Playstation RUMOR: Sony to acquire Take Two if Microsoft is successful in the Activision deal

[XtremelyBaneful]

Their games just don't feel like they would fit in with Sony's AAA games. Like if we don't know who developed Assassin's Creed and Watch Dogs, its possible someone would think they are from the same company that released Ghost of Tsushima, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man 2018, Days Gone and those other Sony third person games with photo realistic games.

A lot, if not all of this seems to be coming down to just your personal preference. You are making it sound like there can be only one kind of playstation AAA title, which is a third person action adventure. And I disagree, there can be a whole diverse portfolio of playstation games.

Yakuza doesn't look like a triple A game imo, and looks a bit dated compare to its fellow open world games.

Just because it doesn't look like a triple A game to you doesn't mean it isn't one. I'm not here to critique how good or bad Yakuza is compared to other open world games, I'm only here to say that it has a long history with the playstation brand, and Sony acquiring Sega could make it stay that way.

I don't think Tekken fits in with Playstation Studios.

Why not?

I bought it last year for my eX, and from of what I witnessed, compare to other fighting games I played, its definitely no Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

Seems to me once more that you are just talking about your personal preference. You like Street Fighter and MK more than Tekken personally. But that doesn't take away from the fact that Tekken has had a long association with the playstation brand.

Then Persona, I'm not really into its visuals and it doesn't look like it would fit in well with Sony's major game franchises.

Again, you aren't really into Persona and you think it wouldn't fit in well with playstation's franchises when 1. playstation doesn't have to have only one kind of major game franchise as I already said and 2. this is just you personally saying you are not into it. you aren't thinking about the brands as a whole.

Imo, if they have to acquire a studio. It should have franchises/ips that would feel natural being a PlayStation franchise. I know not every franchise has to feature photo realistic graphiX, however Sony iirc, want their games to feel like blockbuster movies. So the best candidates if they have to acquire a major studio are: Take 2 (GTA, Red Dead, Mafia) and Ubisoft (Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Watch Dogs).

The bolded part is the key here. Sackboy A Big Adventure was a launch title for Ps5 and during the seventh generation, the LittleBigPlanet series was seen as groundbreaking and unique. There never really was any other video game like it.

I also how no clue how popular are Bandai Namco and Sega now? I don't think they are as huge as Take2/Ubisoft. Persona I know is popular but thats it. Ubisoft and Take 2 would definitely be bigger purchases.

Well we talked about Tekken earlier and Tekken 7 just surpassed Tekken 3's record as the best selling game in the series, and there is a lot of hype for Tekken 8 right now. Meanwhile, thanks to Sony, Street Fighter 5 had a botched launch. Bandai Namco also owns the Souls series which went from being considered niche to literally their biggest launch ever at the time (Dark Souls 3). My point this whole time has been how close the publishers are to Sony. Ubisoft is bigger, but none of their IPs have had a close association with the playstation brand. None that come to mind, anyway. So to me, they should remain multiplatform.

Square Enix, I think that ship has sailed for that one given the recent news.

You said that they were uninterested in being acquired or weren't in negotiations to be acquired. If it is the former, then the ship has sailed. If it is the latter, then it's not too late for Sony to negotiate.

 

[Iceman]

Tekken definitely has more association with PS than any other console. Also it’s awesome, my favourite fighting game along with Street Fighter. That said I’d rather that (and all multiplayer fighting games) stay multi-platform and be as big as it can be and reach the widest possible audience.

As for PS’ portfolio I also think it will benefit from having variety. Third-person narrative-focused action games with super-high production standards are perfect for me, but there are many other types of games that people want to play.

 

[psylockolussus]

Acquiring Take 2 and Ubisoft would help diversify their slate. They would basically have more fps games with Far Cry/Tom Clancy's, with the former having a more blockbuster feel to it like their signature games. For a family game eXperience, there's Just Dance. While Take 2 has a lot of sport games.

So out of these studios, those two would be great purchases.

 

[psylockolussus]

A lot, if not all of this seems to be coming down to just your personal preference. You are making it sound like there can be only one kind of playstation AAA title, which is a third person action adventure. And I disagree, there can be a whole diverse portfolio of playstation games.


Just because it doesn't look like a triple A game to you doesn't mean it isn't one. I'm not here to critique how good or bad Yakuza is compared to other open world games, I'm only here to say that it has a long history with the playstation brand, and Sony acquiring Sega could make it stay that way.

Why not?

Seems to me once more that you are just talking about your personal preference. You like Street Fighter and MK more than Tekken personally. But that doesn't take away from the fact that Tekken has had a long association with the playstation brand.


Again, you aren't really into Persona and you think it wouldn't fit in well with playstation's franchises when 1. playstation doesn't have to have only one kind of major game franchise as I already said and 2. this is just you personally saying you are not into it. you aren't thinking about the brands as a whole.

The bolded part is the key here. Sackboy A Big Adventure was a launch title for Ps5 and during the seventh generation, the LittleBigPlanet series was seen as groundbreaking and unique. There never really was any other video game like it.

Well we talked about Tekken earlier and Tekken 7 just surpassed Tekken 3's record as the best selling game in the series, and there is a lot of hype for Tekken 8 right now. Meanwhile, thanks to Sony, Street Fighter 5 had a botched launch. Bandai Namco also owns the Souls series which went from being considered niche to literally their biggest launch ever at the time (Dark Souls 3). My point this whole time has been how close the publishers are to Sony. Ubisoft is bigger, but none of their IPs have had a close association with the playstation brand. None that come to mind, anyway. So to me, they should remain multiplatform.


You said that they were uninterested in being acquired or weren't in negotiations to be acquired. If it is the former, then the ship has sailed. If it is the latter, then it's not too late for Sony to negotiate.

I'm not gonna quote every single thing you said, since quoted my post sentence and sentence, and I would easily get lost trying to make a point.

Long story short. If Microsoft now owns a big company like ActiVision Blizzard King. Sony probably needs an acquisition as big if not acquire a company they could really milk. I look at the games/franchises released by Bandai Namco and Sega, in the last five years, and they aren't impressive as Ubisoft and Take 2.

Just take Assassin's Creed, which sold more than 100 million copies in its lifetime. Yakuza and Persona aren't even close to that figure even if we combine their over all sales. Valhalla is the most selling out of the AC games which is why several AC games are in the works. Take 2 has GTA, so there's nothing left to be said with that.

And also like my post above this. Just Dance, those 2K games, fps games would definitely diversify Sony's games probably way more than acquiring Bandai Namco/Sega, and probably help their sales by a huge margin if they acquire those yearly releases.

 

[Iceman]

Take Two feels too expensive but Ubisoft is very cheap right now. It would likely be a huge pain to manage though.

 

[psylockolussus]

Take Two feels too expensive but Ubisoft is very cheap right now. It would likely be a huge pain to manage though.

Take 2 is just my dream acquisition as that would be Sony's best buyout to counteract Microsoft's recent purchases (Bethesda/ActiVision Blizzard King). That being said, if they acquire, Bandai Namco and Sega, those would still be fine. Sony could easily make a good use of those studios, and perhaps make them bigger (Yakuza).

I hope we find out more soon, if they are already hiring people to work with possible mergers in the future.

I feel like buying Ubisoft would take a lot of time since they have a lot of offices/branches around the world. I live in Southeast Asia (not Singapore) and Ubisoft is like the only major game developer/publisher that has a development team in my country. But if Microsoft managed to acquire such a big company, Sony could too.

 

[Iceman]

Take 2 is just my dream acquisition as that would be Sony's best buyout to counteract Microsoft's recent purchases (Bethesda/ActiVision Blizzard King). That being said, if they acquire, Bandai Namco and Sega, those would still be fine. Sony could easily make a good use of those studios, and perhaps make them bigger (Yakuza).

I hope we find out more soon, if they are already hiring people to work with possible mergers in the future.

I feel like buying Ubisoft would take a lot of time since they have a lot of offices/branches around the world. I live in Southeast Asia (not Singapore) and Ubisoft is like the only major game developer/publisher that has a development team in my country. But if Microsoft managed to acquire such a big company, Sony could too.

I don’t think Jim Ryan played this well at all. Any large acquisition from Sony now as market leader can lead to his own words being used against him, and in court he can’t bend the truth so easily under cross examination (probably why he didn’t turn up to the Microsoft FTC case despite being the key “witness”!).

And in Japan, going by Sony/FTC’s market definition of high performance consoles excluding pc/mobile/Nintendo (created because otherwise Nintendo would be proof that a console doesn’t need CoD to do well), a large acquisition by a company with not far off 100% market share would also be open to pressure.

The other factor with Ubisoft and Activision is that their market cap reflects how badly/well they are doing financially. There’s a reason why Ubisoft is so cheap despite its huge resources. Activision will need massive work to sort out all the entrenched discrimination and terrible working environment throughout, but Ubisoft will need to be turned around quickly to start making money and it will be a big management job with more than 20k employees. That said, at least Sony could easily afford them.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Tekken definitely has more association with PS than any other console. Also it’s awesome, my favourite fighting game along with Street Fighter. That said I’d rather that (and all multiplayer fighting games) stay multi-platform and be as big as it can be and reach the widest possible audience.

Absolutely. I grew up playing Tekken and for a long time, it was my favorite video game series. Xbox has their own exclusive fighting game series, Killer Instinct although they haven't come out with a new installment in 10 years. In theory, all video game IPs can be as big as they can be by being multi-platform but that would defeat the purpose of having different consoles to choose from.

I was extremely upset in the seventh generation when Bandai Namco caved and made Tekken 6 multiplatform. My interest in the series has never been the same since, I feel like it lost some of its identity. Tekken became one of the best selling fighting game franchises and it did so while being exclusive to playstation.

As for PS’ portfolio I also think it will benefit from having variety. Third-person narrative-focused action games with super-high production standards are perfect for me, but there are many other types of games that people want to play.

Exactly! And a lot of those franchises I mentioned were once third party exclusives to playstation, so acquiring would be having them fit right into playstation studios where they've unofficially been playstation franchises. it would just feel natural and sensible, just like playstation's acquisitions of studios that they've always had close working relationships with.

I'm not gonna quote every single thing you said, since quoted my post sentence and sentence, and I would easily get lost trying to make a point.

Like I said to you before in this thread, you are not obligated to quote me at all. You often don't respond to a lot of my points anyway. But I have a lot of points to make to you, which is why I'll keep responding.

Long story short. If Microsoft now owns a big company like ActiVision Blizzard King. Sony probably needs an acquisition as big if not acquire a company they could really milk. I look at the games/franchises released by Bandai Namco and Sega, in the last five years, and they aren't impressive as Ubisoft and Take 2.

Just take Assassin's Creed, which sold more than 100 million copies in its lifetime. Yakuza and Persona aren't even close to that figure even if we combine their over all sales. Valhalla is the most selling out of the AC games which is why several AC games are in the works.

I already explained to you why I want Yakuza and Persona acquired. It's not about personal preference and it's not about popularity, it's about association with the playstation brand.

Sony needs something popular which is why they need to own GTA. GTA V alone sold over 100 million copies.

Take 2 has GTA, so there's nothing left to be said with that.

Well yeah, Take Two is literally the reason why I made this thread, and it is because I find mS's acquisition of Activision to be very threatening to the future of playstation. That's why acquiring Take Two is not only a good idea, but also a necessity.

And also like my post above this. Just Dance, those 2K games, fps games would definitely diversify Sony's games probably way more than acquiring Bandai Namco/Sega, and probably help their sales by a huge margin if they acquire those yearly releases.

As it is right now, I don't think Sony has an exclusive JRPG series or an exclusive fighting game series. Tekken itself always was playstation's own fighting franchise before 2009. So acquiring Bandai Namco and Sega would diversify their portfolio just as much as the rest.

Take 2 is just my dream acquisition as that would be Sony's best buyout to counteract Microsoft's recent purchases (Bethesda/ActiVision Blizzard King). That being said, if they acquire, Bandai Namco and Sega, those would still be fine. Sony could easily make a good use of those studios, and perhaps make them bigger (Yakuza).

Now this I agree with 100%. The whole premise of this thread is for Sony to counter mS's acquisition with them owning CoD with Sony getting own GTA.

I hope we find out more soon, if they are already hiring people to work with possible mergers in the future.

I feel like buying Ubisoft would take a lot of time since they have a lot of offices/branches around the world. I live in Southeast Asia (not Singapore) and Ubisoft is like the only major game developer/publisher that has a development team in my country. But if Microsoft managed to acquire such a big company, Sony could too.

Not necessarily (to the bolded). mS is a trillion dollar company, and Sony's net worth is a tenth of that. Right now if there is only one publisher that they could acquire, I would want them to put all of their resources into acquiring Take Two. They would definitely see a return on their investment with the money that they'd be making with GTA 6 and they'd have more buying power for other publishers after that.

 

[psylockolussus]

If they acquire Take 2, a remaster of Grand Theft Auto IV for the ps4 and ps5 should be released pronto.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

If they acquire Take 2, a remaster of Grand Theft Auto IV for the ps4 and ps5 should be released pronto.

I feel like a GTA IV rerelease could happen whether or not they got acquired

 

[psylockolussus]

It could. But with Sony, that would absolutely happen after remasters for L.A. Noire, GTA V, GTA Trilogy and the upcoming RDR1.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

It could. But with Sony, that would absolutely happen after remasters for L.A. Noire, GTA V, GTA Trilogy and the upcoming RDR1.

What do you mean? Sony had nothing to do with Rockstar's other remasters so how would them being acquired by Sony guarantee another remaster?

I don’t think Jim Ryan played this well at all. Any large acquisition from Sony now as market leader can lead to his own words being used against him, and in court he can’t bend the truth so easily under cross examination (probably why he didn’t turn up to the Microsoft FTC case despite being the key “witness”!).

And in Japan, going by Sony/FTC’s market definition of high performance consoles excluding pc/mobile/Nintendo (created because otherwise Nintendo would be proof that a console doesn’t need CoD to do well), a large acquisition by a company with not far off 100% market share would also be open to pressure.

The other factor with Ubisoft and Activision is that their market cap reflects how badly/well they are doing financially. There’s a reason why Ubisoft is so cheap despite its huge resources. Activision will need massive work to sort out all the entrenched discrimination and terrible working environment throughout, but Ubisoft will need to be turned around quickly to start making money and it will be a big management job with more than 20k employees. That said, at least Sony could easily afford them.

Yeah, I can't believe Jim Ryan was caught saying what he said. I think he may have genuinely believed it, but the higher-ups at Sony could clearly see the danger they were in and put him to work over the course of the whole last year because of it.

Quite a few things changed under his leadership, too. I'm pretty sure the PC releases of first party games were his idea, as well as the gatekeeping of cross play.

 

[psylockolussus]

I'm clearly referring to Sony's habit of recycling their games and porting it to the neXt console, so if they had Take 2 in the first place. GTA games probably would have been remastered/remade again and again. Take 2 doesn't really do this that much hence why we still don't have RDR1/Bully/GTA IV playable for the PS4/5.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I'm clearly referring to Sony's habit of recycling their games and porting it to the neXt console, so if they had Take 2 in the first place. GTA games probably would have been remastered/remade again and again. Take 2 doesn't really do this that much hence why we still don't have RDR1/Bully/GTA IV playable for the PS4/5.

honestly, I don't think that was clear at all. You mentioned a whole bunch of rereleases that Rockstar themselves did do, without mentioning Sony's history of doing the same.

 

[Superhero 101]

Borderlands Developer Gearbox Reportedly Up for Sale - IGN

Sony should definitely acquire them Having Bungie and Gearbox would add to their line up of strong Studios

the borderland games are the funnest fps shooters out there right now

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Borderlands Developer Gearbox Reportedly Up for Sale - IGN

Sony should definitely acquire them Having Bungie and Gearbox would add to their line up of strong Studios

the borderland games are the funnest fps shooters out there right now

I had fun with Borderlands for the time that I got to play it. I don't know if it fits with the playstation brand in an exclusive manner, but I know one thing...if Sony does not buy them, Microsoft will. They will buy as many studios and publishers as they can until there are no 3rd parties left.

 

[psylockolussus]

Fps shooters are Microsoft's thing. They all look the same to me.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Fps shooters are Microsoft's thing.

Xbox has much more than just fps...the only exclusive fps of theirs that comes to mind is the obvious one which is Halo.

And besides that, PlayStation has had a couple of fps series but unfortunately they all failed. There was Killzone, MAG, and Resistance. Resistance in particular I had a lot of fun with back in the day on Ps3, that whole trilogy.

And FYI, the "s" in fps stands for "shooter," so you don't need to say fps shooter.

They all look the same to me.

Just because they all look the same to you doesn't mean they are all the same. Other than just having a gun in the corner of the screen's forefront, Borderlands plays extremely differently from a lot of other fps.

 

[psylockolussus]

I stand by my opinion, that they all look the same, especially in walk-throughs I've seen where I couldn't see the playable character. I say the same thing to Ubisoft's fps even though I know there are differences (multiplayer/solo campaign/setting).

I'm aware that Sony had fps, and its not a surprise their third person action adventure games became more successful. They felt more varied.

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

I stand by my opinion, that they all look the same, especially in walk-throughs I've seen where I couldn't see the playable character. I say the same thing to Ubisoft's fps even though I know there are differences (multiplayer/solo campaign/setting).

You are certainly entitled to your opinion, and I am standing by my own as well in saying that just because you think all fps look the same doesn't mean they're all actually the same. I think this is just you projecting your personal preference and not considering the bigger picture, and that's why you're being dismissive of fps as a whole genre.

I'm aware that Sony had fps, and its not a surprise their third person action adventure games became more successful. They felt more varied.

If you're aware of PlayStation's fps, then why did you say it's Xbox's thing?

 

[psylockolussus]

I wonder when is Sony's neXt acquisition going to happen?

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

Mystic Ryan actually just covered the rumor about Gearbox


edit: at the 22:40 mark in case the embedding didn't work

 

[Superhero 101]

This is a no brainer for Sony if they r looking into acquisitions, they need some good FPS developers I mean Bungie is good but they’ve only had two main IPs that were good
Gearbox create fun FPS and with Sony backing them they can create some truly incredible IPs

 

[XtremelyBaneful]

This is a no brainer for Sony if they r looking into acquisitions, they need some good FPS developers I mean Bungie is good but they’ve only had two main IPs that were good
Gearbox create fun FPS and with Sony backing them they can create some truly incredible IPs

yeah, let's see. Even if it doesn't make much sense in my opinion, it would still be a good deal for Sony because of the IPs and for absolutely nothing else, Microsoft will take them if they won't.

Sony even foolishly believes that their Bungie acquisition is better than Microsoft's Activision acquisition

 

[BoredGuy]

As a huge Destiny fan, I'm still baffled by the amount Sony paid for Bungie

Granted, they've been one of- if not the most- successful company to create a live service game
but is one popular live service game really worth over $3 billion? We don't even know how Marathon or whatever other new IP they're working on will go