Microsoft Wants to Acquire Several Japanese Devteams [Updated]
According to Bloomberg, Microsoft has plans to acquire several development studios from Japan. An offer was submitted, among others, to Koei Tecmo.
Update
Phil Spencer, Microsoft's head of gaming, denied Bloomberg's reports. In an interview for GameSpot, he stated that he has no knowledge of plans to acquire Japanese development studios.
Spencer does not hide his sympathy for teams from the Land of the Rising Sun. Recently, thanks to the acquisition of Bethesda, Microsoft has become the owner of Tango Gameworks, located in Tokyo, but there are no acquisition talks with other Japanese teams.
Original message from November 9, 2020:
In the last several months, Microsoft has acquired many popular developers. According to reports of Bloomberg, the Redmond giant hasn't finished its purchases yet and made offers to several Japanese studios.
Representatives of these studios asked Bloomberg not to mention them by name, and they didn't tell us what the final outcome of the negotiations with Microsoft was. All we know is that the corporation is interested in acquiring many different studios, including both small and large teams.
Other sources say that Koei Tecmo is among the companies that received the offer. Its president, Hisashi Koinuma, recently stated that the publisher could consider releasing more of its games on Xbox, but only if Microsoft showed more interest in the Japanese market.
The situation was commented on by several analysts from the Land of the Raising Sun. Hideki Yasuda of the Ace Research Institute says that Japan could even become the second most important market for Microsoft if the company makes the right moves in the coming years. According to him, Sony is becoming less and less interested in its homeland and players have started to notice it. This doesn't mean that Xbox would be able to exorcise the PlayStation from the hearts of the Japanese anytime soon, but it is clear that the status quo has started to change slowly.
Kazunori Ito from Morningstar Research has a similar opinion. According to him, analysts agree that Japan is no longer a priority for Sony.
Let's recall that recently Microsoft acquired Bethesda Softworks (including id Software, MachineGames, Arkane, Roundhouse Studios and Tango Gameworks) and earlier the company bought out such teams as Double Fine, Ninja Theory, PlayGround Game, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games as well as Obsidian Entertainment and InXile.
