Microsoft Might Be Forced To Purchase Epic Games!

[heruamon]

Reasonable said:

jacks81x said:

Reasonable said:
MS is an obvious choice, but Epic have also got themselves contractually supplying their engine to a whole host of developers, many of them producing multi-platform games, which I suspect would horribly complicate such a purchase with regards to on-going support for those clients.

yea, I agree.  Somehow I don't think MS will continue to let those clients develop multi-platform games if the Unreal Engine becomes a MS-owned property.  IMO, acquiring Epic doesn't make much sense financially for MS.  They're better off continuing their current relationship with Epic and contract them to make exclusive games for them.  The Unreal Engine is profitable because Epic shares it and allows anyone to utilize it.  That's the polar opposite of MS's monopolistic business model.   

Yeah, I was also wondering what kind of contracts Epic has.  For all we know it has contracts the go out 2 or 3 years for games currently in development to support the engine.  That would be a real legal mess for MS to accomodate.

MS could just buy Epic and accept that it has to honour inherited commitments, but that would be a pretty annoying situation for MS.  I'd say they'd rather simply contract with Epic for stuff that is exclusive.

One thing that struck me about this, is that if the number of independants like Epic dwindle, it could leave MS exposed with their current strategy for getting exclusives via third parties.  If almost everything ends up under an Activision or an EA MS is either going to have to accept building up a much bigger first party support infrastructure or face finding it much harder to secure exclusives for the platform.

I mean, I guess in principle they could contract with EA for an exclusive, but that would seem a lot more unlikely that contracting with Remedy or Epic or Bioware.

If I was MS, and I'm sure they're smart enough to be watching this already, I'd be considering my options for some careful purchases if it looks like too many developers are going to end up absorbed by multiplatform focused publishers.  For example if Alan Wake is a hit I'd buy Remedy for sure if I was MS.  Epic does seem tempting, too, but I think for MS the potential number of contractural commitments they may (and remember I'm only guessing at their nature) could make that a tricky proposition in real life.  Heck, if there are enough Unreal Engine based multi-platform titles out there there could be an arguement for anti-trust with an Epic purchase.

 

After the Bioware buy-out, I'm sure M$ isn't going to be keen on anybody buying out Epic.  There would be far too much of a threat to one of their major franchise, and honestly, I think 2010 shows that M$ is strenghing it's ability to produce content.  Yes, EA has a multi-platform stance, but M$ can still simply contract out the development duties to 3rd party on IPs that they create.