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Michael Pachter: Sony is in a Good Position to Buy Warner, Metal Gear Not Worth Much Without Kojima

Michael Pachter: Sony is in a Good Position to Buy Warner, Metal Gear Not Worth Much Without Kojima - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 October 2020 / 4,314 Views

Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter speaking in an interview with GamingBolt says that Sony is in a good position to buy Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment if AT&T were willing to sell the division. If Sony is able to get the rights to Batman and Mortal Kombat it would fit well in Sony's first-party lineup, according to Pachter.

"Their acquisitions have been smaller, like Insomniac, and those are the kinds of acquisitions that I would expect," Pachter said. "I do think Sony is in a good position to buy Warner Bros. Interactive assets should they ever go on sale again.

"Depending on whether AT&T chooses to sell them, and how. If they just want to license their IP out, they will probably not go with exclusivity deals, because they won’t want the games limited to just one platform, but if they sell perpetual rights to Batman or Mortal Kombat, I think those assets would be pretty cool for Sony to fold into their lineup.

"They already did it with Spider-Man, so we know they would be interested in something like that. I really hadn’t considered this scenario, since we had heard WB was off the table, but now that Bethesda just got bought for $7.5 billion, you have to think AT&T are thinking, 'could we get $7 billion?'"

Mortal Kombat 11

Pachter did add that Sony instead of acquiring studios could purchase the rights to a third-party IP such as Metal Gaer from Konami. However, that would not be worth it without Kojima.

"Well, Metal Gear without Kojima might not be worth very much, and Final Fantasy, when did the last one come out? 2016?" he said. "I’m not sure anyone really cares there, I think that that’s just a couple of million units we are talking about, that’s not a system seller.

"It probably is in Japan, but the Japanese aren’t buying Xbox, so Sony doesn’t really have to worry there, especially since all those Japanese games will be on PlayStation anyway, so Sony isn’t at risk of losing those titles."

"I don’t think those assets are worth much," he concluded.

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will launch worldwide on November 10. The PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 5 Digital Edition will launch on November 12 in North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and November 19 in Europe and the rest of the world. 


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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41 Comments
javi741 (on 02 October 2020)

Well, now we know that Sony is in an awful position to purchase Warner. Thank you Pachter.

  • +22
Mystro-Sama (on 02 October 2020)

Hes not wrong about Metal Gear though.

  • +16
Koragg (on 02 October 2020)

What is this guy smoking?

  • +7
Vendrom Koragg (on 02 October 2020)

The phantom cigar haha

  • +3
Koragg Koragg (on 02 October 2020)

Haha, that's a good one

  • +1
TheBraveGallade (on 02 October 2020)

-final fantasy
-not a system seller
suuuuure.

  • +3
Kowan (on 03 October 2020)

He really said FInal Fantasy isn't a system seller and forgot all about FInal Fantasy 7 Remake. LOL.

  • +2
SammyGiireal Kowan (on 03 October 2020)

He is not wrong, Skyrim out sold all FF games that came out during the last decade combined. FFVIIR sold extremely well early, as it appealed to the core base of the original game. But Square has refused to release new sales figures, meaning that the game probably topped out at 6 mill sold. Not bad, but FF isn't the game changer that it was in the mid 90s early 00s.

  • +2
EspadaGrim (on 02 October 2020)

Did he forget that MS was also interested in buying WB Games while they were in negotiations with Zenimax at the same time? If WB decides to that they do want to sell after seeing how much Zenimax was purchased for then it would be a bidding war between a handful of companies including Amazon so Sony would not be favorites.

  • +2
vonny EspadaGrim (on 03 October 2020)

You mean how Sony was in the bidding for Zenimax? I highly doubt Microsoft would spend another 5+ billion so close together

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EspadaGrim EspadaGrim (on 03 October 2020)

@Vonny The Bethesda Deal was the second highest Video Game acquisition ever and the highest outside of Mobile games, I doubt that Sony would have paid 7.5 billion plus absorbing all of that staff like MS did. Like I said before MS were interested in WB all while still negotiating with Zenimax at the same time so yes they absolutely were interested in acquiring both, WB also wanted 4 billion but it would have likely cost more than that if it came down to a bidding war.

And when it comes to MS money please dude, they wanted to buy Tik Tok for 50 billion this year so another billion dollar acquisition that would be less than 10 billion is nothing to them especially if they have the full backing of the CEO. Sony can't compete there especially with Amazon now entering the gaming space.
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  • 0
vonny EspadaGrim (on 03 October 2020)

Do you understand economics? Pointing to other Microsoft business activities is a false equivalency, youre also using the assumption money is the only factor in a business actuation

  • -2
EspadaGrim EspadaGrim (on 03 October 2020)

Money is a factor when AT&T want get as much as they can for WBIE because they have massive debt.

  • +4
Vendrom (on 02 October 2020)

I’m new here but soon realized his reputation in the industry. Yes, Final Fantasy sales numbers are not staggering but they have a big and dedicated fanbase and matters a lot to Japan, in which Sony is kind of losing ground with its censor policies where Nintendo looms. Also, Sony wouldn’t like more superheroes, they’ve doubled down on Spider-Man heavily and, well, their relationship with Marvel is special in contrast to DC. Let alone the fact that Sony wouldn’t easily afford a $2+ billion acquisition and WBIE isn’t as close to Sony, hence such a buy wouldn’t make much sense. At least he’s right about Metal Gear series, but it’s nothing new

  • +2
Trentonater Vendrom (on 02 October 2020)

They can easily afford it. They jsut wouldn't want to as it's not necessary. Harder to justify.

  • +4
LivncA_Dis3 (on 04 October 2020)

its very easy to get kojima working again on metal gear once sony has the i.p

its useless with konami

  • +1
S.Peelman (on 03 October 2020)

"When did the last Final Fantasy come out"? Uhh, a couple months ago.

  • +1
sales2099 (on 02 October 2020)

We heard Warner pulled away deeming their gaming branch too valuable to sell. I feel like this guy isn’t the best informed at times.

  • +1
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AFattyGamer (on 02 October 2020)

Is he wrong again?

  • +1
Chazore (on 04 October 2020)

Of course MG isn't anything without Kojima, that goes entirely without saying from here to the grave Pachter, and even then Sony doesn't own Kojima's ass, so there was no point in even mentioning that.

  • 0
snyps (on 03 October 2020)

Good way to get Microsoft interested in wanting WB

  • 0
Mr Puggsly (on 03 October 2020)

The problem with Warner Interactive is their success is with IPs that aren't for sale. They won't sell DC characters, while some of their other popular titles use Lego and Lord of the Rings. Whoever buys them would just get some notable studios, perhaps some licensing deals, Mortal Kombat and other IPs they got from Midway. If Warner Interactive is sold, it must be at a fraction of Zenimax unless it comes with an amazing deal for DC video game licensing. Either way, I feel it would be a good purchse for MS given they arguably need studios capable of making good action adventure games. Especially if they could get some DC games. Sony would benefit as well, but it seems like Warner Interactive is most valuable not being sold and instead making more comic book games. All these years have passed and all they focused on is Batman.

  • 0
TheBraveGallade (on 02 October 2020)

-final fantasy
-not a system seller
suuuuure.

  • 0
SanAndreasX (on 02 October 2020)

Are we going back to hearing from Pachter all the time? I thought we left him behind when the PS3 and 360 died.

  • 0
Red_Beard (on 02 October 2020)

His comments on Metal Gear / Kojima are blatantly obvious to anyone remotely familiar with the subject. That remark about Final Fantasy though is just... what? So a franchise that is one the biggest and most popular RPG series worldwide and arguably THE biggest name in the JRPG space, but yea, no one really cares about it. FF15 had its issues, sure, but even a 'bad' or 'subpar' FF is still an incredibly solid game by any other metric.

  • 0
KrspaceT Red_Beard (on 02 October 2020)

...Also I'm sure that a FF on Switch day and date would be competitive.

  • 0
Agente42 Red_Beard (on 02 October 2020)

the bigest JRPG is Pokemon

  • +5
VAMatt Red_Beard (on 02 October 2020)

He didn't say that people don't care about FF. He said it's not a system seller outside of Japan (arguable, but probably right), and even if it is a system seller in Japan that fact doesn't add much value because Japanese people would buy PS if they were getting a console anyway. In other words, buying FF to keep it exclusive to PS doesn't make sense.

  • +7
AsGryffynn (on 03 October 2020)

This also misses that MS has cooperated with MS in the past recently with sponsorships and whatnot. I doubt they'd be interested in selling to Sony. If Sony can get something, it's probably what's left of Disney Interactive.

  • -2
Chazore (on 02 October 2020)

uhh, duhh. Of course MG isn't anything without Kojima, that goes entirely without saying from here to the grave Pachter, and even then Sony doesn't own Kojima's ass, so there was no point in even mentioning that.

  • -2
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VAMatt shikamaru317 (on 02 October 2020)

Interestingly, $3.4 billion in 1989 is equivalent to approximately $7.5 billion today.

  • +2
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method114 CaptainExplosion (on 02 October 2020)

I disagree with him Metal Gear it could be worth a lot to Sony. Especially if they can clean up the story. The thing is Sony will only get 1 chance to do it without Kojima. If they mess it up they wont get another chance.

  • +1
SanAndreasX CaptainExplosion (on 02 October 2020)

Conversely, Kojima isn’t worth much without Metal Gear.

  • +2
Vendrom CaptainExplosion (on 02 October 2020)

@SanAndreasX Give him a bit more time. Death Stranding was his first steps after two decades working on just one IP and it wasn’t even that bad.

  • +1