Last Year, Microsoft made headlines for gobbling up a healthy slab of new studios, which included the likes of Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, Playground Games, and InXile Entertainment.
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Meanwhile, Sony didn’t add any new studios to the family, in fact it actually shed some. For example, it no longer has a second-party relationship with Quantic Dream, the makers of Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human.
That said, some reports claim that even more acquisitions could be on the way in 2019 for Microsoft, which has a lot of people wondering: will Sony respond?
Well, speaking to CNET, PlayStation boss Shawn Layden revealed he is open to acquiring new studios, however, Sony’s current approach is to actually have less, but more polished, games.
“We’re striking on all the beats that we want to, and we’re getting both critical and commercial acclaim,” said Layden. “Let’s see now what we might add to our arsenal…. We’re always exploring opportunities. If we found a partner or a team or a game that we felt was particularly meaningful and interesting, we will look to bring that in. We’re always open to that kind of experience.”
As you can see, Layden admits Sony is open to bolstering its first-party army with acquisitions, but from the sounds of it, unlike Microsoft, it isn’t actively pursuing it. And when you couple this with the less, but more polished games sentiment, it doesn’t look like Sony will add to its “arsenal” anytime soon. However, if Microsoft continues to do so while Nintendo continues to lockdown second-party relationships, Sony may just have to start splashing some cash in studio acquisitions to keep up.
I’d say the first-party output of PlayStation is on-par with Nintendo, with the former or latter being better depending on your taste in games. Meanwhile, Microsoft has severely lagged behind in this department for awhile now, but it looks like it’s looking to change that. And as a result I’m excited to see if Sony lets Microsoft catch it in this regard, or puts the pedal to metal with its own acquisitions. The former is the more likely, but the latter sure does sound exciting.
