T2 has Grand Theft Auto, Mafia, LA Noire, Red Dead and those 2K games. It would be a great move for Sony. Its time for Sony to be aggressive especially when most likely in a few years Call of Duty won't come out to PlayStation anymore.
I agree 100%. The only video game I can think of that can rival CoD in terms of presence is GTA. So if in a few years the former is a game you previously could play on playstation but now have to have an Xbox to play, then at least the latter is a game you could previously play on xbox but now have to have a playstation to play.
It would be good but I don’t think Sony would even be able to acquire them they just don’t have the funds like Microsoft. Sony can acquire Square or Capcom maybe even From Software. But if Sony were to acquire T2 I can see Microsoft spending more and end up buying EA or even Ubisoft
Sony was already rumored to buy Take Two the first time around in March 2019, long before mS ever even thought of owning Activision. If Sony didn't have the pockets deep enough for it (and I get that their pockets aren't as deep as mS's), then that rumor wouldn't have gained traction to begin with.
At that point, both of them would just keep acquiring companies until someone/something stops them.
Anyway, even though I don't play Call of Duty, I don't like that Sony is potentially losing Call of Duty in the future since that would only help XboX/Microsoft sales. Sony has such a lead when it comes to home consoles.
Hopefully this would lead to PlayStation getting more eXclusive games. As a PlayStation player, I'm not really getting anything from Sony Pc ports, PsVr2 and the rumoured Ps5Handheld accessory. Their only 2023 First party game I plan to buy is Spider-Man 2 and for neXt year, its only Wolverine. Their recent acquisitions didn't really add more games into my wishlist (though I could see myself buying another Bluepoint Game but that would depend on what game it is). So I'm still waiting for something new coming from Sony as a ps player.
yeah, throughout the past year I don't get it when people say things like "CoD is shxt anyway" personal opinion doesn't matter here as the fact of the matter is, even if CoD's sales are at a slight decline, they are still so high that the decline does not even matter. It matters even less when you factor in the fact that the most recent release the biggest CoD launch ever.
I think a bad precedent is already set with so many mid-size to now large gaming companies being bought up for exclusives to either Microsoft or Sony. In house exclusive games are one thing but with Microsoft already having pulled this with Zenimax and getting Bethesda? I think that set off the war more than any previous aqusitions.
I'm not saying Sony is innocent either. They have Insomniac, NaughtyDog and several other companies that were midsized but none of them were as large as Zenimax. That took the cold war between them and heated it up big time.
I think there needs to be more scrutiny over both Sony and Microsoft's previous aquistions too but I doubt they'd be forced to spin off anyone.
The acquisitions Sony and mS have not at all been the same. Naughty Dog was acquired by Sony way back in 2001 when they were still early in the video games industry. Taking a look at their acquisitions, iirc, they have never been publishers, they have only been studios. And on top of that, they have only been studios that Sony already had a close working relationship with; the other studio you mentioned was Insomniac, who developed the Spyro trilogy for the Ps1, Sly Cooper for Ps2 & 3, Resistance for Ps3, and Spider-Man for Ps4 & 5. They have developed for other platforms but when you look at their portfolio, the vast majority of their output has been exclusively for playstation. Acquisitions have happened in the past and will continue to happen in the future but for all intents and purposes, an acquisition like Insomniac by Sony makes sense because of their close working relationship.
If we're going to use the word innocent, then this would mean as far as acquisitions go, I only see mS being guilty and that's for several different reasons. Firstly, before this Activision acquisition, mS already owned more studios than Sony. And instead of investing in what they had, they decided to make their biggest acquisition ever as a company by going after Activision. You say a bad precedent has been set with mid size to now large size companies getting acquired by the platform holders but that's exactly it; mS is the only platform holder making large size acquisitions. Their two recent ones (Zenimax and Activision) aren't just studios, they are publishers with their own multiple studios. Buying a developer is a fraction of the cost of buying a publisher.
Secondly, contrary to Sony's acquisitions (Insomniac like we mentioned, or Bluepoint and Housemarque more recently) the acquisitions mS have made were previously multiplatform
developers publishers, not publishers who developed mostly exclusive or console exclusive titles for Xbox. A game like Skyrim, one of the best selling games of all time, will now have a followup that is exclusive to Xbox. Starfield and Redfall, games that had Ps5 versions in development, had to be canceled because mS said so. CoD, the best selling game annually, will eventually be made exclusive to Xbox when it previously was not.
So to say that what Sony has done as far as acquisitions go is anything similar to what mS has done is very much a false equivalency. Sony has only purchased developers, not publishers, and only purchased developers that they have worked with many times already. mS has had many more studios than Sony that they could have been investing in to make new IPs, but instead they have purchased whole publishers and taken existing multiplatform IPs away from Sony. If there is guilt to be talked about, then Sony and mS are not guilty of doing the same thing here.
I don't think Take Two has any incentive to sell plus they're probably valued at higher than Activision.
the CEO of Take Two stated that while they enjoy being independent, they are open to the idea of being acquired as a public company down the line for the right amount.
"Not really [I don't worry about being acquired.] We're a public company and all public companies are potentially available and if someone shows up with up with a meaningful cash offer at a meaningful premium, every public company has to engage," Zelnick said in a recent interview with TheWrap.
ActiVision Blizzard is much a bigger company because of the annual sales of Call of Duty.
Even if Sony acquires Take Two tomorrow, I doubt we get a handful of Grand Thef Auto games from them aside from GTA VI in a span of 10 years. Aside from GTA, I don't think Take 2 has an IP as big as Call of Duty.
Better Buy: Activision Blizzard vs. Take Two | The Motley Fool
yeah the last and only time GTA was an annual releasing series was in the 2000s. so while CoD is overall a bigger franchise, like
@Superhero 101 said, every GTA installment that releases is like an event. this series doesn't need to release annually to be a heavyweight franchise like CoD. I remember in 2013 when CoD Ghosts released and Activision was confident in dominating in sales but they were horribly wrong when GTA V outdid them.
Red dead and Grand theft auto in my opinion are bigger than COD. When they release its like an event. Another good company Sony could look into is Valve they have a decent library/franchise
if and when Sony acquires Take Two, the next set of publishers I want Sony to acquire are Bandai Namco, Square Enix, and Sega. That way, Sony would own Tekken, FFS, and Yakuza, respectively. These are all franchises that have an association with the playstation brand. mS can have whatever is left, even Valve. I don't think they've developed any video games that were either ever exclusive to playstation or had an association with the brand.
They aren't released annually though. While Call of Duty is released annually and rarely gets a sales slump. We couldn't say that to RDR and GTA, and who knows if new games were released every year, there wouldn't be a decline in sales. I seriously doubt RDR could keep the sales momentum for every year, if they were to release 5 Rdr games in a span of 5 years.
With Sony acquiring Rockstar, I doubt they would release more games. It'd be like Santa Monica. It would be a miracle if they could release 3 games in this current generation.
Valve doesn't interest me. Iirc their games are mostly 1st person games, so that wouldn't eXcite me.
GTA games don't need to release annually to be successful. Over the past 10 years, GTA V has often been in the top 10 best selling games monthly at least in North America, and this is not just in the fourth quarters. One installment from this franchise every other generation of video games is enough to become an all-time best seller.
The only reason I would think Sony could acquire Valve is because of Counter Strike which is surprisingly still going strong with millions of players still playing, and could be a good draw for people who can’t play COD on the PS platform anymore
Counter Strike is a well known series too, but the IP is just not strong enough to compete with CoD. Honestly, no shooter other than GTA whether 3rd or 1st person are big enough to compete with CoD. Even if Sony were to revive Socom or Resistance or build a new shooter from the ground up, there is no way they will be able to build a fan base that can match CoD from the jump of the acquisition. Once it is exclusive, CoD will already have a massive install base on Xbox. Sony will not be able to match that, that's why they need GTA to match it.
Sony has no ongoing fps franchise right now but one of their studios is working on a new fps ip.
Well anyway, the only acquisitions that could rival Microsoft owning Activision Blizzard is Sony buying T2, Ubisoft or Capcom. Them acquiring Square EniX won't be a surprise, since thats like a 2nd party publisher for PlayStation anyway.
I look forward to Call of Duty not coming to PlayStation just to see what will be the big moves of Sony in the neXt few years. More pc ports, VR and a handheld console ain't it.
I am certainly NOT looking forward to CoD not coming to playstation. You yourself said earlier in the thread that you don't like that Sony is potentially losing Call of Duty in the future since that would only help Xbox/mS sales. There is no IP that Ubisoft or Capcom own that could rival Activision with CoD. That is why Sony has to acquire Take Two.
Pretty much.
As strong as a Take Two buy would sound on paper and all...it cant rival Microsofts because of the yearly COD sales.
We are talking 20+ million sold units yearly.
Sure GTA etc sells 120+ Million units...but it needed 7-8 years for that.
And then you have the time it takes to develop a game such as GTA and the money it costs to make.
Unless suddenly COD loses half its player base yearly, MS would be more profitable with COD than Sony with a GTA.
mS may be more profitable with CoD than Sony with GTA, but GTA is a big enough franchise that it evens the playing field as far as juggernaut titles that were once multiplatform but at that point becomes/became exclusive to one platform or the other. I wouldn't see it as being fair if CoD is exclusive to Xbox, and GTA remains multiplatform meaning Xbox gets that too while playstation would only be getting one, and not both.
GTA Online makes Rockstar a lot of money. Thats why it took so long for them to make GTA VI (aside from the rumoured overhauls that happened with GTA VI). But still, its not as a money maker as Call of Duty. Even if Microsoft plans to stop the annual releases of Call of Duty, they'd still release a new Call of Duty every other year.
I don't see the business model of CoD changing with this acquisition. As for GTA6, I think GTA Online has definitely contributed to the long developmental time, but also after looking at Redemption 2, Rockstar is made up of perfectionists like Naughty Dog so they are probably tryna make GTA6 be as revolutionary as possible.
Someone please make it stop. Nothing screams late stage capitalism like these ridiculous corporate mergers.
if you had a problem with this, you should have had a problem with mS buying Zenimax. They started it. They got away with purchasing a 3rd party publisher and since they were successful, they didn't stop there. And do you think they are going to stop after the Activision merger is completed either? Hell no. They are going to keep going with these large scale acquisitions for as long as they can.
I am highly doubtful. First, because Take 2 would be ridiculously expensive and I am dubious Sony could afford it. Second, because if Sony *could* somehow swing it, there would be zero logic to waiting until Microsoft purchased Activision to do so. It would be an advantageous move *regardless* of whether Microsoft made some particular unrelated purchase. It would also be *really* bad to telegraph future intent in this way, because that would just cause the Take 2 stock prices to shoot up.
But realistically, no. It would cost way too much money, especially since Take 2 would have to sacrifice a *lot* of revenue in the changeover. And unlike Activision, Take 2 isn't in the middle of imploding with their stock price in the toilet.
I don't think Sony ever wanted any of these publishers getting acquired but as the title says...if mS is successful here, Sony won't have a choice. Sony's CFO Hirotoki Totoki did say they have only $5 billion to spend on acquisitions until 2024. That surprises me though because with all of the success they have seen from Ps4 and 5 so far, I feel like they should have the funds to make at least one large acquisition the size of Take Two.
What would any of that have to do with "could"? The main obstacle to Sony, or anyone, buying Valve is "Valve not being for sale".
It doesn't seem like these publishers always had the intent of being bought. I don't know or care about Valve, but as stated earlier, Take Two's CEO isn't opposed to an acquisition one day.
True but Activision Blizzard wasn’t for sale until Microsoft made the offer. If Sony were to go to Valve or Take Two and make a deal it “could” be possible. Sony has 5 Billion they can spend to make acquisitions… I think Take Two is not possible since they are valued at 20 Billion same with EA around 30 billion The only big studios that are valued in Sony’s range are Ubisoft which is around 3 billion Square Enid around 5.5 billion Capcom 7 billion. Sony can continue to invest in smaller indie developers and continue to invest in new IPs instead of Microsoft buying already well known and established franchises
There is nothing that Ubisoft, Square Enix, or Capcom have that can compete with Activision's CoD. Sony
needs to find the means to acquire Take Two first so that they own GTA. Even investing in smaller indies will not help them in the future with mS making these purchases of publishers. In fact, if Sony doesn't even go for Take Two, I bet mS will go after them down the line too.
That 5 billion is only for this year though. Who knows how much their budget is for neXt year.
But I really want Sony to make that big purchase this year! Like if they acquire Ubisoft, I want Ubisoft to be just making Assassins Creed and Watch Dogs games until the end of time.
For the rest of this year, I don't think Sony will announce any big acquisitions. Once the deal goes through, the board, stakeholders, whoever will just have to think and regroup on how to counter it. And I think they'll have to come to the conclusion that the only way to do so is to own Take Two.
Not a big fan of AC or Watch dogs but i do like their Tom Clancy series. Rumor has it they are looking for a acquisition I thought I read a article a few months ago
The big 3 are always rumored to be making acquisitions but arguably the biggest rumor out of them all is the one this thread was made for; Sony acquiring Take Two, and only as a reactive measure to mS acquiring Activision.
Yes its been rumoured that Sony will have more acquisitions, but time will tell if they will occur.
I want more games under PlayStation Studios that I would play. So far they've only released 3 in the Ps5 era (Miles, Ragnarök and Forbidden West). Thats not a lot.
Spider-Man 2 is rumored to release this September. I think Venom's voice actor said so.
