While they used to make headlines on an ad hoc basis, studio buyouts now regularly hit the headlines. In recent years, the industry’s gloves have multiplied acquisitions due to the boom in gaming services and increasingly fierce competition. But from Sony’s side there is officially no talk of inflating the workforce as quickly as possible in order not to be left behind by the competition.
Also read: PS5: Hermen Hulst reveals number of exclusive first-party suppliers in development
When the common man discovered the takeover of Housemarque (Returnal) by Sony Interactive Entertainment earlier today, some media selected at the shutter were informed about the matter in advance and were able to ask the main interested parties on the sidelines of the advertisement. Such media included the UK version of the magazine’s website GQ.
When she asked Hermen Hulst about this takeover, she asked him whether the recent multiplication of studio takeovers by corporations like Sony, Microsoft or even Facebook was not ultimately a kind of race to arm the big boys. Hermen Hulst says no to Sony. According to him, his company doesn’t buy anything that moves:
We are very picky about the developers we buy. Our last acquisition (with Housemarque) was Insomniac (2019, editor’s note) and it worked very well. I’m always looking for people with whom we share similar values, have similar creative ambitions, and who work very well with our team to invest more and help them grow as creators. There’s no question for us going here and there and just making random purchases.
These are very targeted acquisitions by teams we know well. The collaboration between our external development group and Housemarque on engineering, production management and even the creative part was so profound. For us, the buyback just made a lot of sense.
More and more games
So it is officially out of the question for Sony to buy studios in order to guarantee a regular influx of new games for its consoles and possible future services. In any case, it is true that the latest acquisitions by Sony concerned Studios, with which the Japanese manufacturer has worked for a long time.
Microsoft is certainly the company whose takeovers are the most talked about because of their size. After all, Satya Nadella’s company spent $ 7.5 billion to buy Bethesda. But studio buyouts are happening everywhere lately. Electronic Arts, for example, has bought Codemasters, the Chinese Tencent is investing heavily in many studios, Facebook has bought Ready at Dawn, Rockstar Games has taken over Ruffian Games and Nintendo has taken over Next Level Games.
the “console war” is added to the “war of on-demand gaming services”. It is becoming more and more important for the players in the industry to have enough “soldiers”, ie studios, to have sufficient and regular rations of “ammunition”, ie games. Whatever Hermen Hulst says, things are indeed an arms race.
What do you think of Hermen Hulst’s statements? do you agree with him when he says that Sony is not in an arms race? Or do you think Sony is in the same position as its competitors? How far do you think things will go? Tell us all about it in the comments below.
