If you haven’t heard, despite it being the top story across the industry for over a year, Microsoft went and spent $69 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard King, and then spent probably a bit more than that over the course of a year and a half of legal fees to get the deal through.
Since the beginning of this deal, one of the big questions has been around how PlayStation will react. It’s latest big acquisition has been Bungie, but according to Piers Harding-Rolls from Ampere Analysis, there’s more to come.
Harding-Rolls goes as far to say that PlayStation “is under pressure to react” and make another big acquisition of its own. “I expect further investments and acquisitions for PlayStation, including a large one that would move the needle for them in a meaningful way” he told GamesIndustry.Biz.
One such studio acquisition that could “move the needle” is Take-Two, even if it is “unlikely,” according to Karol Severin at Midia Research.
Severin points instead to Sony taking advantage of the wealth of content it has across other mediums outside games, namely its tv and film stores. Leveraging those alongside its games business could be the stronger way forward for Sony to compete.
“It will be increasingly difficult to compete with Microsoft on games only.” said Severin. “The only response for Sony on the games-only side would be buying something really big like Take-Two, but that is unlikely.”
Source – [GamesIndustry.Biz, VGC]