I was looking at exactly how many studios MS is gonna have outside of mobile after the transaction, currently, they have 22 (excluding Xbox games Studios), and Activision have 12 (by their wiki page though I don't know if some are mobile dedicated), Blizzard does not have an as easy digestible listing on the wiki, their web site list 9 countries as a possible location to be with hiring potential but their wiki page state (9 studios and offices) meaning not all are studios?
Anyway, they should have in the low 40's studios mostly AAA dedicated or will be AAA in the future.
Considering other possible acquisitions:
MS: I don't see MS doing any other multi $B acquisition any time soon for many reasons:
- Of course, as many mentioned, regulations have been challenging, to say the least, and will certainly refrain MS from doing such transactions in the near future.
- They certainly don't want to fuel any monopolistic talks even though they're still far from any such.
- There will be a tremendous amount of work to be done with ABK (considering they follow true on setting CoD on a 2 years cycle)
- considering a dev cycle of 5 years, it makes for an average of 2 AAA /quarter which is 2x the previous goal of 1 set by Spencer a few years back (again considering the same change as in 1 freeing most support studios as a result )
- MS is certainly taking a risk here, calculated and mitigated in various ways but still, It's likely MS will not finance another such acquisition anytime soon, not before impacts are measurable, measured, and judged satisfying, meaning any funding for such will entirely be left to Xbox themselves.
Of course, Xbox on its own will still have the ability for targeted acquisition of the likes they've done in 2018. But I think an easier target first would be an increased focus to get the Japanese scenes to not so easily disregard Xbox. They're already hard at work on this issue apparently and I hope they succeed even without acquisitions.
Sony: I don't think Sony will go for a big acquisition themselves either, their current strategies are engineered to maintain high margin profit with the exception of the risk they take in already 2 segments GaaS and VR. Of course, they'll also continue doing targeted acquisitions.
The only caveat I see with Sony is if MS's position makes them reevaluate their day-and-date strategies for PC and Subs, they might also change their stance and try to target a big player. but low probability of either of those 2 steps being short term.
Nintendo: is gonna enjoy CoD and... that's pretty much it, don't see any acquisition on their part.
So I think the games are mostly sets at the very least up until the end of the generations and the context regarding 10th gen releases, what do you think?
