For the video game industry, the start of the year was dominated by two major acquisitions. If the responsible authorities do not intervene, Microsoft will take over Activision Blizzard for a sum of 68.7 billion. A little later, Sony announced the acquisition of Destiny developer Bungie for 3.6 billion.
Both Sony and Microsoft want to prepare for the future with the acquisitions, be it through additional franchises, resources or expertise. Nintendo doesn't seem to want to join this kind of arms race and is taking its own approach.
Nintendo had already announced in November that they wanted to invest 100 billion yen in their own company. Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa has now reaffirmed to investors that he intends to stick to this course, despite all current developments.
"Our brand has been built through products made with passion by our employees, and a large number of people in our group who do not have Nintendo DNA would not be an asset to the company," Furukawa said, as reported by Bloomberg . However, he also says that the company is not fundamentally opposed to acquisitions if they are necessary.
So while Nintendo isn't expected to make any acquisitions from other publishers and studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has already indicated that we can prepare for more acquisitions by PlayStation.
If you want to know more about the acquisitions of Sony and Microsoft, you can listen to our current podcast episode. There we both discuss the facts, but also speculate about the effects on the industry.
