An internal FTC filing against Microsoft revealed that the company was planning to boost its games on Xbox Game Pass to compete with Sony PlayStation, and the main point of the document is that the company plans to sell both Bungie and Sega.
An email sent by Xbox chief Phil Spencer to Microsoft CEO and CFO Satya Nadella (seen by The Verge) indicates strategic approval to reach out to Sami Sega about buying Sega Game Studios.
According to the email, Spencer wanted to approach Sega Semi, stating that he and Bill Gates had reviewed the business case for the Sega purchase and were both positive about the idea. The approach was to expand the pool of games in the subscription model to provide more content to players, especially in Asian regions where players are more connected to local content.
This means that Microsoft intends to acquire Sega in order to expand the Xbox Game Pass collection and accelerate subscriptions across all platforms, including Xbox consoles, PC and the cloud.
The key date is November 2021, and it’s been almost 20 months now, but there’s no word on the whole acquisition idea. However, an internal email listed Sega as the main acquisition target. It is also not clear whether or not the current CEO of Microsoft has approved of the idea of buying Sega.
In addition to Sega, the list also includes Bungie, Zynga, and IO Interactive as companies it plans to acquire.
