this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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But why? Disney has made several attempts before to break into gaming, none of which have worked out well. The best Disney games have all been licensed games by Square Enix, BioWare, Capcom, etc.
Also, Disney doesn't have the cash to buy EA, so buying EA would involve them going deeply into debt. With today's interest rates, that would be too risky.
That's why they're going to want to buy those studios.
They can't buy Square Enix or Capcom; Japan has laws protecting certain Japanese companies from being bought out by foreign companies.
@OfficialThunderbolt @Jinxyface it's ashamed more countries & gov't are to fiscally driven to legally prevent monopolies when they've been known to be destructive
Video games aren't in danger of becoming a monopoly, but that kind of measure seems more aimed at preventing foreigners from having too much influence.
Microsoft, a trillion dollar tech conglomerate, has just purchased multiple of the entire video game's largest publishers. It is entirely in danger of becoming a monopoly
How many games came out in 2023? How many of those do Microsoft own? How much do you think that second number changes over the next 10 years? There are so, so, so many video game companies out there that Microsoft doesn't own.
It's not about how many Microsoft owns. It's how large the ones they own are. Microsoft has essentially made long time huge third party developers/publishers part of their company now, that's corporate consolidation and should never be defended or justified in any way.
Microsoft has trillions of dollars. They have the capital, workforce, and time to build up their own studios. If the only way a trillion dollar company can "compete" in a space is to consolidate that space by applying anti consumer tactics like buying out longstanding publishers, that's stupid and a lie.
Hard disagree. Sony's in a dominant position specifically because of anti consumer tactics like exclusives. These games can take 5+ years to make, so the only way Microsoft catches up at all during this console generation is via acquisitions (of companies looking to sell, mind you). The only way their trillions of dollars (of market cap, not cash on hand) helps them anytime soon is acquisitions. And also remember that these acquisitions came up in response to Sony seeking further exclusivity of things like Starfield and Call of Duty.
And once again, there's just so much to the video game market that neither of those companies own. Video games are an international industry made up of many, many, many participants, and even Microsoft is nowhere close to having a majority of it.
Sony being in a "dominant" position doesn't mean the answer is to just let Microsoft buy out a nice chunk of the larger industry as a whole.
Microsoft has money, they can use that to create and invest and build up studios themselves. Corporate consolidation never helps anyone but the company buying out the other company.
Microsoft buying out Betheda and ActiBlizz will not benefit consumers in any way
Sony being in that dominant position puts them in something much closer to a monopoly of their segment of the market than Microsoft is post-acquisition. Building up studios takes a lot of time, which would translate to Sony further running away with their market position. I'm not exactly pro-acquisition; I'm just not anti-this-acquisition, especially when there are a lot of games and IPs from the past that Activision has no incentive to revive but Microsoft does. That is something about this acquisition that benefits customers and not just Microsoft.
Yeah, but only the customers that Microsoft allows to play that product. What about Bethesda games being longstanding multi platform IPs that are now locked to Xbox consoles and Playstation users who might have been playing them on their consoles since Oblivion now get fucked.
Acquisitions like this are fine UNLESS it's a multi trillion dollar conglomerate gobbling up the industry's largest players. That is not beneficial to anyone. And there is no way to justify it is
I can only think of Kingdom Hearts and I assume that is square enix.
The big publishers' moneymaking franchises have plateaued or declined without anything to replace them, and they're looking to sell their companies before those franchises stop making money. EA and Disney have a partnership via Star Wars that could work out toward making an acquisition or merger more affordable. Disney would probably have a hard time growing by acquiring more television or movie studios, but video games are in a different industry. Disney might see acquiring a giant like EA to be acquiring "experts" at how to actually run a video game business compared to Disney's failed past efforts.
Those are the reasons I can think of. EA was rumored to have hit up every enormous company like this to buy them out, including Apple and Amazon, so it doesn't surprise me that Disney was on that list.
Man, I miss Disney Infinity. The toy requirement was stupid, but the building was a ton of fun