Really hope Microsoft can acquire Crystal Dynamics and Eidos, don’t really want those studios to be shut down especially with how things are going at Embracer.
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Same, I was disappointed Embracer got them originally. They are a perfect fit for Xbox, even more so now that they are developing Perfect Dark & Fable.
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I doubt they’d be shut down. They’re probably the best Embracer has right now and if Embracer can get Amazon to publish, they could do the same for their high-profile studios.
Reading this news, it almost seems like Savvy did this intentionally maybe to reduce the market cap and put Embracer in a situation where they’re forced to sell. Savvy getting Embracer would make them a force in the industry especially now that they have the Lord of the rings IP.
Isn’t Sony still paying the acquisition cost?
If ABK is bought soon, then hopefully Microsoft can give Embracer 2 billion to get Eidos, Crystal Dynamics & Gearbox .
There is other studios I’d like, but these are worth around 2 billion together.
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I think I remember Nick saying that Embracer Group is helping out Microsoft beyond Perfect Dark, wonder if Microsoft has an agreement with with Embracer Group to be acquired and the group that was funding 2 billion dollars to them backed out after finding out.
Eidos are also developing Fable with Playground, maybe that’s what he meant?
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There were also rumors of Eidos helping Compulsion
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Throw in Gunfire Games, 4A Games, Flying Wild Hog & Tripwire Interactive. At some point Microsoft is going to have to think about starting another publishing arm though, I think we’re getting to the point where Xbox Game Studios is getting too big and publisher acquisitions like Bethesda & ABK make sense because they already have leadership and key roles in position to run an entire publishing arm.
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I was going to suggest gunfire mostly for the Darksiders franchise, Black Forest Games and Purple Lamp could be good additions aswell but I doubt they will be sold now that they are working on nickelodeon games, Ghost Ship Games would be neat for Deep Rock Galatic, there is also the Time Splitters with the new reformed Free Radical Design although I am not sure what to expect from it, the same goes for Saints Row, is a good ip but I doubt xbox will find a good developer for it after what happened with the last game, Alone In The Dark is another option but just like timesplitters I will need to wait and see if the reboot is good
Lastly I will say that Saber Interactive should be bought just to give support to other studios
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I’d like to see Volition and Deep Silver too, I just listed the ones I did, because Embracer bought Gearbox for 1.3 billion and the others would get you to 2 billion.
Which was how much Embracer lost out on.
Now depending on how Microsoft and Embracer wants to play things, Embracer could easily make billions, if they were to sell a lot of game studios to Microsoft.
There’s plenty of great bits of Embracer but most of them are scattered about the operational units and may not even be published by the same operational unit. There’s complexity there in any transaction. Nothing that can’t be overcome (or ignored - by not buying publishing rights and just dealing with not having them), but I think it makes any purchase a bit less appealing and a bit less likely to come to a satisfactory agreement to both parties (who often disagree on the relative value of certain things to each other).
For example, 4A Games is a subsidiary of The Saber Group, while the Metro games have been published by Deep Silver, a subsidiary of Plaion, which is in turn a different subsidiary of Embracer. They’re currently building the next Metro, published by either Deep Silver or Prime Matter (both Plaion brands), it’s unclear at the moment.
In the case of CDE (Crystal/Eidos), they’re already doing a lot of support work for Microsoft, but their big ticket next game is being published by Amazon games as part of their push into the IP, they’re also making a TV show for Tomb Raider.
When we think about these two specific examples, Metro is probably a bigger deal to Plaion than it is to Microsoft, certainly it’s a significant product for them and they don’t have a lot of other significant products. For Amazon, while they’re a big company, pushing into Tomb Raider seems important to them pulling off a multimedia strategy. In both cases I could see Microsoft not thinking it’s worth actually buying up those rights vs what they’d be sold for. We’ve seen this happen before, when they either did not want to or were unable to negotiate an agreeable price on The Outer Worlds 1 - which remained multiplat despite being unannounced at the time of the acquisition, and which remains published by Take Two/Private Division to this day. They paid for Gamepass rights, and that was it.
Philosophically, although Microsoft is clearly happy to work with CDE subsidiaries and got marketing rights for the last Metro game, they did not snap up either developer when they were for sale. 4A sold for a meagre sum in 2020, which was well into Microsoft’s developer buying spree. CDE was also sold for a song to Embracer. You can of course argue that Microsoft was too busy to buy CDE because of ABK - but that doesn’t explain why, if they were so interested in their output, they didn’t try to do other things, like sign up to publish the next Tomb Raider instead of letting Amazon get it. Or sign up to publish Eidos’ next game, whatever that is.
I think if they planned to immediately buy the companies post ABK, they would have done stuff like that to prevent situations where, a year or two down the line when they tried to buy them, they then had to contend with this awkwardness surrounding other people publishing games deep in development.
Granted I won’t make any definitive claims about them “definitely not” being interested in buying units of Embracer, but I also don’t see signs that they especially care versus just continuing to have them as partners and occasionally getting gamepass deals.
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With all the talk of series S holding back perhaps something Xbox needs to focus on is their tech. They have all this tech like Velocity architecture which should be levied as a solution. I think with that said a developer like Crytek would be a good get for advancing their engine pipelines.
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I think a partnership with unreal will be enough, I mean afterall thats one of the reasons why many games were running better on the 360, although I still think crytek could be an interesting choice for their technology, they know how make the cryengine look phenomenal and sure we havent seen anything new from them since hunt showdown but I think there is a opportunity to see brand new ideas from them
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They already have a partnership with unreal. Epic pretty much tags Xbox to showcase unreal 5. Crytek on the other hand was on the list, I think. Crytek was also pretty much the only ones to develop a software-based raytracing solution for last gen consoles. I just think Crytek has potential to go beyond Epic. I also think the Cry engine walks well with both first- and third-party games. UE4 wasn’t great with FPS games. In any case would love to see what they can come up with under a corporation like Microsoft.
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Well I have mixed feelings for Deck 13 and the studio is owned by Focus, but CI Games seems to have done a good job with Lords of The Fallen, if the game is successful I think it could be a great acquisition for Microsoft.
I totally agree with you, these are clearly the 3 studios to acquire from Embracer.
Well, I think in that scenario, Gearbox publishing could easily become that publishing arm. I would place Eidos and Crystal in this branch, as well as some other acquired studios like People Can Fly, Crytek, Rebellion, IOI, Avalanche… I think that would make sense.
Yes, there are good studios to take, but I doubt Embracer wants to sell most of them. I hope that discussions will take place after ABK. Getting Crystal, Eidos, and Gearbox would already be a great win. If we can get more then that will be perfect.
Volition is now part of Gearbox. It’s a shame that the quality of their games has gone down in recent years, it would have been a good candidate for IP Crackdown.
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analysis by idas on resetera
i could definitely see MS buying some dev studios or IP from Embracer.
I agree, they arent going to sell most of them or the ones that give them enough money, although I wonder if they will consider selling saber interactive, it could be good for support although they could just continue making a partnership, when it comes to gearbox I really dont know, their games tend to be a hit or miss most of the time and now that volition is part of the company I am worried after that last saints row, still borderlands could do great on gamepass
it’s not necessarily a guarantee that CD and Eidos will be the big money makers for Embracer considering how expensive keeping those studios up will be.
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