Stock Market Rumor: Sony moving to acquire Take-Two Interactive Software

[Cyan]

Microsoft spent $2.5bn purchasing Mojang for Minecraft! In terms of RoI, buying the owner of Rockstar looks to be a much safer long-term acquisition despite RDR2 not being as liked as GTA by gamers.

just imagine the price of Take Two, then. And while Sony is not that japanese anymore, I wonder to which extent the culture of Sony and Take Two are compatible. Imho, Sega would be a much more interesting prospect because of the variety of software, but it's different from Sony, too.

 

[DieH@rd]

Btw. are there any rumours if there will be new game set in uncharted universe coming out or if the team has pivoted to something new and possibly surprising? I guess the next game is last of us 2 but they would have something already in works for time after that?

Apparently, rumors say that a brand new "secret" San Diego studio that Sony is agressivley staffing will take over the Uncharted franchise [including devs from ND]. Team is still under wraps, project is unknown, but lots of devs are positing how they are moving to San Diego to work for PlayStation. That would be a nice safe project for them for their first game, hopefully with totally different cast [I vote for Nathan & Sam's mom and her adventures before they were born]. This would free up ND to move to a new IP after TLOU2.

As for Sony Santa Monica, Corey Barlog has said that he was very much pushing for a new IP that he was dreaming up for years. I presume Sony will give him greenlight for that after Nordic GoW arc is done [they cut the GoW story in 2 halves after realizing they wrote too much for a single game].

Guerilla Games has recently moved to new offices and they wen't on a hiring spree, with a goal to double the team size [to 400+]. The reason for expansion is not to enable full production on multiple titles, but to finish up games much faster than before.

By the look of things, Sony is not aiming for expanding teams to handle multiple projects [that failed with ND, and TLOU1 team had to merge with the Uncharted team to finish up U4, and SSM 2nd team spectacularly failed leading to mass layoffs and merging of the remining devs to the GoW [pre]production effort]. They just want to make games faster, which is not an easy thing to do when they are aiming at the absolute peak production values, storytelling and technology.

 

[JPT]

They just want to make games faster, which is not an easy thing to do when they are aiming at the absolute peak production values, storytelling and technology.

What actually takes time and what can you speed up by adding more people?
There seem to be so many dependencies that it seems to me that speeding up the process is anything but trivial.

 

[MrFox]

When managers try adding more people to meet deadlines, punch them in the face.

Correctly sized teams for the project's ambition is a different matter though...

 

[JPT]

When managers try adding more people to meet deadlines, punch them in the face.

Correctly sized teams for the project's ambition is a different matter though...

Yes, if you start throwing people at something to reach a deadline, then you obviously did not make the right calculations from the start.
But I read the above statement to be meaning that they think having bigger teams and I assume doing more in parallell equals quicker completion of projects. I would agree that is logical, but there are diminishing returns. So that is why I am wondering what parts of making games can make use of more people to complete the game quicker?

I assume art is something that you can add more people to and it will finish quicker. I have a hard time seeing that more game programmers, but maybe more tool programmers and engine programmers. But those are usually not connected directly to the game, right?
Sound? QA?

They can't just be doing it on a whim, I hope at least, this is a multi-milion dollar decision.

 

[rokkerkory]

This.makes.no.sense.

 

[milk]

Apparently, rumors say that a brand new "secret" San Diego studio that Sony is agressivley staffing will take over the Uncharted franchise [I vote for Nathan & Sam's mom and her adventures before they were born].

Yes, her and her lesbian friend. Instead of points where they have to boost each other up or drop a crate for the other one to climb through, they have lesbian kiss spots.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

just imagine the price of Take Two, then.

Take Two is publicly traded and its value is determinable by the number of shares and the shareprice. Mojang AB was a private company so Microsoft had to pay what Markus Persson wanted. Persson has spoken much about his regret of selling Minecraft, he says he didn't want to sell but when the offer figure got to such a ridiculous number that felt he had too.

And while Sony is not that japanese anymore, I wonder to which extent the culture of Sony and Take Two are compatible. Imho, Sega would be a much more interesting prospect because of the variety of software, but it's different from Sony, too.

You know where Sony's HQ is? Tokyo. You know the city with the most Sony employees? Tokyo. You know the country with the most Sony employees? Japan.

Why I don't think it makes sense for Sony to acquire Take Two, it's not unbelievable that Sony want to do something big with one of Take Two's dev houses. They almost did it with L.A. Noire which was originally a PS3 exclusive as well as Agent what is presumably abandonware. It's more reasonable for Sony to secure Rockstar co-operation on a exclusive title or titles with Sony compensating Take Two on lost revenue by only releasing on one console platform.