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Dulfite said:
Dallinor said:

I honestly think the sentiment is correct, but the company is wrong. It's not MS they're worried about, I think their eyes are on Embracer Group (77 studios) who are having an absolute field day snatching up developers all across Europe.

Nixxes, Housemarque and FireSprite are all European developers. 

As I said before, why would Sony care if a third party company absorbed another third party company? They could still have the same studio make exclusive games for their device being part of Embracer Group just like they could with them being independent. EA/Ubisoft/Embracer/Blizzard/etc. are not threats to any of the Big Three. They make deals all the time to create exclusives for specific devices, especially Platinum, all it requires is cash up front just like any other exclusive deal with independent studios. But if Nintendo or Microsoft buy a studio (or Apple/Amazon/Google if any of them can get their act together), then that locks those games behind their platform/service. Nintendo isn't a threat for that since they buy studios so rarely. Microsoft wants to take over whatever industry they set their eyes on. They don't always fully commit, more so in the past, such as the Zune, and fail because of that. But when they do commit, they dominate. All the purchases MS has made in the last 5 years tells me one thing: They are here to dominate. And they have an absurd amount of money. All those juicy profits coming from Officer 365 subscribers are being pumped into taking over so many industries and gaming is one of them they have set their eyes upon.

Sony isn't in a position to buy studios like MS is, so when they have an opportunity to do so they have to take it. Their former leader just admitted to how gaming expenses are doubling each generation and how that isn't sustainable. He knows exactly what financial situation Sony is in recent history, so for him to complain like that shows how little buying power Sony has right now, whereas Phil Spencer seems like he could reach into any bag in his officer and find butt load of money to buy another developer any minute. This is the atmosphere I was talking about and why I think Sony is defensively buying studios up MS absorbs them into its empire.

So much of this is wrong.

1) A studio being bought by another publisher means Sony can no longer have control on what the studio works on. Its crucial Sony gets more PSVR teams as they are a leader in VR at the moment. Third party companies are not going to put much into VR because its a small userbase atm. Oculus, Valve and PSVR largely fund their own exclusives.

2) Microsoft has had many failures in many industries despite going all in and pouring billions into sunk costs. The idea that throwing money makes you win is a complete fallacy.

  • Xbox has been distant third in all gens bar one despite MS having all that money.
  • MS Groove was absolutely demolished by a startup with a fraction of the money: Spotify.
  • Internet Explorer got destroyed by Chrome, despite MS using their entire Windows ecosystem to push IE.
  • MS smartspeakers are basically dead
  • MS bought a part of Nokia for $7B to start a smartphone line. It still flopped and is now dead alongside Windows Mobile OS.
  • Surface makes like a single percentage marketshare compared to iPad and Macbook.

3) Its hilarious to suggest Sony doesn't have money in the gaming space LMAO. The tenth richest company in the world by cash reserves, with $44B in cash apparently has no money. Mergers are financed with stock and debt. With $44B and Sony stock doing well Sony can buy any gaming company in the world.

4) If MS has such a big money bag then why are they constantly getting dominated by Sony in third party deals. FF7R, FF16, Forspoken, SF5, KOTOR, Ghostwire, even marketing rights COD, GTA etc.... its because money doesn't buy you marketshare. Something MS has learnt numerous times in the past.