Which studio would you aquire to counter MS buying Activision?

[Paperclip1776]

2 minutes ago, communistwookiee said:

Realistically there isn't anything they could do, and I don't think that this is the right tactic for anyone. Sony just needs to stay the course on what they've been doing, and if anything just update the frequency of it.

Correct me if I'm wrong (I usually am) but I think you're saying two different things here: stay the course (i.e. continue to make outstanding first party games) but update the frequency (i.e. increase the number of exclusive games)?  Updating the frequency of games is; acquisitions, growing the number of projects in their first party studios, adding studios, and creating exclusive deals with 2nd and 3rd party companies.  Just throwing in the comment "update the frequency" is like saying to you and I to just go make more money so we can purchase that Ferrari that you've seen others purchase.  Not any easy thing to do.

 

BTW, I agree 100% with you; Sony needs to update the frequency while maintaining the high quality standards we've seen since the last generation.

[SKiL_Clash]

I’d have to say FromSoftware. That’s the best bet since they already have done exclusives for PS.

[Conor]

Nothing. Microsoft are buying left and right because they needed to play catch up with Sony, Sony don't need to buy anyone else, just to continue to improve on what makes them great. Can't wait for the hysteria to blow over and those celebrating to realise that the first major development from this deal won't surface for at least five years. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Stan Lee

[Maahniac]

Square Enix because I would have faith in Sony to actually do something with Tomb Raider. 

[MikeCheck--]

None, push out your counter for Game Pass because Game Pass is insanely good. 

[visighost]

Don't buy anything, but fund / publish a gazillion indie games. How many indie projects can you publish for $70 billions? Even at $10M apiece, that's... 7000 games? And I'm guessing many would be happy with much less money... There's bound to be quite a few gems coming out of that: different, unique games that initially attracted me to the PS ecosystem.

Sony can't realistically win at the AAA-acquisition game with the depth of MS' pockets, so they'd be better off going on their own path.

[JusttJD]

343 Studios.

 

I know that is not really possible, but god... what would that be a great move.

[Paperclip1776]

18 minutes ago, Stan Lee said:

Nothing. Microsoft are buying left and right because they needed to play catch up with Sony, Sony don't need to buy anyone else, just to continue to improve on what makes them great. Can't wait for the hysteria to blow over and those celebrating to realise that the first major development from this deal won't surface for at least five years. 

 

I agree with many of your thoughts on the topic (i.e. Microsoft playing catch up, Sony improving on their current success, the hysteria over this buy out), except dismissing that this deal won't produce anything significant for at least 5 years. 

 

Activision/Blizzard is making games annually so they will reap immediate rewards when this deal is finalized.  If you're saying they won't reap rewards from new IP, or something Microsoft wants to pursue, sure, I can get behind that comment but that's all the reason for Sony to eventually respond.  It takes years and years for purchases to reap new rewards so if Sony doesn't get into this now, that means in 5 years Xbox will be launching games at a much higher rate than PS (PS's 17 studios currently to Xbox's 30 studios by June 2023).  Quality-wise, who knows if Microsoft can get it done but they have the money and determination to make improvements to compete with PS on a quality level.  Time will tell if they succeed.

 

Usually I wouldn't be concerned about an acquisition here or there but buying out Activision, whether you love or loathe those games, is a game changer for everyone, including Sony.  If Microsoft goes exclusive with all of those titles (not sure it's smart to do but...) it's more games not on PS.  I believe that you and I are not the primary target audience for these acquisitions, the consumers that haven't yet purchased an Xbox or PS to play their favorite games is their target audience.  Loyal fans will likely stay even with this news but people that don't have a current preference may be swayed to go one way or the other. 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Paperclip1776
grammar update

[PIOTREK27-1982]

Nintendo

[Domino_Destructo]

FromSoftware and Kojima Productions ?

 

Edited January 18, 2022 by Domino_Destructo

[MidnightDragon]

15 minutes ago, PIOTREK27-1982 said:

Nintendo

Good luck with that.  

[Beyondthegrave07]

I think it's more likely that Sony buys up smaller developers to prevent MS from buying up everyone else (like they did with insomniac) than counter with something big and splashy like Capcom or Square. These companies are based in Japan anyways, and I doubt MS would attempt to gobble them up. It seems pretty clear they are going after western developers.

 

I think it'd be cool to see them buy thatgamecompany, Playdead, or Supergiant games, but they really don't need to at this point. It'd make much more sense to make deals with companies for exclusive rights to IPs and such like MGS and Silent Hill than just outright buy a company like Konami (as an example) to expand.

[Violino]

Sony should buy nothing.

 

HOWEVER

 

Disney should buy Sony to get the film rights to Spider-Man (like they did with 20th Century) and split it in a way so that everything BUT the film division becomes a semi-independently run  bit-on-the-side style subsidiary of Disney. Thus, giving SIE exclusive rights and access to Disneys entire catalog (Marvel, LucasFilm, Disney IPs, 20th Century IPs). Star Wars and all of Marvel having exclusivity to PlayStation would be a big winner!

 

May finally get an open world RPG style Pirates of the Caribbean game (looking at you Armada of the Damned).

Edited January 19, 2022 by Violino

[Cal]

Nah I don't think Sony really need to buy anyone, I think for now they are in a good position could be wrong on that but I'm not really a expert. 

[Infected Elite]

FromSoftware, Square Enix, or buy Konami IPs themselves like Castlevania and Silent Hill, MGS i suppose but we need new entry in CV and SH.

 

Reason for buying the rights to IP and not Konami itself is they seem way too damned stubborn with pachinko.

 

Ultimately it shouldn't be this way though. No one should be buying and hoarding developers and publishers. Should be free roam. IF the developers only want to release on Xbox, fine but ya.

 

 

In a dream world, Sony would counter by buying out Nintendo and we would be getting crazy cool Zelda, Mario, Metroid 4K Unreal Engine 5 games or Luminous Studios or whatever it is, all while making a new Smash Bros that has the best of Nintendo and Sony combined. 

 

 

nevertheless i have all consoles so im fine. Itll just take a hit on trophy counts and i wont be going for 1000g on anything probably but who knows.

 

Gaming. is. Gaming.

Edited January 19, 2022 by Infected Elite

[Eraezr]

It's more efficient to just fund the extra exclusives from third parties studios.

[Wavergray]

Sony doesn't have the money to really buy any company. In June of 2021 Sony had around 300 billion dollars of debt that they could not pay off even with the cash on hand that they had.
While Microsoft had so much cash that they could cover their debts and have around 70 billion dollars left over.

However, if Sony wanted to buy a JP game companies without taking on to much extra debt, Sega would be the cheapest at around 3.6 billion dollars. 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Wavergray

[TJ_Solo]

2 hours ago, Wavergray said:

Sony doesn't have the money to really buy any company. In June of 2021 Sony had around 300 billion dollars of debt that they could not pay off even with the cash on hand that they had.
While Microsoft had so much cash that they could cover their debts and have around 70 billion dollars left over.

However, if Sony wanted to buy a JP game companies without taking on to much extra debt, Sega would be the cheapest at around 3.6 billion dollars. 

 

Businesses keep their debt managed and cash on hand is a completely different matter. it is like you talking about student loans then expecting the $300 in your wallet to cover your bills. Sure they pay on it but it doesn't stop them from funding projects or investing money into various ventures. 
There is an acceptable debt ratio. You can look up how to figure that out for each business instead of using your own opinion about it.

Purchasing anything for these companies comes down to how much money they can use either from their own pockets or even from loans. Saying that Sony can't do anything is really short-sighted. You don't need to be a trillion dollar company in order to find options for a merger and acquistion. 
 

[LucasDragon570]

None.

 

But they should create a developer from scratch with people experienced in racing games, to go head-to-head with Forza Horizon.

[Chaos_Culture]

I think it's pretty weird to feel a religious attachment to a video game company.
Anybody that's capable of dropping this mentality realizes this constant consolidation is not a good thing and will not end well for gamers that want quality games, in the long run.

Quite frankly, I dont want woke Sony's far leftism being forced into other companies so I'd rather they didnt buy anything. For the love of god, I hope they stay away from Japanese companies.

21 hours ago, Infected Elite said:

FromSoftware, Square Enix, or buy Konami IPs themselves like Castlevania and Silent Hill, MGS i suppose but we need new entry in CV and SH.

 

Reason for buying the rights to IP and not Konami itself is they seem way too damned stubborn with pachinko.

 

Ultimately it shouldn't be this way though. No one should be buying and hoarding developers and publishers. Should be free roam. IF the developers only want to release on Xbox, fine but ya.

 

 

In a dream world, Sony would counter by buying out Nintendo and we would be getting crazy cool Zelda, Mario, Metroid 4K Unreal Engine 5 games or Luminous Studios or whatever it is, all while making a new Smash Bros that has the best of Nintendo and Sony combined. 

 

 

nevertheless i have all consoles so im fine. Itll just take a hit on trophy counts and i wont be going for 1000g on anything probably but who knows.

 

Gaming. is. Gaming.

In a dream world, California based, far left Sony would buy Nintendo?
Can I have some of the crack you are smoking, please.

Sony is gonna have to back off on some of it's nonsensical policies before them buying anything could be considered a good thing.

22 hours ago, Violino said:

Sony should buy nothing.

 

HOWEVER

 

Disney should buy Sony to get the film rights to Spider-Man (like they did with 20th Century) and split it in a way so that everything BUT the film division becomes a semi-independently run  bit-on-the-side style subsidiary of Disney. Thus, giving SIE exclusive rights and access to Disneys entire catalog (Marvel, LucasFilm, Disney IPs, 20th Century IPs). Star Wars and all of Marvel having exclusivity to PlayStation would be a big winner!

 

May finally get an open world RPG style Pirates of the Caribbean game (looking at you Armada of the Damned).

Man, I wish I was the level blind corporate sheep you are.
"Let's just let Disney control the world because we arent thinking for 2 seconds.  Lets ignore the fact they film movies beside concentration camps and fire actresses for being anti-nazi"
If Anti-trust laws were actually enforced, Disney wouldnt own half the stuff it does.
 

Edited January 20, 2022 by Chaos_Culture

[AJ_Radio]

This is what happens when you let companies get too big and powerful. All these useless CEOs and corporate executives can think about these days is acquisitions and their own pockets. It's not about the long term health of the company, or the safety of the employees that work under the managers. It isn't about long term growth or the long term future. These useless executives can't think what might lie ahead 5 - 10 years from now. They don't stop and think the consequences that could arise by gaining acquisitions with big money.

 

Thus, shit always rolls down from the top. An employee gets shit on by a manager, who in turn gets shit on by the general manager. That general manager was scolded by a corporate employee, who in turn gets crapped on by an executive above him. The CEOs get all the big paychecks and big bonuses. The peons that work at ground level for the company get scolded and are forced to work overtime under the crunch culture, which is now commonplace regardless of what business the company works under. Until now, Bobby Kotick of Activision was earning ridiculous amounts of money. From this point forward, we can expect more employees to get shafted, as if the harassment issues at Blizzard weren't enough.

 

America and western society is basically in the very late stages of capitalism. If the Postwar Era (late 1940s - early 1960s) marked the very beginning of early capitalism, the 1980s - 1990s was the peak of the system, with the late 2000s - present being the late stages of capitalism. Now I'm pretty much convinced and can almost guarantee the entire system is going to make a full scale collapse within the next few years, if not a decade from today.

 

My problem is unchecked capitalism. I'm okay with the system as long as it works properly. But this crony capitalism that has festered these last couple decades has really severely impacted how the system is dealt with. These companies should of never been allowed to get this big and powerful.

 

Nowadays we got Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others who hold immense power. Now we got "influencers" trying to convince people, especially the younger generation, what they can and cannot think. All the while, we got morons in this society who don't question the narrative and are incapable of any sort of critical thinking, so they have in a greater sense become "yes men". They accept the narrative coming out of the media and the government. These companies themselves have basically become more powerful than the government in the sense that they are free to gobble up smaller companies so they can become more influential and powerful.

 

The platitude "power corrupts" is a perfect description of Microsoft and Google right now.

[Infected Elite]

42 minutes ago, Chaos_Culture said:

 

In a dream world, California based, far left Sony would buy Nintendo?
Can I have some of the crack you are smoking, please.


 

I dont do drugs. Plus anyone who has and recovered still doesn't have my respect. They're trash. I said dream world. Doesn't mean real world.

 

In reality it doesn't fuckin matter who buys what because I have a ps5, series x, switch, and gaming laptop. I don't care. I still have access to all.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Infected Elite

[Wavergray]

44 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

Businesses keep their debt managed and cash on hand is a completely different matter. it is like you talking about student loans then expecting the $300 in your wallet to cover your bills. Sure they pay on it but it doesn't stop them from funding projects or investing money into various ventures. 
There is an acceptable debt ratio. You can look up how to figure that out for each business instead of using your own opinion about it.

Purchasing anything for these companies comes down to how much money they can use either from their own pockets or even from loans. Saying that Sony can't do anything is really short-sighted. You don't need to be a trillion dollar company in order to find options for a merger and acquistion. 
 

Sony's debt to equity ratio is around 0.8 were any number lower than 1 being seen as good. Sony is managing their debt pretty well, but trying to acquire a whole other company, which would mean dealing with any debts or contracts that company has, is a big move to make when you can't cover all of your current debts.

I didn't say they can't do anything, I just said they don't have the money to make any big acquisitions like Microsoft. There are tons of other things they can do to "counter" Microsoft. 
Honestly the whole Activision things feels more like Activision approached Microsoft with the offer and Microsoft just decided to take it. 
Because outside of their mobile stuff and Warzone, almost everything that made Activision big was on the downturn. Combine that with all the lawsuit and bad press stuff, it was going to take a long time for Activision to recover. Microsoft was one of the few adjacent companies that could afford to buy them outright without much of a issue.

Anyway Sony will be fine, for them a better move would be to spend like 500 million to make a few new in house studios instead of spending billions on a bunch of IPs, debts, and contracts.

Also, the only reason Microsoft doesn't just buy Sony is because of anti-trust law in each country. That just how much money Microsoft has.

[mcnichoj]

On 1/18/2022 at 0:07 PM, GTA_Darren said:

Studios which make games like ZJ the Ball Challenge: Level or My Name is Mayo. Then, releasing those games on Xbox Live to ruin their achievement community.

Ever heard of Avatar: The Burning Earth?

 

This game drove the achievement community crazy back in 2007, long before PlayStation users were plagued by easy Platinums.

[SpookyCatDad]

Konami and Capcom