Jim Ryan: PS5 to Have More Exclusives Than Ever Before, Not Ruled Out More Acquisitions - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 October 2021 / 3,028 Views
PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan speaking in an interview with Nikkei (and translated by VideoGamesChronicle) revealed that Sony Interactive Entertainment has been "quietly" investing in high-quality games for the PlayStation brand.
"We have been quietly but steadily investing in high-quality games for PlayStation, and we will make sure that the PS5 generation will have more dedicated software than ever before," said Ryan.
Ryan added that Sony remains open to more acquisitions in the future to grow the first-party lineup of studios for PlayStation.
"We have repeatedly engaged in mergers and acquisitions, including Insomniac Games in the US," he said. "We will not rule out that option in the future."
Upcoming PlayStation exclusives include Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon Forbidden West, God of War: Ragnarok, Gran Turismo 7, Final Fantasy 16, Forspoken, Returnal, and many more.
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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Kinda fear that MS buying Bethesda has created an industry where in order to be competitive you buy games and studios instead of making new studios and creating new jobs and games. Buying studios and making acquisitions should be an afterthought of making great games and creating studios.
Exclusive have nothing to do with the idea of acquisitions. Sony, Nintendo and MS make games to sell their platform to get people involved in that system so money goes through that system. It's not "Sony's thing". It's how consoles work. These big publishers money is best to spend on creating new games studios producing their own work and creating jobs than just buying other others.
Well atleast sony and nintendo were making great exclusives, and consistently. Where as microsoft was lagging behind, and kind of needed the aquisition since they can't seem to push out greater varierty
Sony and Nintendo games wouldn't exist without Sony or Nintendo. Virtually all Xbox games would still exist without Xbox. Microsoft doesn't really contribute anything to the gaming industry as a whole.
Well I'm always down for more exclusives as I felt is what really defines a system. Speaking of Insomniac, I really hope they bring back Resistance.
When it seemed exclusives were being viewed in a more negative light over the past several years as "anti-consumer" looks like those kinds of talks are completely dead now. Nintendo and Sony were always going to be making a ton of exclusives, and now Xbox has really delved into that exclusivity as well with the purchase of Bethesda, except mainly on their Game Pass service wherever that service is like web browsers, smart TV's, etc.
I wonder what kind of studio acquisitions Sony can make, though. Bluepoint Games and FromSoftware come to mind. I don't think the likelihood of purchasing a major company like SquareEnix is likely because they're not MS dummy rich, but studios that make sense for Sony. Like the purchase of Insomniac was a no-brainer.
For what ever reason they decide to buy or not buy lack of money isn't a factor ,value for money yes Sony's CFO talking about acquisitions stated in their report that they have US 11 billion in cash and a further 16 billion in other liquidity without touching their lines of credit,
That's not much money for making big acquisitions in the video game industry. It certainly is enough to do something, and they don't have to use cash when acquiring at all necessarily. But, in general, if you have $11 billion in cash available, $7.5 billion dollar deals like Bethesda are hard to pull off.
the 11 billion cash was only part they have a further 16 billion in other liquidity what he was showing that they had access to $27 billion without using any of their available lines of credit , he was obviously using those figures to demonstrate that they had the resources to make large acquisitions, the mix of capital used wouldn't necessarily follow that order,
Alot of factors need to be taken into account. Not many companies will spend half their entire resources to secure companies that might make that money back. Also if buying major studios lead into a bidding war, prices will only increase. Sony are more likely to buy smaller studios like Insomica where is doesnt affect the bank and more likely make a good return in a shorter time frame.
Lets see what happens, they might suprise afew.
The way i see it is it was simple statement of reassurance that basically said we have $27 billion that we can use and that's without using our lines of credit and that allows us to be active in the whole acquisition range be they large medium or small , normally they would not need to state this but the field as changed with MS and the game pass sub model now meaning content is a greater priority than ever and the low cost benefit of owning something that's on your platform anyway reason used for leaving big 3rd parties alone that held sway for years, has given way to not just content is king but exclusive content is the Galactic Overlord .
You understand that not all exclusive content is amazing right?
My comment wasn't about exclusive content being amazing or not ,it was about how the value has now risen enough to offset the long held negative view of buying content makers/publishers that you already have access too , the Galactic Overlord bit was just hyperbole to demonstrate how the value has gone up with gamepass changing the landscape. cheers.
16 billion in non-cash liquidity, meaning assets like real estate that would have to be sold and turned into cash at the value of whatever the market is willing to pay for those assets at the time. So, not exactly a guaranteed spending amount.
The 16 billion would be made up of a number of different assets some easier to liquidate than others and its not like they would need to or want to sell off real estate at the whim of the market or any other physical assets ,like I said they most likely would use a mix of financing that best suited whatever deal was at hand and it may well be cheaper in this low interest climate to use those lines of credit in the end he was just referencing their general capacity to invest .
I feel they may be more strategic and still buy studios to grow but also as a defensive measure either by taking a 51% controlling interest or more likely take enough of a stake that along with other
allied stockholders (maybe with potential first option agreements)
making a large enough voting block to make any take over hard.
So lots of ways to play the game and it's all conjecture from me.
Sony is also a corporation with many divisions. PS is a major part of the brand however it is not the whole brand. If PS wanted to spend half of Sony's savings to make a purchase it wont sit well with Sony as a whole as it is a giant chunk out of the companies bank and will reduce other avenues to compete, like the TV brands competing with other TV brands etc.
EXAMPLE: Lets say Samsung invested $10b into their TV brand in 2022. Now Sony's TV brand cannot as the PS brand already took a fair chunk of cash reserves. Also buying gaming studios is a long term prospect not a short term. Don't expect a profit until after many years possibly decades depending on the sized purchase.
Microsoft is in different situation. They tend to have (Play Money) where it doesn't affect the brand as a whole. They also have GamePass which if the numbers are correct, is raking MS $2.7b a year (23m Subs x $10 x 12 Months)
So a purchase like Bethesda suits their business model as its not Bethesda earning the profits, its Bethedas boosting GP subscriptions. That's all they need from it from the acquisition.
I've already explained that having access and that's the keyword to
27 billion doesn't mean they are set to use it all or that it would be
all be spent. He's just reassuring investors and potential partners that this amount available means they have the capital to invest if need be without driving up debt. for how they may choose to do it you should already know if you read my replies.
The stuff about divisions was settled by Kaz when he announced that they would drive profits by investing in the growth of their most profitable divisions and Sony electronics while important the days of burning money trying to gain market share were over so Sony will invest were and how they see benefits them if that means ensuring content by acquiring studios or making strategic stock buys and alliances to have control over access or buying a large publisher then they will make those decisions just like they have with investments in other areas and you can bet it will like MS or any other company be weighed on a cost benefit analysis.
I understand the reasoning behind purchases. I am just stating that $27b isn't acceptable for a brand like Sony. In other words, that's a lot of money to spend for Sony. I understand you are saying they can leverage deals however they wont, unless they are desperate. Sony also need this kind of money in the bank to compete, its not just Xbox Sony is competing with, its brands like Samsung, LG, Apple etc.
Nintendo also has quite a fair chunk of money they can dish off to purchase major studios however deals like Bethesda are just too big and risky as well as without a business model to make that money back asap.
I wish they'd remake driver . I want a fun but challenging car chase type of game, without any out of vehicle running and gunning. There are plenty of ps1 titles actually that warrant a remake.
I kind of find it hard to believe that they will have more exclusives than ever before. Does this guy hate ps1 games as well as pretend the system doesn't exist?
If they're trying to make the blockbuster, big-budget games, that means less games overall. So I don't see how they will have more exclusives now than on previous systems.
I guess time will tell if this is true, but yeah Sony has been very quiet lately.
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