Microsoft has spent billions of dollars in recent years to bolster its publishing capabilities and Game Pass subscriptions. Thanks to the ongoing federal lawsuit, we learned more.
Microsoft was considering more than 100 companies to buy in 2021. Among them, Sega, Bungie (creators of Destiny), IO Interactive (Hitman), Supergiant Games (Hades), Niantic (Pokémon GO), Thunderful Games, Playrix, Scopely or Zynga went the furthest. As we know, Bungie ended up being bought by Sony last year for $3.6 billion, and mobile giant Zynga joined Take-Two Interactive for $12.7 billion.
Source: Michal Burian, indian-tv.cz Microsoft revealed when it expects a new generation of consoles
With the acquisition of Sega, the aim was to support the growth of PC and Xbox Game Pass in Asia and outside this specific market thanks to the PC series of Total War, Football Manager, Sonic or Yakuza. In an email to Microsoft’s CEO and CFO, Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s gaming division, wrote about balanced global catalog, which the owner of the blue hedgehog Sonic has. The email was sent in November 2020, and in it, Spencer asked for permission to approach Sega with the intention of buying it along with the studios. Unfortunately, we no longer know what answer he received. An obstacle to the acquisition could have been the investment from Nexon.
However, Sega was still in April 2021 on the list of companies that Microsoft is tracking for merger and acquisition. The aforementioned companies are also on this list, as well as Behavior Interactive, Housemarque (the studio was bought by Sony in 2021), Remedy Entertainment (Alan Wake), Larian Studios, Rebellion Developments and Paradox Interactive.
Source: Activision Bobby Kotick of Activision blackmailed Microsoft through Call of Duty
Also there we can see 11 bit studios (Frostpunk), Czech Bohemia Interactive (Arma, Vigor), Prague SCS Software (Euro Truck Simulator, American Truck Simulator) Bloober Team (The Medium), CD Projekt RED (The Witcher), FromSoftware (Elden Ring ), Frontier Development, Giants Software (Farming Simulator) or other publishing companies such as 505 Games, Devolver Digital, Focus Interactive or Team17.
We also learn from the documents about a mysterious new brand Matter by Bungiedue to arrive in 2025, and we finally have confirmation that Project Dragon by IO Interactive is an RPG shooter for PC and Xbox Series X/S. The game will be published by Xbox Game Studios, so it will be in Game Pass on release day. Hitman’s creators have been teasing this new-world project for a long time, describing it as an online fantasy RPG that will be expanded for many years to come.
In spite of Phil Spencer doesn’t want to go the Sony route and buy exclusives from other publishers. He considers this practice very aggressive and believes that the Japanese company is using money from games that Microsoft sells on the PlayStation (such as Minecraft) to buy exclusive games from other publishers and developers. At least that’s what Spencer said last week during her testimony during the trial. It will continue this week.
People muse about if Microsoft would ever try to buy Nintendo.
In a 2021 MS research doc about possible acquisition targets, Nintendo was not listed among 100+ companies for console expansion
It was listed among 76 popular app-makers for improving Microsoft’s mobile footprint pic.twitter.com/DZqruR6FP5
— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) June 27, 2023
2023-06-27 10:07:26
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