Naw, having more studios just give you more issues.  Instead, Sony only need to gain a studio if it provides something they are missing with their current output and also deliver an experience that they need.  Just purchasing a bunch of studios just because MS did it is never the right course of action.  Sony is in a position of strenght and it will take some time for MS to move the needle if at all.  This is not a quantity game, its a quality game and quality wins the battle every time.

Naw, MS publishers buying days are over for the foreseeable future.  I see them getting smaller studios to fill in certain gaps but a publisher with all the push back they got for the UK and still facing the FTC in the US, naw its not going to happen.

This tweeter has a long history of making stuff up. 

It is likely that they will make a program like that, as they already have India and China programs going on. 

But this tweeter doesn't know anything. 

This is an incredibly simplistic take. 

Laying off employees doesn't prevent a company from acquiring. MS laid off something like 16,000 employees last year, despite acquiring a publisher for $70 billion with something like ~17,000 people. By your argument, MS has reached it's maximum size too, and couldn't possibly acquire Take Two. 

It is unfortunately not unusual to cut spending in one area to make room for other spending. 

It is also not unusual to cut particular areas of the company, even when the overall company is doing fine. Cut the low performers, also cut the high performers that cost more than they're worth. Unfortunately nothing unusual about that. 

In the Insomniac leak, Sony seems pretty cognizant of the fact that they need to work on their development pipeline. 

Bethesda and Actibliz are still very much their own publishers and largely manage their own studios.  Most of their games are just exclusive to the MS ecosystem now. Probably not something Sony would do, as they are less multiplatform focussed.

Sony never has been great at growing fast they buy a few studios each gen, but also close a few. During the PS4 era Sony  shut down:

Japan Studios (80%+ was fired), Revolution, Guerilla Cambridge. That's a lot more than Xbox which doesn't really have a one strike is out kind of rule.

Sure Sony bought enough studios to compensate. I also fully expect that before this gen is over Sony will have closed down Mm and London Studios aside from Pixelopus which is already shut down and quite possibly Bend as well.

I can't see PlayStation acquiring any publisher considering they are still bigger than Xbox in revenue and I expect that if they wanted one, they would have bought one by now.

Microsoft is way bigger than Playstation and have vastly more recources and can manage much more. Also why compare MS as a whole against PS. PS is focused purely on gaming MS does pretty much everything. It would be odd for PS to close studios and buying new ones at the same time.

Playstation just closed Pixelopus and is reorganizing left and right. They haven't bought a studio for a while and I think they won't buy one in the foreseeable future. Definitely not something big.

Bungie is currently a multiplatform studio for Sony, and Sony has a dedicated PC studio and a dedicated mobile studio. 

They've been talking a lot about their ambitions to expand on mobile, PC, and they want to double their first party revenue over the next few years. 

They've never been under pressure to grow like they are today. 

You seem to have forgotten that MS closed a bunch of studios last gen. 

Big Park, Lionhead Studios, Press Play, Team Dakota. 

MS has consolidated or closed plenty of studios too.

I have no idea if Sony will buy someone big. I think chances are pretty good they'll buy more small studios this year. But I wouldn't count anything out. 

The past is only a good indicator if nothing changes. 

The landscape of the gaming industry has changed. 

MS has become substantially more entrenched in gaming this generation, and just became Sony's biggest third party publisher. 

Sony has talked extensively about wanting to grow. They've expanded a lot on PC, they've established a mobile division, they've talked extensively about making their own live service game, that pretty much every other publisher already has. 

There wasn't really any pressure to grow substantially before the Activision acquisition went through. Sony's studios hold up fairly well against Zenimax + Xbox Game Studios. And Sony was pretty set on blocking the deal, instead of trying to match it somehow. That obviously didn't work. 

Sony concerned about competition from MS in internal communication, admits its current pillars are outdated, needs to expand

The company is clearly cognizant that they need to expand somehow.

I was speaking with some Gamestop employees yesterday trying to see if GranBlue Fantasy Relink had a midnight release(I was really trying to see if they'd let me get the game a day early lol) but unfortunately they didn't

So today is release day

I went to Walmart at about 6:10 AM to get a copy but i didn't see it. I asked 2 employees about the game, they looked around and i their system only to find out that they're not getting the game at all???? 

One of them said "Yea i don't even see a sticker/Tag for it". They recommended me to try Gamestop.

What i find funny about all this is the fact they "Persona 3 Reload" releases tomorrow and they HAVE a sticker for it up

GranBlue Fantasy Relink and Persona 3 are BOTH JRPG's. You have Persona 3's tag out when its not even out yet but you don't have Gran Blue Fantasy Relink on its release day?

The earliest any Gamestop opens near me is 11 AM. The closest "Target" near me opens at 8 AM.

It's 7:46 AM right now as of me typing this so I'm about to head to target to see if they have it there

I'll keep you posted

Sorry for being so late on the GranBlue post. I have a lot going on lol

GranBlue

I got the game the day of release BUT it was difficult to find. When i FINALLY got the game through GameStop, they told me that they only received 1 copy of the game(the one i ended up buying). How is the game going to sell anything if you can’t find it anywhere?

Persona 3 was easier to find than Gran Blue. The first Walmart i tried didn’t have it in stock(on release day) but I found it at the 2nd Walmart i went to

Helldivers 2 wasn’t at either of the 2 Walmarts i tried. I eventually found Helldivers 2 at Target(on release day).  I almost walked out of the store because i didn’t see it at first. An employee had to show me where it was lol. It wasn’t even in the main section. It was off to the side on a front end cap.

also, i did not know Helldivers had to be online until i had the case in my hand.

I’m reverting back to owning my games physically. The main ones atleast. Digital is convenient but….. I’m over it

Interesting

Even if he's making it up, i don't doubt the existence a South Korea Hero Project in the near future, as you said.

I would rather it just be a Korea Hero Project(Both North and South Korea) but i don't think ANYBODY can crack through North Korea on the gaming front, not even Sony.

Embracer acquired the publisher THQ...
Tencent acquired the publisher 1C Entertainment... Bit of a stretch but they do own a minority stake in the publisher Epic Games.
EA with Playdemic...

^^ Wasn’t THQ Dead/defunct by 2012?  

1c entertainment. Can you name some games this publisher published without looking it up online? they’re not big at all

Playdemic is cool but they aren’t big either.

If you can show me something like the company “EA” getting acquired, then that would be a “big” publisher that i mean. 

Keep in mind that Sony's is in direct competition with Nintendo.
You don't start a business venture without the goal of making as much money as you can, which means taking your competitors marketshare.
So yes, Sony failed to push Nintendo out of the market like they did with Sega.

^^ You can’t prove that Sony aimed to push Sega out of the market. Sony just tried to make a better product than Sega at the time. Sony was not saying “yea… this DVD combo is going to nuke those spiky-blue-fast-running-ring-collecting BASTARDS out of this market FOR GOOD!” LOL

You saying that they “failed” implies that there’s evidence that they actually AIMED to do so. Sega FAILED to adjust to the gaming landscape. Sega acted like they didn’t want to compete with a company that was willing to lose money on a console to have an edge because that’s what they were going to have to do going forward with the Dreamcast successor. Sony edging the Dreamcast was literally just Sony being “competitive”.

When it was PS3 and 360, Sony had to “ADJUST” to the gaming landscape at the time.

With the Wii U, Nintendo had to “ADJUST” so significantly that they had to abandon the console and restart fresh. That is EXTREME “Adjustment” on Nintendo’s part.

Why couldn’t Sega do this? Both Nintendo and Sony have shown that they can “ADJUST” when finding themselves in an extreme situation. 

I know we all joke about PS2 killing Sega or whatever but realistically, Sega just couldn’t adjust to the gaming landscape and were defeated mentally

If MS was to leave the Console market, like how these recent rumors seem to be indicating, people will probably say "Sony" pushed them out BUT, realistically, MS just can't find a way to properly ADJUST to the current landscape and would also be known as to have been defeated mentally. 

There's no real proof Sony doing this. 

If it wasn't for mobile supporting Nintendo all along, Sony may have actually held enough marketshare with the Playstation 2 to push Nintendo out of the market as the Gamecube and WiiU were fairly notable low-points for hardware sales.

^^ You keep saying this but can you show me evidence that Sony is out here trying to push competitors out of the Hardware market? Maybe I’m missing something..?

Need the business case for it.

If it wasn't for the west adding to the sales of Japanese titles, would high budget Japanese titles even be financially viable?

Keep in mind that Japan as a nation has actually been on a population decline, so it's actually a shrinking market.

^^ imo, i believe the problem with high budget titles is EXACTLY that… its the budget. wth are these games doing costing 200-300 million to make anyways? it must be a combination of them paying the devs extreme salaries(lol) and them working on said title for much longer than previous games because of the whole “quality-games-take-time” thing

I think a proper medium has to be found with this.

Also, Nintendo seems to be doing fine in Japan. Sony are the ones that are fumbling lol.

Sony has to restrengthen its Japan Studios.

They don’t have “Crash Bandicoot(Japanese million seller)” anymore

They haven’t been doing anything with “Parappa The Rapper(Japanese million seller)”

Sony and Claphanz are in a “Insomniac-2012-to-2019” phase right now regarding “Hot Shots Golf(Japanese million seller)”

Final Fantasy is still good but isn’t what it used to be anymore(Japanese million seller)

All Sony has at the moment is “Gran Turismo(Japanese million seller)” 

Sony has to restrengthen the Japanese side of Playstation Studios and yes it will be viable. Limiting the sales exclusively to Japan means nothing in the grand scheme of things though

I wouldn't be against Sony having more exclusive content.

I have invested in the Switch, Series X and Playstation 5.

But if I can get those same experiences on PC, I am playing it there... Because better graphics, better framerates, more precise controls.

^^ that’s cool. Me personally, I’m playing the sh!t on consoles lol. I cant do the whole PC thing. 

Im also in the middle of transitioning off of digital/subscription based media back to physical

The issue with Xbox and Playstation is that outside of a few exclusives, they are very similar experiences.
Same graphics.

^^ They are similar because Microsoft aimed to be similar to them. There was an E3 back in early 360 days where Microsoft damn near mentioned “Playstation “ more than Sony mentioned “Playstation”in their own conference(lol).

They made it clear that they were trying to be Playstation. It was probably the best move to do at the time because Xbox was seen as an undercover "Playstation" with good Online and Achievements(a few areas early PS3 lacked in)

Majority of games are multiplatforms... If the platforms all have an extremely different identity with the gaming experiences they offer, I don't see it as a bad thing.

Nintendo actually offers that... And thus ends up being an "also-buy" for the console market to augment a Playstation or Xbox or even a PC.

I would like to see Microsoft and Sony differentiate themselves far more heavily, just like Nintendo does.

^^XBOX would need to do the differentiating in this case. They are the ones that started emulating “Playstation” in the first place.

I think it ultimately helped MS be more relevant and exposed some of Sony’s weaknesses which indirectly helped them in the end. 

but if were going to be honest, all these companies are really doing is just adjusting to the landscape. That’s all we’re really seeing.