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Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

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Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#231

Post by trinovantes »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #174
mdasen wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels the opposite way to me. Microsoft bought a company with an extensive suite of IP that publishes a lot of games. Sony panicked and bought a company that has one franchise (Destiny). When looking at Disney, I see a company that has bought a lot of deep IP catalogues. They've used that to really propel their future and get high-value talent that wants to work in those universes with a Disney-sized budget to tel…

Honestly, I'm not sure if Activision's IP catalog would attract and retain high-value talent in the same way that Disney's does. Yes, the catalogue is deep, but much of it consists of dead horses that have been beaten for years or once-great icons that were mismanaged into relative irrelevance. Budget constraints didn't seem to be what was holding them back before, and I can't see Microsoft suddenly managing the IP a…

Given how well they treated the Age of Empires community, I'm optimistic they'll do something for Warcraft/Starcraft in the coming years

Not to mention these are lore-rich well-known universes and could result in multimedia franchises

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#232

Post by Kuinox »

mardifoufs wrote: post #225
Macha wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flip side, it's highly unlikely that Sony didn't know talks were ongoing for ActiBlizz, and may even have been offered a chance at the same.

I don't think Sony could afford Activision. Its own market cap is 133b$ USD, which is a lot, but it would still have ended up being a very high-risk buy/merger. I'd be surprised if they ever had any acquisition talks. Activision is so big that only titans like MSFT could afford to buy them outright.

Xbox is still behind Sony on the multimedia market. Don't underestimate sony.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#233

Post by LandR »

sk0g wrote: post #203
scarface74 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re forgetting about how profitable (and disgusting) Activision’s mobile play to win games are. Besides, MS needs content for its subscription gaming service. It’s not like consoles themselves are profitable. They are just a means to deliver games to users.

Not sure what's wrong with games being "pay to win", isn't that the point of them? Unless you meant pay to win, or the newer and weirder version, play to earn.

I think they mean where you have a competitive multiplayer content but players who spend more on DLC have an advantage over players who spend less.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#234

Post by vmception »

015a wrote: post #77

Outside looking in, this feels like a far more valuable acquisition than Activision for $69B. Call of Duty is valuable, but Microsoft has already said they don't intend to remove it from PlayStation. That could change, but so could CoD's importance to the video gaming industry as a whole: its popularity has dropped with essentially every release since BLOPS2. Outside of CoD: AB is a shadow of its former self; IMO the…

> Call of Duty is valuable, but Microsoft has already said they don't intend to remove it from PlayStation.

Maybe printing free revenue from the franchise is more valuable than printing revenue with high overhead console sales :)

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#235

Post by Trasmatta »

colinmhayes wrote: post #226
synthos wrote: post #20

Who's left (as large distinct publishers/studios)? - Sony - Microsoft - Electronic Arts - Capcom - Ubisoft - Nintendo - Konami - Square Enix - Tencent - Take Two - Warner Brother Games - Embracer Group IP license biz model (Disney, Sega, etc...) I'd include Valve, but they just don't make games anymore edit: Added Embracer

From software?

Interestingly, they're owned by Kadokawa Corporation, a large Japanese media conglomerate. Sony has a close relationship with From, so I could see them trying to buy the company, if Kadokawa was interested in selling.

Souls games sell really well, although not close to CoD or Destiny numbers. I feel like Elden Ring will be huge, though.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#236

Post by Sebb767 »

Kuinox wrote: post #232
mardifoufs wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Sony could afford Activision. Its own market cap is 133b$ USD, which is a lot, but it would still have ended up being a very high-risk buy/merger. I'd be surprised if they ever had any acquisition talks. Activision is so big that only titans like MSFT could afford to buy them outright.

Xbox is still behind Sony on the multimedia market. Don't underestimate sony.

Still, buying a company that's half your size is quite a chunk. And Activision is anything but a save purchase with the recent scandals. I highly doubt Sony would take such a risk.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#237

Post by JulianK »

Someone wrote: post #200
evrydayhustling wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you allocate all those hours to one gamer, there's no contest. Check out the dev costs of games here [1] to the "net negative" (no marketing) costs for movies here [2] -- 4 games break $100M while you need $200M as a movie to get on the list. So, twice as much for 2h of content! But if you factor in audience size, things get more complicated. Red Dead 2 sold about 38M copies, a near record, but Avengers Endgame re…

I think the OP's argument is that you also have to factor in hours played, and that, per player-hour, respectively movie-watcher-hour, the game is a lot cheaper. 300M movie watchers is about half a billion hours. If those 38M games all had only one player (probably fairly close) they only have to play the game for 15 hours on average to get at half a billion player hours. https://howlongtobeat.com/game?id=27100 claim…

As an added layer I suspect that most people watch the entire movie but most people don't finish games.

There's a percentage of players of course that will play a game for many hundreds or thousands of hours but the calculation is shakier when you take the falloff of players into account/

https://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-most-players-don...

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#238

Post by salamandersauce »

ace2358 wrote: post #75
bsimpson wrote: post #19

I still remember when Bungie was one of the only companies that made games for Macs. The Marathon trilogy was a memorable part of my childhood. Then Microsoft bought them for Halo, and spun them back out (sans Halo). Halo was first demoed by Steve Jobs - it was going to be a Mac game.

Just to be clear, it was a mac game. It still came out and Halo: Combat Involved ran beautifully on PPC and Intel (Rosetta 1 translation?). Good memories of that game. I still haven’t played marathon :0

Years after the Xbox version. The Mac port came out in Dec. 2003. The Xbox version released in Nov. 2001. It was also published and ported by MacSoft whereas earlier Bungie games like Myth I and II and Marathon were Mac from the beginning.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#239

Post by HWR_14 »

syshum wrote: post #180
HWR_14 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the same way Disney, Amazon, NBC and HBO (now ATT time warner) are trying to buy all the back catalogs if content for their streaming services. Being able to play any game from the past (x publishers only) on your Xbox/ps for a monthly fee is a giant fight brewing.

>>now ATT time warner You mean Warner Bros. Discovery, since ATT is spinning off the Media and merging with Discovery to from the new company Warner Bros. Discovery

I thought that deal got delayed because of some concern I don't remember.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#240

Post by 7thaccount »

myko wrote: post #196
7thaccount wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yuck, zero interest in that :) I wish Sony could make a decent FPS with a great story. Something like Mass Effect or Halo. Killzone was okay I suppose, but the story was lackluster and the combat involved far too much hiding behind boxes.

Destiny is the spiritual successor to Halo. Maybe try giving it a shot!

Thanks for the advice, but I've read there is lots of farming and it is mainly about online play. Those are two things I avoid. I want to play a single player campaign and beat a game in a couple of days to a couple of weeks tops.
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