Microsoft Reportedly Wants To Acquire Major Japanese Publishers

thegamer.com:

Microsoft is still itching to make more acquisitions despite being in the middle of making the largest merger in video game history. Microsoft is in the process of passing regulatory hurdles in its planned purchase of Activision Blizzard, but once that's over, it has plans to continue its spending spree by heading to Japan.

That's the inside story coming from Game Mess's Jeff Grubb and Game Informer's Imran Khan, both speaking on a recent episode of the Giant Bomb Cast. Grubb postulated that Microsoft is a company with so much money that current inflationary trends essentially force it to spend in order to keep the value of that cash. Khan agreed and added that the tech giant has plans to purchase a big Japanese publisher.

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"Microsoft--a company with so much money that it actually loses money by just having it sitting in the bank--wants to spend that money after the Activision deal closes, right?" Grubb asked.

"Yeah," Khan replied. "They have talked with major Japanese publishers about acquisitions. I can't speak to how far those conversations have got--that's not a thing that most people know and I certainly don't. But they are very clearly interested in some major Japanese publishers, they're interested in smaller studios, they're interested in still more acquisitions."

Khan explained that the driving force behind Microsoft's continuing spending spree might also have something to do with Game Pass, which has become one of Xbox's largest success stories. However, that success has come at a cost.

"Game Pass is going to eventually find itself in the same position as Netflix where the licensing costs get so high that it makes more