agree that MS is the one most likely to revive old Sega IP out of the 3 of them.
I could see them taking Daytona and doing a stock car racing game and putting it into rotation with Forza horizon and motorsports. I think Sega Rally would be too similar to Horizon but it be neat if they reimaged some of the tracks. Same with Virtua racing , reimage the tracks and put out a DLC for motor sport. I'd love to see a crazy taxi get rebooted in the forza engine
Virtua Fighter would also help fill in some gaps for MS. They would get a second fighter to go with Killer instinct and they are different enough to not over lap. Same with Fighting Vipers if they wanted to bring it back.
Sonic would help them appeal to younger players and that with a reboot of banjo from rare could start a nice cycle of kiddy platformers.
Then you get some great JRPG franchises like Panzer dragoon saga , Shinning force , Dragon Force , Phantasy star
They also have some good ip like Shinobi , panzer dragoon , Nights , Virtual On , Altered beast , golden axe and so on .
I also think MS would just put all of Sega's games from the master system and up onto the xbox to play.
Oh but I am talking about next gen versions of their IPs. Not re-releases of old games. Ι think Sony did try to keep a lot of their franchises alive but sales figures determine what they will keep selling.
It is not much different from Sega. Sega abandoned also a lot of their iconic franchises. Golden Axe, Panzer Dragoon, Sega Rally, Daytona, Nights....I mean....besides Yakuza and Sonic what other franchises are they keeping alive?
Sometimes they re-release some of their old games in retro collections but thats it.
Sony kept pushing for example Wipeout for a very very long time. And they remade Medievil. Rachet and Clank was kept alive since its PS2 debut. I dont think they had too many super smash hits that continued selling like hotcakes to bother.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
Exactly. not even having to mention MSs monopoly of home computers for decades stifling any kind of real innovation in the space. I feel like the gaming industry in general does not need either one of these guys buying up publishers. But it seems like the future is already written
Inuhanyou
Veteran
When I think about it. God of war will be like 20 years old in 2 years. That's absolutely insane to me. Ratchet turned 20 last year. At the time these franchises came out, Mario, Zelda and such were already considered "classic staples of the industry" even though they had only largely existed about the same time at that point as these franchises from Sony do now. It's very strange feeling.
About the conversation of old game preservation, Sony has focused on BC more than they haven't historically and only PS3 to PS4 was ever a clean break whereas Nintendo for example has much more example of clean breaks like nes to snes or snes to n64 or n64 to gamecube etc.
So for me they are both in an equal position in terms of legacy to new ratio. We think of Nintendo for the handful of IP they keep around and smash but there are tons they have let die and not revived.
although if Nintendo or Sony were to actually buy Sega for example for a large amount, both would want to see return on that investment ie, for Sega to continue their operations and bring the value that spurred on the purchase. This means the implications of the wider companies policies being forced into studios being much less now with things like Bungie for example
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For me, it isn't just about BC or making things available, it's about the condition they are presented in. PS1 to PS2 BC was admittedly pretty great. 2 to 3, though, was a mess right from the get go. People remember the early PS3s as all being BC, but they weren't. The 40GB models never played PS2 games, only PS1 games. But even after that, A01 models and E01 models, while both backwards compatible, have different performance and image quality when playing PS2 games. And models after that just don't play PS2 games. As for PS1 games, even those are inconsistent. There are PS Classics (the ones sold digitally on PSN for PS3) that look and perform differently than the disc version of the same game!
Nintendo may not have the best record with BC, but when they do it, they tend to skew towards the better. They would have never released a mini console in the state the Playstation Classic was in. And GC to Wii and Wii to WiiU BC was spot on. GB to GBC and GBC to GBA, and GBA to DS, and DS to 3DS was also great. Actually, I might have to amend my statement about them not having the best track record with BC. They have the most BC consoles out there, and they all perform as expected.
What I think it all boils down to, is that I don't believe Playstation respects it's own history in the same way Nintendo does.
Inuhanyou
Veteran
I think your being somewhat unfair to what sony has done historically because of the PS3 and Jim Ryan's comments when it's not how the majority of the PlayStations lifecycle has been. Even vita could play tons of PSP games despite the format change through software bc.
Nintendo has done well. But I think Sony has also done well if we look at the macro scale. Certainly now with PS4 being bc. Cloud may not be ideal, but atleast PS3 games are playable. The only reason people don't care that Wii and Wii u and GameCube games are not playable on switch is because the switch was successful with its own library(and getting people to buy tons of games that were already on Wii u full price of course to help fill it out)
Maybe. I might just be sour at the state they release some of their classic games. They just don't seam to care.
What I find really peculiar is the fact that a lot of PS1, PSP and Vita games exist on PS3's digital store. Although PS1 games are easy to be made available on PS5, they barely transitioned them over to the PS5's store.
There is nothing technically trivial to put them there. Is it licensing? But even Sony's own IPs arent available.
Sony wouldn't release the US version of Legend of Dragoon on PSN in the west until we signed a petition, despite it being a first party game and it already being available in Japan. They literally made us beg.
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