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Machiavellian said:
EricHiggin said:

Well based on what Phil said when Bungie left Activision, apparently MS didn't try to convince them to sell to or join MS. It's hard to believe that if Bungie wanted to partner with MS again that they wouldn't be interested. If Take Two has enough leverage over what happens to the company, whether it get's bought out and who it sells to, you have to wonder if they would prefer it to be a certain company, or if they flat out would refuse to join certain companies. If MS has cash to burn, then why haven't they continued to steadily buy more studios, or have they been and nobody knows yet until they announce it. On a big stage again?

Could be a lot of reasons. Just because you have more money than someone, doesn't mean you always get what you want. Most of the time maybe, but not always.

Why would you bring up a MS that no longer exist.  In other words since Bungie departure there has been quite a turnaround in top management as well as top management in the games division.  Either way, we have no real clue what this MS would do if the offer is on the table.  We can really guess all we want but if we are talking about money and who has it with plenty of cash on hand, then MS far exceed anything Sony could offer.

That's the point. MS and Bungie are different companies today, and they still don't seem to want to work together. Since it was Bungie who left, you can't help but wonder if MS is willing to make big offers and allow devs the freedom to do what they want, why isn't MS making them an offer or why isn't Bungie looking to at least partner with MS? Both companies certainly have their reasons, but those reasons may very well be why MS isn't courting larger studios and why larger studios aren't coming to MS for a partnership or sale.

Intel who has twice as much cash as Nvidia just lost a $6-$7 billion dollar bid on a cash deal for another tech company. More money doesn't mean you always win. Nvidia basically spent all their cash on hand to outbid Intel.

thismeintiel said:
Machiavellian said:

First off, the rumor is that Sony made an offer not T2 stating they were up for sale.  The likely hood of MS doing whatever they see fit to stay competitive in the business we have no clue of but you can believe they have so much cash reserves that 20BN they could easily afford without blinking an eye.  For a company like MS have huge cash on hand not making you money really isn't all that great.  So if MS is willing to purchase the companies they have and could also get R* and the other gems within T2, why would they not do it.  Your reason is that they already spent to much money which really doesn't hold water.

Not sure why this has to be brought up so often, but MS =/= Xbox. Xbox does not have access to the money MS does. MS allocates them a budget and that's what they get. They may be able to convince a higher up to give them more, but they aren't convincing them to give them $14B+ to buy a publisher and its IPs for a game release every 3-4 years in each, minus a couple yearly sports titles. Xbox just isn't that high of a priority for MS, and definitely not for its investors.

PlayStation, on the other hand, is one of Sony's main focuses. If they felt it would bolster them for next gen, and weaken their competition enough, they definitely would do this. However, they may not think its worth it ,either, if T2's games are just going to sell 60-70% on there systems anyway.

MS has $130 bil in cash on hand, yes, but how much of that XB has access to is another question. Based on the recent acquisitions, it seems like MS has given XB a larger budget to help stabilize and grow the brand. Nobody knows how much money XB has to play with, or how much more they can get, but you would think if they were going to go after T2, why wait until after buying up all those other smaller studios? The most logical reasons would be that either they don't have the budget to make that kind of a purchase, or that's not the direction XB wants to go with the budget, or T2 already rejected an offer from them. If XB wants to design and have manufactured 2 or 3 new hardware options going forward, 1 of which is supposedly another performance monster which will no doubt have to be subsidized to some degree, that all comes out of the budget.

In terms of PR for all of MS, it's well known that XB is something that's done on the side and is not something the investors are fond of. Just imagine trying to explain to those investors, after having lost billions on Xbox and 360, that after the disastrous launch of XB1, and the turn around since that has finally made them 'profitable', that they now want to blow $20 bil on one gaming publisher and it's devs and IP. The investors won't care who is being acquired, that's one giant loss in their eyes. Spending a couple billion on acquiring a bunch of smaller studios still isn't something the investors will be thrilled about, but it's so minuscule that they will turn a blind eye for the most part.

Now if XB had no plans to acquire a studio like T2, and PS does want to, then if MS finds out, and is given the chance to bid, they could potentially cough up the cash considering what that would mean for the XB business if PS were to have full control over something that important to the gaming market. They may also look at that $20 bil and see a payback period that makes no business sense whatsoever for them, plus upset investors and a stock decline, and just let it go. There's more than one way to skin a cat, sometimes you gotta splurge, and sometimes you gotta cut your losses.