Yesterday it was confirmed that Sony has bought the Finnish developer Housemarque (Returnal), which is now considered a first party developer, and there are also rumours (started by Sony Japan) that says they have bought Bluepoint Games. In an interview with GQ, the head of PlayStation Studios Hermen Hulst answered the question if they are in an arms race with Microsoft, and explained further how Sony decides which developers they will acquire:
"No, not at all. We're very selective about the developers that we bring in. Our last new acquisition was Insomniac [for $229 million in 2019], which has worked out very well. I'm always looking for people that have a similar set of values, similar creative ambitions and work very well with our team that we can further invest in and help grow as creators. It's not like we're going around and just making random acquisitions.
They're very, very targeted acquisitions of teams that we know well. The amount of collaboration between our external development group and Housemarque on the technical side, the production management side and even on the creative side has been so deep. So for us, it just makes so much sense to do that."
Does this seems like the right approach to you, or should Sony be more aggressive in getting more studios?