I know it's an irritating conversation that's been had before. I'm sure I've even made this exact post before, but it's gets more relevant as time goes on I think.
But with the Activision Blizzard acquisition inching towards a close, I am curious to see how Sony responds. Activision is huge, and I don't see Sony being passive. Even if there's nothing they can really do to match ABK, I think they will still expand a bit to lessen the uncertainty.
Before that acquisition, Sony and Microsoft have around the same number of studios, around ~20 each. Sony is technically like 20 with some separate support studios, and Microsoft is like 23.
Activision is huge, it's difficult to compare. In some divisions, they're not structured up like separate studios. Or at the very least, it's hard for me to figure out what they are. Like Blizzard has like 5000? employees, that are separated into 5 teams; not studios. Activision has 12 studios on Wiki at least.
Sony has some mobile ambitions, and they've hired some big names from Apple and others, but I don't see any world where they try to match ABK; I don't think that exists. I think it's a near certainty that they'll hire on or acquire a few mobile studios sometime in the future.
Sony similarly has PC ambitions, which Blizzard in particular is huge in, but similarly I don't see a situation where Sony buys like 10 PC studios.
I think it would be likely that Sony would buy ~10 studios (probably focused on console/PC, with a few for mobile and PC.)
But I have no idea who they would try going after.
Some of the likelier names, don't seem to want to be acquired. Larian and Kojima seem to like their independence.
(And it's probably less of a factor that people think, but Tencent and company are still likely to be competition for acquisitions.)
