Swear we just had a thread about the potential for this acquisition (amongst others) only a week ago.

Here the thread was! (the same you're probably thinking of wholikeswood)

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=100260&page=1

Media Molecule beat out Insomniac by two votes, and then you have a considerable margin down to the third place.

Ich... Sony buys another one? How many is it they've bought in total? 10?

Edit: Sorry, I read the IW happenings and I was in a bad mood about mergers and aquisitions. Im sure Sony will take good care of these people. Unlike FUCKING ACTIVISION!

Fantastic news, great move by Sony and MM, i very much look forward to their next project :)

smart move, casual games are the future

Yes, comparing 1st party studios to 3rd party studios. Excellent comparison

Edit: With Sony and exclusivity, Sony foots the bill. With Microsoft and exclusivity, the other company already has paid for the game, Microsoft just pays them to make sure it doesn't go to another platform. 

You can't bash Sony's business practice, or else you'll have to bash Nintendo as well, who funds their own games

At least Alex Evans has gone with the company too or it would have been a mad purchase for them.

wait? MM was a 1st party company before they were bought? Then why did they buy them?

The only difference between buying a company and buying a single game is that in the future games could be on any platform. So somehow "bribing" a 3rd party to make a game for your system is somehow worse than buying a 3rd party outright and forcing them to make games for your system for forever?!?

I don't care if they buy them or not, but Sony needs to make up their minds.

sony fully funded the game and worked with along MM in LBP development time, MM was the one that went to sony asking for funding.

they first work with the developer, if things turn into a success they buy it, kinda like guerrilla. the company now gets full budget for future games like Killzone 2.

microsoft have almost no input in their third parties,  they just make a deal for timed exclusivity, publish the game. after that's done, the game get's ported over.

that's why it's bad to buy just timed exclusivity, not because it's dirty business, but also many studios like team ninja find a way around the deal and release a port.

buying the developer gives you rights to their game, but also the developer get's constant funding for next games. it's good thing while sony keeps working along with them, making the games better, makes your first party look stronger.

There is a difference between buying a very talented, small studio that comes to you for help on a big award winning game... And paying off a big third party company to keep a game or DLC away from another platform forever, or for a certain period of time.

OT: Great news. Should see more and more great new games come from MM now!