Sega, Bungie or Niantic could have belonged to Microsoft
Microsoft had more than a hundred studios and publishers in its sights
Czech studios Bohemia Interactive and SCS Software also appear in the list
The dispute between the Federal Trade Commission and Microsoft regarding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard is still ongoing. Thanks to this, the general public gets access to a lot of interesting information that would never get out under normal circumstances. For example, we learned about plans to acquire game studios. For example, the company from Redmond also had Bohemia Interactive, the largest Czech studio, or SCS Software, who are known for creating truck simulators, in their sights.
Sega, Niantic, Zynga and dozens more
In general, however, the biggest potential acquisition could have been the Japanese company Sega, which still produced its own game consoles at the turn of the millennium. The most famous brand of this company is without a doubt Sonic, which has also seen film adaptations. In recent years, the Yakuza series has also been gaining in popularity, and not only strategy fans are certainly familiar with the Total War games.
In November 2020, Microsoft believed the acquisition would significantly boost Game Pass subscriptions. The second reason was the imaginary opening of the door to the Asian market and especially Japan, where the American company is significantly losing to the domestic Nintendo and Sony PlayStation. It’s unclear why the acquisition ultimately fell through, but internal documents made it clear that a year later, Sega was still listed as one of the main targets.
Also appearing on the same list was Bungie, the studio that developed the Halo series of games for Microsoft years ago. The last years have focused on Destiny and now it is clear that they will not belong to Microsoft, at least in the near future. Last year, this studio was bought by rival Sony. Furthermore, there were, for example, studios Niantic and Zynga, which are known for their mobile games.
There was not much left, and the creators of Hitman or the upcoming James Bond from IO Interactive could also belong to Microsoft, just like the successful indie developers from Supergiant Games. And this was just some of the shortlisted studies.
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
In the expanded part of the list, there are more than a hundred studios and publishers. At the same time, this is not something unknown, but mostly really large or well-known companies. The two Czech studios Bohemia Interactive and SCS Software have already been mentioned in the introduction. Then, for example, Microsoft looked at CD Project RED (The Witcher, Cyberpunk), Crytek (Crysis, Far Cry), Gearbox Software (Borderlands, Brothers in Arms), Remedy (Alan Wake, Max Payne), etc. Basically, you could say , that every at least somewhat successful company was considered, and it is definitely clear that if the acquisition of Activision Blizzard does not work out, Microsoft still has somewhere to reach out and acquire not only well-known game brands, but also experienced studios.
Author of the article
David Trlica
Mobile technology and green robot system enthusiast. It has been informing readers about news and interesting things from various corners of the IT sphere for several years.
2023-06-28 05:00:00
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