To no surprise. Pretty much all their second party partners have now been acquired by them, that leaves the more interesting third party acquisitions.

I reckon Sony is going all in. The Pictures CEO hinted at SIE's spend and iirc Sony expect to spend $18B on investments in the next three years. PS is Sony's biggest division, you bet a lot is going into gaming.

Now it may not all be acquisitions or devs. For instance Sony invested in Epic, Kadokawa and Discord. They bought Evo and a while ago wWise and Gakai (PS Now). 

IMO these are the studios/pubs most likely:

• From Software
• Kojima Productions
• Arrowhead
• Camoflauj
• Ember Lab
• Square Enix

Square Enix is too big and also it wouldnt make sense for Sony to purchase them when Square releases all its big games with Playstation as the main platform (except maybe DQ but we'll see what the future holds for that).
Xbox has no benefits whatsoever from Square Enix.

Also doesnt Kojima Productions have an upcoming game/deal with Microsoft? I recall hearing something on that around E3.

Rumour now is Kojima is doing Silent Hill with Sony from Gematsu. KJP I think is more likely, because the engine they are using is Sony's, GG lent a lot of their staff to help on Death Stranding, KJP has a satellite studio near GG and Kojima and Sony have a really close relationship.

On Square Enix. Sony has $40B in cash. Financing is done through stock and debt, so buying SE would not be hard for Sony. IMO they have incredibly synergy. Multiple AAA IPs and dev teams that make singleplayer games, most of their fans are already on Playstation, a CGI animation studio that can join Sony studios and help make movies, skits, etc for SE, anime licenses, the capability to make mobile games and a dozen or so RPGs, something PS lacks.

Agree with pretty much everything you said. I’ve been thinking for a while Sony buying SE could make sense. Most people don’t realize how much money Sony has. They could definitely make it happen if they wanted to. I’d personally prefer Sony buy Capcom instead, but I feel that’s much less likely. 

Another studio I looked into was From Software. I think their parent company is only a bit above $1 bil in value. And I saw someone mention they have anime properties as well—something Sony is obviously very interested in. So I think this could be a very real possibility as well. 

Ember Lab would be a great pickup. 

My top dream acquisitions would be Supergiant and Remedy. I adore every Supergiant game I play, and Control is one of my favorite games in years, and I feel both companies could blossom/thrive under Sony. These acquisitions are highly unlikely, but a boy can dream. 

I wish they would stop, they so far haven't bought any huge third party like Microsoft has but if they keep buying companies Microsoft will as well. Lets see what each of the big 3 can do with their existing companies for the rest of this generation, all 3 have more than enough now to continually release solid 1st party games.

I mean it's basically the opposite. Microsoft started the acquisition war with zero prompting required from Sony, and I don't think they're going to stop even if Sony doesn't acquire anybody else.

I don't agree, I think Microsoft would gain MASSIVE benefits from a Square-Enix acquisition. It would provide them with the opportunity to gain even more traction in the west Asian market, most importantly Japan. Having Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest focused on Windows/Xbox would be a huge blow to Sony and even Nintendo.

No one is buying Activision, T2, EA, Ubisoft. They are too big, will not sell (want their games to be platform agnostic), and anti trust will kick in.

Japanese pubs are on the restricted foreign investment list as well. 

MS started this. Time for Sony to make their move.

Its more likely that it would kill those IPs than boost Xbox to Sony's level. Which is why JP dev studios are not siding with MS, because most of their fans are on Playstation.

What Arc System works? Seems like a natural match with Sony being the kings of anime in the west now that they own crunchy and funi. Imagine Sony getting the license to bring an exclusive game like fighterZ to PS but with One Piece, MHA, or even just all the anime characters. Hell they could make a Shonen Smash bros! I know they don't own those IP but it would be so natural when arcsys has the skills to make that type of game