Sony, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are tipped to acquire studios this year to expand their workforce.

Brad Sams, a mostly Microsoft-insider journalist, talked about the subject in a new podcast, claiming that he has been hearing rumblings about acquisitions within the gaming industry and that „there are some big industry names out there being approached by Microsoft included, but then you also have Amazon, and you also have Google.”

Sams added that „Sony is part of the conversation, but it doesn’t seem to be as much as Google and Amazon are.” After that, he mentioned Electronic Arts’ bid to acquire Codemasters (as well as Slightly Mad Studios, whom Codemasters acquired last summer), which no longer has competition, as Take-Two has removed its bid that was smaller than what the Andrew Wilson-led company offered. He mentioned EA because there are new players within the gaming industry and they are looking for developers to help create new IP. Sams claims he knows of three big acquisition deals, but he did not go into further details.

With Google and Amazon, it’s easy to figure out why they are looking into acquisitions: they want to expand their teams to have exclusive titles made for their streaming services (Stadia and Luna, respectively). Microsoft could also use their potential new studios (SEGA? Techland?) to bolster their capabilities on this front, but they are more focused on the Xbox Game Studios at the moment, which will be joined by Zenimax (Bethesda) by the end of the year, as the acquisition process hasn’t been completed yet.

But Sony Interactive Entertainment could be a question mark. We only have two guesses. It’s either Bluepoint Games (which recently launched Demon’s Souls’ remake as a PlayStation 5 launch title), or Lucid Games (who are working on a new AAA title, and their upcoming Destruction AllStars will be mentioned later today).

2021 will be an interesting year.

Source: PSU