The console wars, or more apt, the acquisition wars, are in full effect, and won't be stopping any time soon.
The slow burn of the Console Wars
When Sony broke into the gaming scene in the early 90's, the video game console space was crowded with many companies attempting to take down the Big N. Many tried to compete: Neo Geo, PC-Engine, 3DO, Jaguar, and eventually even Sega, all failed to put a dent in Nintendo's video game global dominance. All but Sony, which blew up over night, almost as the "rock star" of the gaming industry at the time. With competitive pricing, killer first party software, and great third-party relations, Sony made a hell of a first impression with the original PlayStation.
This early success was followed by the immensely popular PlayStation 2, which to this day is STILL the most sold video game console. Sony made many smart decisions with the PlayStation brand, like being the forefront of physical media with DVDs on the PS2 and Blu-rays on the PS3, scoring key exclusives first like Grand Theft Auto, Tomb Raider while building out unique gaming experiences like Gran Turismo or Uncharted that the competition had no response for. Meanwhile Sony was running victory laps around their competition, Microsoft struggled to carve their way into the gaming market.
While early success with some key franchises like Halo and Gears of War gave the Original XBOX and XBOX 360 some significant leverage in the gaming lexicon, Microsoft has constantly fallen short in varied and consistent first-party releases. Even acquiring RARE in the early 2000's wasn't enough for the XBOX to get nothing more than a measly 24 million consoles sold compared to the absolute juggernaut of 155 million console sold with the PlayStation 2. The lack of compelling first party software for the XBOX brand hit a all time low with the XBOX One life span, which saw a serious drop of the quantity of first-party XBOX games mixed with a disastrous launch. Microsoft responded with this problem with the scary "A" word...Acquisitions.
The War For Content
It's not hyperbolic at all to say that XBOX Game Pass has changed the scope of the gaming industry forever. The original aspect of the Game Pass was new to the gaming world, a subscription service basically serving as the "Netflix" of gaming, hosting a large assortment of games for gamers to download and use at their will. While the idea of Game Pass was fantastic initially, it really didn't come into its own until Microsoft began the practice or dropping their first-party content DAY ONE of release on Game Pass. Instantly Game Pass became a must-own for XBOX fans, not only did you get many fantastic old titles, but now you're getting brand NEW titles from first party XBOX software. Great deal right? One problem still remained for XBOX however...the lack of first party software to begin with.
At the start of eighth generation of consoles Microsoft had only the following studios producing first party content for the Xbox One: 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang, Rare, Turn 10, Press Play, Twisted Pixel and Lionhead Studios. While being a small list, it's an even smaller list considering the latter 3 studios were closed down early in the Xbox One's life. It was very evident, Microsoft needed first-party studios and they needed them fast if they wanted to compete. While the early days of the XBOX One was supported by 3rd party exclusive partnerships with titles like Titanfall, ReCore, Ryse, Sunset Overdrive & Dead Rising 3, many of these properties Microsoft didn't own the IP for, and more importantly, didn't own the studios.
And thus Microsoft began their acquisition spree, acquiring many studios in an extremely short amount of time: Playground Games, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Obsidian, InXile, Double Fine Productions. While a few of these studios have worked closely with Microsoft in the past, like Undead Labs with "State of Decay" and Playgrounds with "Forza Horizon", many gamers felt that Microsoft acquisition of some of these studios was done in order to bolster their lacking first-party studio line-up without building natural relationships with these studios and games. However that all changed when Microsoft purchased entire publishers with Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, bringing Microsoft total in-house studio count to 33 studios. With 25 million Game Pass subscribers, Microsoft has built up a service that will be HIGHLY supported by first party studios with the guarantee that every Microsoft first party release will launch on Game Pass. So the obvious question pops up...how will Sony respond?
Sony's slow, but steady acquisition strategy
As the PlayStation 4 completely dominate the XBOX One and Nintendo Wii U, Sony finds an effective, and highly successful niche with the PlayStation 4: the third person action-adventure game. The PlayStation 4 is the exclusive home for many of the best games of last generation: God of War, Uncharted 4, The Last of Us: Part 2, Marvel's Spider-Man, Horizon Zero Dawn, Ghost of Tsushima, Bloodborne. Not only did Sony have some of the greatest games of the console generation in PS4, they also had many exclusive partnerships as well with games like Street Fighter V, Persona 5, & Final Fantasy VII Remake. There picture was clear, if you were a gamer, you wanted to have a PS4 to play all of the best games of the generation. Sony had a huge backing of quality first-party studios and fantastic third-party relationships, but even Sony couldn't ignore the buying spree Microsoft was currently doing.
As Microsoft starting acquiring studios at a massive pace, Sony took a different approach, and instead of acquiring many studios, they acquired studios that they had close working relationships with. "Organic" if you will. Studios like Housemarque who worked on Resogun, Bluepoint who worked on the Shadow of the Colossus remake, Insomniac Games who worked on two major Sony franchises with Ratchet & Clank and Resistance. Many of these studios have "proven" themselves to work well with Sony's audiences, and therefore many felt were "perfect" fits for acquisition. However, Sony's latest acquisition, Bungie, falls from this mold, in more ways than one.
On January 31st, Sony acquired the historic gaming studio Bungie, responsible for the original Halo games, and the ever popular Destiny franchise. Bungie for years was associated with XBOX, being a first party developer for Microsoft before leaving to become independent, and then being acquired by Activision, and also leaving Activision to become independence once more...to now being acquired again...but with a twist! Seemingly the most surprising aspect of the newest acquisition is that Bungie will be creatively independent under Sony's leadership and will STILL be able to develop their games for other platforms.
So this marks a much different outcome from the typical acquisition, which is to gain an studio to make exclusive content in order to add more value to that particular platform. And while Sony can absolutely do this, they are not, so why? Well it's actually quite simple, the infrastructure and experience Bungie brings to the PlayStation family. From the official PlayStation Blog post, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan has this to say about the acquisition:
"Bungie’s world-class expertise in multi-platform development and live game services will help us deliver on our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers."
The goal isn't to make Bungie exclusive to PlayStation, the goal is to use Bungie as the leverage Sony needs to jump into the highly lucrative Games As A Service business. One huge aspect Sony lacks from the competition is compelling multiplayer experiences. As stated before, the niche of Third-Person action games became Sony's bread and butter during the last generation, but as games like Fortnite, Warzone and OverWatch has proven, gamers love addicting multiplayer games that keep them on the service and platform indefinitely. And while Bungie's Destiny won't be platform exclusive, it WILL help to set the basis for Sony to develop their own services on their platform with the knowledge and experience from Bungie. And with this news drop Jim Ryan confirms several "live service" games in development currently for Sony platforms.
So...who's next?
Jim Ryan told Gameindustry.biz 's Christopher Dring that "'We should expect more' when it comes to further PlayStation acquisitions". Rumors are running rampant that Sony is creating their own Game Pass alternative for Sony Platforms, codenamed Spartacus, to compete with the massively popular Game Pass. And while for years Sony has had insanely high quality first-party releases, they haven't been the most consistent when it comes to releases as the development cycles are SO long for these type of games.
Take for example Naughty Dog, during the PS3 generation, they developed Uncharted, Uncharted 2, Uncharted 3 and The Last of Us. During the last console generation they only produced two main titles, Uncharted 4 and The Last of Us: Part 2. While these are stellar gaming experiences, they are experiences that happen once every few years, and this is the same pattern effecting the other studios list Studio Santa Monica, Sucker Punch and Guerilla Games. In order to support a subscription based service, you need constant content being release to keep people subscribing, so it's no surprise that Sony is looking to acquire more studios, so who's next then?
With Sony being a Japanese based company, the obvious first thought would be a Japanese studio. Many Japanese studios have strong relationships with Sony, like Square Enix, Bandai Namco, Sega, From Software and Capcom. Many of these studios do support Microsoft of course, but the support isn't fully there. Take Square Enix, while Microsoft did get Final Fantasy XV, Square Enix heavy hitters like Final Fantasy VII Remake, Babylon's Fall & Forspoken speak almost directly to the Japanese market, which overwhelmingly supports Sony over Microsoft. The same can be seen with Capcom and Sega, which many Japanese styled games come exclusively to PlayStation platforms no questions asked.
Of course, a big publisher that many have been asking for years to at very least acknowledge their storied IP, is Konami. Once a massive powerhouse in the gaming industry, Konami as of late has almost entirely stopped focusing on the gaming industry. Game releases stopped to a crawl and many IP feels dormant without Konami even attempting new releases. For many, Konami would be a HUGE get for acquisition alone for the IPs of Metal Gear and Silent Hill, two franchises that historically were represented well on the Original PlayStation and PlayStation 2. Another potentially interesting acquisition would be Sega, due to their ties with the Yakuza franchise and Persona franchise. Also in a bit of irony, it would be kind of funny thinking of Sonic becoming a first-party PlayStation character, after PlayStation 2 being one of the reasons for Sega to fall out of the console business.
As the gaming industry reaches peak acquisition mode, Sony must stay competitive against Microsoft and hell, even Embracer group, which has over 40 studios under their belt. While I think it's a bit hyperbolic to think that Sony is in any serious trouble staying a competitor in the gaming market, they can't sit idly by and expect the same multitude of success for the PS5 when Microsoft is making some serious moves to gain gamer's attention and overall content dominance. 2022 has already started off as a banger year for acquisitions, what other big move will Sony make this year?
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