There has been a strong push these past few years from companies like Microsoft and Sony to acquire studios. Microsoft has made some massive headline news with the purchase of Zenimax Media, and they are still not done. They are currently working through acquiring Activision Blizzard for an astonishing $69 billion. But right now, that deal is being held up by select regulators. While Microsoft is still striving to get its hands on Activision Blizzard, it seems Sony is looking to ramp things up on their end.
A new report from the Financial Times has reported on a news conference held by Sony. During the conference, the newly appointed president of Sony, Hiroki Totoki, spoke about the necessary action of a partial spin-off to raise its investment capacity. This will allow the company to further make longer-term investments in two particular areas of the company.
If you’re uncertain what a partial spin-off is, a company can create a new subsidiary and distribute a portion of its shares to its existing shareholders. Essentially, this allows a parent company to unlock a subsidiary’s value and focus on its core business.
The two areas that Sony is seeking to strengthen are its image sensors and their entertainment business. It’s worth remembering that Sony is not only a company that deals with the video game industry. Instead, they are attached to several mediums. But that investment for entertainment businesses has left plenty of speculation that this could be due to Microsoft’s attempt to acquire Activision Blizzard.
If that deal does end up going through, then Sony might be keen on further acquiring studios to help bring out more exclusive content into the marketplace. That’s, of course, just speculation, but both Microsoft and Sony have been on the run to acquire companies. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that Sony made a big movie by acquiring Bungie, the original creators behind Halo and the Destiny franchise.
Right now, this will be a waiting game to see just what studios end up getting acquired from Sony next. Although, most eyes might be on Microsoft right now as we continue to wait and see if they acquire Activision Blizzard. Right now, the folks over at Microsoft and Activision are both appealing the recent CMA rulings that blocked the deal from going through.
