Sony Interactive Entertainment will not stop at Firesprite, Housemarque and Bluepoint Games; more studios could be coming “into the blue group”.

In recent years, mainly Microsoft amongst console makers went on an acquisition spree (and yet they couldn’t make the kind of march that Embracer Group has made so far…). One of their biggest hauls was ZeniMax Media, which brought Bethesda, all the studios under it and their IPs (Doom, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout…) to Xbox Game Studios.

And on Marsipan Games‘ site, a report has hit the headlines. It deals with Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), and they see the company as having around $13-18 billion to make further acquisitions from this budget. According to the site, Sony is expected to have a fairly aggressive acquisition process, but the selected studios/companies will be strategically chosen targets.

According to Marsipan Games, “While Sony, in theory, could acquire a huge company, and afford it, we also need to remember the fact that they would have to take on every employee at the company and take on a lot of additional costs aside from just the acquisitions. This is why I suspect that while Sony will be more aggressive, there’ll still be very strategically picked, as basically, everything about the company they acquire needs to fit within their plans and overall strategy.” Possible locations where SIE could start acquisitions are Japan, China, Poland and Canada. Canada, in particular, is a country where the company is severely underdeveloped, according to Marsipan Games.

We’re not going to guess who might end up in the blue fold, but it’s safe to say that Sony is taking a more low-key approach to acquisitions, but in a way that suits them. Let’s not forget that they also have a stake in Epic Games, having invested a total of $450 million in Tim Sweeney’s company (of which they certainly have a stake of around 2%, having got 1.4% for 250M).

Of course, we will have to wait until we officially hear who Sony has “paid off”.

Source: PSU