Microsoft Considered Acquiring CD Projekt RED, Larian Studios, FromSoftware, and More in 2021
As part of Microsoft’s ongoing preliminary injunction with the FTC regarding the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, documents from a merger and acquisition briefing in April 2021 were made available. The previously confidential documents (via Stephen Totilo of Axios) detail over 100 companies it sought to acquire. The “consideration set” was based on Game Pass and Steam data and existing partnerships with Xbox.
Sega, Devolver Digital, 505 Games and Annapurna Interactive are part of the publisher side, but the list of developers is perhaps more surprising. It includes Team Cherry (Hollow Knight: Silksong), Larian Studios (Baldur’s Gate 3), CD Projekt RED (The Witcher 3), Remedy Entertainment (Alan Wake 2) FromSoftware (Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon), and many more.
Interestingly, it also listed companies like Sony, Nintendo, Bandai Namco, Niantic, Konami, DeNA, Square Enix and more for improving its “mobile footprint.” However, based on a filtering process, several companies were excluded from consideration, including publishers that made less than $100 million in annual revenue, had an acquisition price of over $20 billion, etc.
It remains to be seen how this will affect Microsoft’s goal to acquire Activision Blizzard, especially since the FTC believes its actions since acquiring ZeniMax and Bethesda are more than enough reason to oppose the same. Stay tuned in the meantime for more details.
People muse about if Microsoft would ever try to buy Nintendo.
In a 2021 MS research doc about possible acquisition targets, Nintendo was not listed among 100+ companies for console expansion
It was listed among 76 popular app-makers for improving Microsoft's mobile footprint pic.twitter.com/DZqruR6FP5
— Stephen Totilo
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