They've moved on to acquire just about every second party they've formed a strong relationship with, save Insomniac (since they seemingly want to stay independent at all costs) and Sucker Punch (possibly for similar reasons, or maybe because Infamous is their first game to near 2 million lol).  They were quick to pick up Media Molecule, Guerrilla Games, and Evolution Studios.  Zipper took a little while, but they were bought in the end.

It's just something Sony does, or at least their western arms do, probably to because its easierto facilitatecooperation betweenstudios it owns (via SCEWWS) than studios it doesn't.

OT:

I'd love to see them buy From Software.  Most of their games are PlayStation exclusive as it is (Demon's Souls, A.C.E., 3D Dot Game Heroes, PSP Armored Core ports), and I'd like to see what they could do with the full backing of Sony, from both a technology and monetary standpoint.  It'll never happen though, given that Demon's Souls is their only remotely successful IP.  Though Demon's Souls shows how scucessful they can be when teaming up with Sony...

I wonder how the Armored Core series would perform with a little love and guidance from Sony's Japan Studio, both in critical and commercial reception.  I don't think it'd take much to make the series go from "cool for mech fans" to great in general.

Quantic Dream would be nice.

All the studios Sony has bought were larger than MM, actually MM is the smallest studio they ever bought with the least amount of games under their belt, either them or Evolution/BigBig. And even though I agree with you and don't think Sony - or Nintendo or Microsoft for that matter - will buy Level 5, nothing is impossible and you shouldn't say it won't happen in a million years. Anything CAN happen, if Sony, MS or Nin offered Hino 2 trillion yen for his company he'd be stupid not to take that. It's just unlikely, especially given that L5 wants to be a big independent 3rd party and is pushing ROID big time, if someone wants to buy them out now they'd have to overpay.

Anyways, OT, the best purchase for the money would be Sucker Punch, they are fairly small company, so they'd be cheaper than Insomniac Games and Quantic Dream, they have no big IP to their names, so they'd be cheaper than Level 5, Atlus or more shares of Square Enix.  inFamous was excellent as were the Sly Cooper trilogy, they have lots of technical expertise and have shown they can develop excelent original platformers and with a little design and artistic help, could turn into a AAA developer.  The only other developers that you could make an argument are better for your buck are Ready at Dawn and Relentless software. RaD is an excellent developer, probably the best PSP developer, but have not developed an original IP yet, Sony could buy them to have them make exclusive AAA games for PSP/PSP2 but SP is the better purchase IMO. Relentless develops Buzz games which are good and they own the rights to the Blue Toad games which are like the british version of Professor Layton, would be a good purchase to have them under the tutolage of SCE Cambridge, but again, SP is the better purchase IMO.

kojima productions

Sony Japan studio hasn't done jack shit this generation besides helping out on Demon's Souls and an up port of Siren. I hope people don't say they've been focusing on PSP because if they were, I haven't seen it and you'd have to enlighten me. They need to hire more people.

I know this is VERY VERY VERY unlikely but how much do you think Square Enix would cost?

hope sony buys konami

I would love to see Apple, and yes Sony could buy them, but more realistic, Quantic Dream, or Insomniac games.

I don't think it makes a difference to buy Insomniac or Sucker Punch - they've stuck by Sony for so long now, I can't see either going multiplat for a long time.

Also, I think MM was their first purchase in a long time so why would they be buying anyone any time soon?

I would like to see them buy insomniac quantic dream and rocksteady