Rumour: Microsoft talking to "major Japanese publishers" about acquisitions

It's all in an effort of keeping Game Pass fresh and fun.
Text: Jonas Mäki
Published 2022-09-28

Microsoft is currently involved in their biggest acquisition of all time, which of course is Activision Blizzard. But the Xbox team has on several occasions said that they are still open for more purchases and key members have also openly declared they would want better Japanese representation.

According to a new rumour, Microsoft is in fact currently talking to both "major Japanese publishers" and "smaller studios" about a potential purchase. This was revealed in the latest Giant Bombcast where Jeff Grubb and the crew explained that this is actually happening despite the fact that the Activision Blizzard deal isn't finalised yet.

The reason given by Giant Bombcast is that Game Pass needs a steady stream of varied content to always feel fresh. You can check out what they had to say about this in the tweet below.

The most obvious major Japanese publishers that would fit this description are Capcom, Bandai Namco, Koei Tecmo, Sega and Square Enix. All of these, except Bandai Namco has a stock value ranging from $3-5,5 billion (Bandai Namco is worth $14.3 billion), which is roughly half of what Microsoft paid for ZeniMax/Bethesda and barely even a fraction of Activision Blizzard, for which Microsoft paid $68.7 billion.

If the rumour turns out to be true, which company do you think Microsoft is most interested in?

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