Sony hasn’t ruled out acquisitions as a way to bolster its development efforts moving into the next console generation.
Speaking to the Japanese publication Nikkei (and translated by Gematsu), Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says that the company has been considering acquiring game studios, though no specific developers were mentioned in the chat.
“Companies new to the games industry looking at the market with hope is something we definitely welcome,” Ryan told Nikkei. He goes on to note that Google’s recent leap into the video game business through Stadia has made it so “content is becoming more important than ever before,” but that SIE does have a sizable library of assets at its disposal thanks to its 25 years in the industry.
Sony Interactive Entertainment is no stranger to studio acquisitions, though its pace certainly hasn’t matched competing console maker Microsoft’s in recent years. Developers like Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, Media Molecule, and Sucker Punch Productions have joined SIE in the last twenty years or so, and its 2012 acquisition of Gaikai notably set the stage for the company to branch into game streaming and launch PlayStation Now a few years later.
It was rumored earlier this year that Sony was in talks to acquire Rockstar Games parent company Take-Two Interactive, but those whispers were put to rest soon after with an official comment from Sony.
Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios, meanwhile, has spent the last few years building up its own arsenal of game development studios through sizable acquisitions like Obsidian Entertainment, Ninja Theory, and Double Fine, among several others.