Sony has been on a tear the last year, acquiring game studios for its first-party stable. And it seems that this isn’t the end, either, as the head of Sony Pictures has said that they expect the company will be making even more acquisitions going forward. I’m sure there are more worlds for Sony to conquer, and I’d be curious to see what the next company they acquire could be — and if it’s anyone other than Bluepoint, I’ll be very surprised.
The remarks came from Sony Pictures CEO Tony Vinciquerra, who said during the Bank Of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications & Entertainment Conference, in response to a question about the movie industries consolidation: “I think the traditional medium of television and film has probably peaked and the new growth area will be the games business, and who’s better positioned than Sony for that business?”
He added: “I do think you’ll see some consolidation on that side. You’ll probably see a little more on our side as well. I do think there are probably too many film studios and you might see one or two less over the next five-to-ten years. But I think the next area of consolidation will be the games business.” He’s likely not wrong, as a wave of acquisitions and partnerships has been a staple of news for the last year. While the Bethesda acquisition by Microsoft is probably the biggest, Sony has been acquiring several of the studios with which it has previously partnered, presumably to keep Microsoft from getting ideas.
We do know that Sony has obtained studios like Nixxes, Housemarque, and Firesprite. These studios are allegedly now working on first-party games for PlayStation, or to port other games to different platforms in the case of Nixxes. Between Sony and Microsoft, even major game publishers and developers are being scooped by the console manufacturers, and being a small studio with a specialty can make one especially appealing to the big companies.
