Microsoft explored buying Sega, Bungie, Niantic, and IO Interactive, wanted to "spend...

[midian182]

In brief: The Microsoft vs. FTC hearing has revealed some more interesting details about the Redmond giant. Internal documents show that Microsoft considered acquiring Bungie, Sega, and others to help expand the Xbox/PC Game Pass library. Elsewhere, one executive said the company was prepared to "spend Sony out of business" in the fight for subscriptions.

A 2020 email from Xbox chief Phil Spencer to both Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Microsoft CFO Amy Hood requested approval to approach Sega Sammy about a potential acquisition of Sega gaming studios.

"We believe that Sega has built a well-balanced portfolio of games across segments with global geographic appeal, and will help us accelerate Xbox Game Pass both on and off-console," Spencer wrote.

The idea behind the acquisition was to expand Game Pass' global appeal through the addition of Sega's IP, especially in Asia.

Courtesy of The Verge

An internal Microsoft document showed that Sega was still an acquisition target in April 2021, as was Bungie (Microsoft owned the company between 2000 and 2007), mobile giant Zynga, Hitman developer IO Interactive, Pokémon Go creator Niantic, and Hades studio Supergiant Games. Microsoft was looking at Bungie for the Destiny IP and community, but the studio was eventually bought by Sony in 2022 after Microsoft announced its intention to acquire Activision Blizzard. Zynga, meanwhile, was acquired by Take-Two.

Another interesting item from the hearing involves an email from Microsoft Xbox Game Studios chief Matt Booty. He wanted the company to spare no expense when it came to acquiring game content in 2019 to compete with Sony in subscriptions. "We (Microsoft) are in a very unique position to be able to go spend Sony out of business," he wrote in a message to Xbox CFO Tim Stuart.

The email also references other companies and their ability to compete with Game Pass. Booty said that Microsoft's content was a "moat" others could not cross, with Sony the only real competitor, and Game Pass had a 2-year and 10 million subs lead.

Microsoft argues that the email is three and a half years old and that it never tried to spend Sony out of business, though it did acquire Bethesda for $7.5 billion and may eventually own Activision Blizzard.

For more revelations from the hearing, including Microsoft admitting it lost the console wars, Starfield almost being PS5-exclusive, and Activision possibly not receiving PS6 dev kits, check out this article.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/99213-microsoft-explored-buying-sega-bungie-niantic-io-interactive.html

 

[dangh]

I think that pretty nicely sums up what is the goal of MS. Not competition, just dominance and stagnation.

 

[bviktor]

I think that pretty nicely sums up what is the goal of MS. Not competition, just dominance and stagnation.

Yeah, cool, one can only dream.

Except Sony is the dominant player and has been ever since the PS1.

 

[DSirius]

Who would have thought? This interesting movie intrigue just thickness more, and we are ready to watch this Microsoft vs FTC in full action from now on. Funny to watch, especially when there are some truly naives who believe that Microsoft is White Snow and defend it with shallow affirmations against more and more evidences. Not that Sony is better too. They are a well established duopoly in gaming industry.

 

[goldman]

I will always say it: MS should've bought Sega and renamed their gaming brand to Sega. Japan has a lot of nostalgia for the brand

 

[DSirius]

I will always say it: MS should've bought Sega and renamed their gaming brand to Sega. Japan has a lot of nostalgia for the brand

Your post may be too subtle

 

[JKnight]

https://media.tenor.com/9UIoEkbUBmsAAAAd/the-simpsons-bill-gates.gif

Perfectly applies here.

 

[goldman]

Your post may be too subtle

In what sense? I just think it's a good business move, but I also think a good business for MS would be to make windows a linux distro.
I don't really think they are the good guys here, just in case. Although I'm not sure if I would call the gaming industry a "duopoly", with nintendo, pc gaming(which, I believe is an interesting discussion if we can call it being "dominated by microsoft" because of windows) and steam opening the way for gaming on linux, which might, at some point, even kill windows itself

 

[m4a4]

Yeah, they won't be going out of business because MS outspends them, unless they themselves mismanage their resources to a stupid degree.

Just sounds like hyperbole at best.

 

[DSirius]

In what sense? I just think it's a good business move, but I also think a good business for MS would be to make windows a linux distro.
I don't really think they are the good guys here, just in case. Although I'm not sure if I would call the gaming industry a "duopoly", with nintendo, pc gaming(which, I believe is an interesting discussion if we can call it being "dominated by microsoft" because of windows) and steam opening the way for gaming on linux, which might, at some point, even kill windows itself

Because MS cannot be accused anymore of being monopolistic if they buy Sega and rename themselves instead of MS or Xbox gaming as Sega.
It's like Sony gaming renaming itself as Bungie after they bought them.
Every other party would be pleased.
If 3 years ago, MS in their internal emails considered only Sony as a threat, other gaming studios are way behind of both Sony and MS. MS and Sony consolidated even more, they are a de facto duopoly, and the other are just minor players.

 

[kira setsu]

I think that pretty nicely sums up what is the goal of MS. Not competition, just dominance and stagnation.

its already pretty stagnant, even for sony, if its not a movie like game they seem lost, and CoD has them shaken like an abuse victim.

its bad all around, clones of clones get released with remake after simplified remake, along with the like 20th iteration of known moneymakers, everything is dlc ridden and packaged with a battlepass, even if a new game is decent enough the game reviewers will bash it and gamers havent figured out how to make their own opinion so that game doa.(a youtuber will cover it later like "this games a classic, why no sequel?")

and yeah you can point at iNDieS and say theyre the future but once they make their killer game or 2 they'll just fall into the same scammy *** pond as the bigboys. hell, I bet most of the companies want to be bought by micro or sony or even ninty just so they can get a bag, run off and not have to deal with their terrible terrible gamer fanbase.

gaming just sorta sucks all around now, games cost too much to make, no one wants to pay and even if they get past those 2 walls, who knows what fringe group it'll p*ss off before it gets released also, I hope it falls downs and resets in a few years cause this sorta blows right now.

 

[dangh]

Yeah, cool, one can only dream.

Except Sony is the dominant player and has been ever since the PS1.

Have you ever heard about a pc (steam) and Nintendo?

and to be clear: If one company with like 20 studios releasing a number of great games, and company who have similar number of studios and acquired huge publisher can't create any new good game in last 10 years, your solution is to allow worse company buy more publishers so they still wont do much, but at least will buy all great multiplatforms and by making them exclusive will get a strike at monopoly?
I'm all for a competition, but I really see no reason to allow richer guys having more privileges and more market just because they do not their job well. It is like gives richer tax exemptions so they can spend even more money to ensure poor keep being poor and they keep being richer
This is not what you should be fighting for. What would be great to see is opening walled garden of all those guys to independent publishers - lets Apple, MS, Sony, Google, Nintendo allow 3rd party store on their system. That will allow end user decide what and where they want buy and use. Allowing one company buying more publishers leads only to market consolidation and that is never a solution.
MS done great job with xbox 360. This is only on them that they didnt release any good game on xbox one, and made kinnect included wasting resources for a gaming devices, and for that there is no excuse. There is still space for other players, and steam deck is a good proof for that. Do you want MS to be competitive? Me to! but I want them to earn it by creating games, not by buying companies and successful IPs. Sure, they can buy anything as long as regulators are in their pockets. But we already see that 10 years of gamepass did not anything good for games quality. In the end, it is gamers who will suffer on market consolidation, and on GAAS promoting MT, and If I have to choose between Sony, Nintendo, Steam, Epic, Gog and Ms - lack of MS wont be an issue, they did not contribute anything new to the pool of games anyway. If xbox werent here we still would have Flight sim, Forza, geow, halo, but on PC and maybe some new player console, maybe a stationary Nintendo one? really, no loss of anything good.

 

[digibluez]

Would not oppose there only to be one console, preferably, one that lets you actually buy games from their store without the need to use prepaid store cards and release games also on PC at the same time

 

[scavengerspc]

Overoptimistic as it may be, it's a sound business strategy.

But any company with near total market control almost always goes to full megalomaniac mode.
Anti consumer tactics that starts telling us what we want instead of giving us what we want.

Nvidia is an excellent example.

Even when Google and Microsoft started up with their shady practices and God like opinions of themselves, they still tried to give their customers what they wanted.

Nvidia has stuck it to their fans every chance they got.

 

[Boricua4life]

Sony new strategy: Remakes; Remkes; Remakes!! So far is working lol