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Sony buying Epic would make the Metaverse a reality
- Thread starter remember_spinal
- Start date
- Opinion
lh032
I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
nah epic cant afford Sony, whole Sony is larger than Epic.
Unless Sony sell off the playstation brand to Epic.
Morrie’s wig shop
Member
Daydream Nation. Why would Tim sell to Sony, because you think there best buds , is that why? Because Sony is investing in Epic, is that why? Sony is one of 38 companies that are invested in Epic, but why Sony, is only because of the VR that Sony has coming that can only be played with a PlayStation 5 and nothing else but a PlayStation 5?
Bernkastel
Ask me about my fanboy energy!
If you played the game you will know that it very much is like one.
The_Mike
I cry about SonyGaf from my chair in Redmond, WA
Wow, FFXIV etc I can agree on its metaverse, despite its a stupid name and they are mmos.
But destiny 2 is too instanced to be considered a mmo, or, in this case, metaverse.
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Neofire
Member
onesvenus
Member
Yeah, cables everywhere is a pain in the ass. That's what some of us have been saying about PSVR2 all along, glad you've finally come to your senses
PaintTinJr
Member
Probably not, but it will be interesting to see how Tim views the Activision acquisition situation, Surely, it is only a matter of time if Gamepass hobbled PlayStation via conditioning users to not buy AAA games, and them losing the CoD percentage that will directly impact Epic eventually, leaving them vulnerable to Microsoft putting a product in place to usurp unreal.
Tim might consider the idea of a merger with SCE, meaning Sony would only need front the cost of buying out Tencent's amount. IMO the Activision deal is dangerous because it potentially creates a domino effect with all the big players repositioning, and I suspect that isn't good for us as gamers.
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FullMetalx117
Member
More like Meta buys them imo
You…forgotten Epic makes Fortnite?
If MS is facing regulatory scrutiny over possible exclusivity for Call of Duty, why would you imagine Fortnite would be any different when it’s just as big a franchise?
Regulators do not like horizontal acquisitions. Especially ones where the acquirer leverages unrelated revenue to buy marketshare. Unreal's prevalence as an industry tool and Epic's position as a storefront on PC make its circumstances quite different from buying a company like Havok which is basically a single technology. Regulators would ask why Sony couldn't build their own PC storefront like Microsoft, EA, Valve, Ubi, Epic, etc instead of buying its way in. Unreal is used by all of Sony's competitors and dominates non-indie development which also begs competitive questions. Sony could license Unreal but roll its most advanced features into its own engines and keep them off the market. That is why I think such a deal would be difficult to close.
Oddvintagechap
Member
Sony already invested into EPIC. Epic supporting VR2 isnt out of the question they don’t have buy the whole company for that.
JLB
Banned
thats whole sony, interactive entertainment… not so much. In any case, yeah, its impossible either way
Fret Runner
Member
*takes a big bong hit* ok, hear me out, guys. *takes bigger hit* what if, like, amazon, Sony, Disney and Apple all merged together and formed like a corporate Power Rangers megazord?
Who doesn't like big robots? nobody, that's who.
Who doesn't like big robots? nobody, that's who.
pasterpl
Member
Stop making sense. It is not how this works.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
If anything it would be Epic buying Sony’s gaming division.
Edgelord79
Gold Member
Nope.
For Fortnite yes I can see but not because of Unreal engine. He was talking about the engine being the issue for regulators. Havok was not an issue even though it is integrated into most of the games in the industry because licencing doesn't stop after the aquisition.
Sony isn't even in the business of licensing engines. Storefront I can understand but you are saying Unreal engine would be an issue. It's akin to Havok because Havok is used in almost everything and dominates development too. Call of duty, Assassins Creed, Killzone, The Last of Us, Horizon ZD, BoTW, etc all used Havok, the list is absolutely huge. All they would need to do is allow licensing.
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yurinka
Member
Epic can make Fortnite VR without Sony, and Sony can make PS Home 2 / PS Home VR without Epic. And well, Epic is very likely too big to be bought by Sony: its value should be around a quarter of the entire Sony.
They make a shit ton of money with Unreal Engine (and in a smaller scale, with Fortnite), not only with gaming.
But not sure if what Epic can provide has enough value to Sony: the game engine that they already can use without buying them and some very successful games (Fortnite, Rocket League, Fall Guys) they already have because all of them are multiplatform and that don't know if they will turn into franchises or if their devs will be able to deliver another new IP of similar success (more likely will be 'one hit wonder' devs).
Sony provided a multiplatform game engine for decades (I think for free) that dozens of development teams did use in a lot of (many of them multiplatform) games, and also invested on 3rd party engines or tools without asking them exclusivity (example: Epic/Unreal Engine).
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BennyBlanco
aka IMurRIVAL69
Yeah it also provided Decima for Kojipro for free but it's not really selling an engine. its marketshare would be virtually zero, way below id, Crytek, Unity, etc. Id Tech didn't face any engine regulatory issues either when Zenimax was bought.
Sony are not selling engines to anyone. To the point that if it bought unreal engine it would be like a new entrant buying big rather than being considered a horizontal merger. The idea that 'but they can hold the latest features back' applies to things like Havok too. If however they restricted licencing that would become an issue.
Are you not aware that Sony makes its own engines and licenses at least one of them? Reread what I wrote. A regulator would rightfully be worried about Sony locking features of Unreal from other studios and giving themselves an advantage. Your Havok example is strained and ignores the entire context I attempted to elaborate. Basically every engine comes with physics now. It's partially why Microsoft was able to buy Havok in the first place.
A hypothetical Sony acquisition of Epic takes place in a completely different context than buying a smaller middleware company. Epic has too many moving parts that could end up with reduced competition for it to easily pass regulators.
Topher
Gold Member
"In 2022, video game publisher and software developer Epic Games is projected to generate approximately 6.27 billion U.S. dollars in gross revenues, up from 5.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2020."
Epic Games annual revenue 2026 | Statista
Fortnite maker Epic Games' revenue surpassed 5.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.
www.statista.com
JLB
Banned
Consider this:
Check Sony’s % profit increase in the last 5 years, and compare that number with epic’s
PixelatedBeast
Member
What does Microsoft buying Bug-thesda and Activision have to do with the VR metaverse? The main company in this discussion is Epic, who is a major key figure in gaming and one of Sonys biggest partners. Does Microsoft have a game engine or gaming platform used by 90% of the industry?
JLB
Banned
Or sony’s increasingly becomes a less relevant player and buying them is not even an interesting option.
Phyrengine? Yes I'm aware. It's free like id Tech. It's marketshare is virtually zero even if you don't look at revenue but games released, 0.X%. The Havok example is pertinent because it too is an engine, a highly ubiquitous one. Countless game engines do not have their own physics and rely on Havok Suite same as how countless games don't have their own game engine and rely on Unreal. As long as licencing is not restricted in any way there is no issue with regulators at all.Your idea that engines come with their own physics is mostly incorrect too which is why Havok is so ubiquitous. Unreal Engine even used PhysX the time Havok was aquired and will replace it with their own in house Chaos Physics Engine which is still in beta AFAIK.
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Decima....I can tell you're googling at this point because you're more interested in sticking to your guns than having a debate. You're literally comparing Epic to a boutique company that was probably sold off for under half a billion dollars. Havok and Unreal are apples and oranges. I've said my piece, you're just on repeat, were done here.
I can tell you can't even google because Decima is not a licensed engine. It is completely proprietary and cannot be licensed. Decima marketshare would be absolutely nonexistent.
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SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Tencent owns 40% of Epic. No way would Sony be buying them. The opposite would be more likely.
ManaByte
Gold Member
Destiny 2 is a FPS version of Phantasy Star Online. it's a console MMO.
Sleepwalker
Member
What
It will be straight up cancer but people seem to want it for whatever reason.
Topher
Gold Member
Right....Tencent bought shares of Epic. And so has Sony. And so has Kirkbi. Meanwhile, Sony owns 100% of SIE. Epic is the privately owned company willing to sell its shares to other companies. So this idea that Sony would be the one more likely to sell SIE doesn't make any sense.
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JLB
Banned
sainraja
Member
I can't be excited for anything VR related until it's in a small form factor (e.g. glasses, contact lenses, projected from the Apple watch in some way, I dunno). Putting on a big damn headset and fiddling around with setting up zones is just a bit too much and seeing cutoff hands is just all too weird for me.
sainraja
Member
Yeah, I was thinking that as well. The two are more likely to merge vs acquired. Didn't Blizzard also merge with Activision to form Activision Blizzard?
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
Sony struck first with metaverse with ps home.
Topher
Gold Member
Yep. Same with Square Enix.
Aenima
Member
Second Life has been the true Metaverse before anyone knew what a metaverse was, since 2003. And its where Home took inspiratin from. They just dont have the money to compete with giants like Facebook/Meta that is trowing billions to expand the metaverse.Sony struck first with metaverse with ps home.
yurinka
Member
Doesn't make sense to consider the merge of companies like Sony and Epic.
Sony is way bigger than Epic: Epic was valued in $32B. Sony's market cap is $88.6B, their valuation would be way higher, at least more than 3 or 4 times Epic. Only looking at SIE, they made $25B per year and are in a growing trend, so in a few years will be generating the same revenue than Epic's valuation.
Epic's games are on PlayStation, which is their main platform so they won't remove them from there. Epic has several very successful games but we have to see if they can be turned into IPs with similarly successful games, movies, etc. So yes, their IPs have value but their long term future is a bit doubtful and they don't need to buy them to have them, and even less spending dozens of Billions.
Unreal Engine makes money, but Sony also makes their own engines (and even share them with others) but isn't their market: Sony focus more on selling hardware and final product (games, movies and music) instead. And well, Sony and everyone can use it. In fact, to own it wouldn't stop the competition to use it, so there is no point on spending dozens of bilions to buy it.
So Epic would be an interesting acquisition, but they are too big to be bought by them, too small to merge with them and there aren't enough reasons to want to buy or merge with them.
If Sony would have $32B to invest in acquisitions they would be better spent on buying Square Enix, Capcom, Bandai Namco, ARC System Works, Dimps, Sega and Kadokawa (with this money they could buy most of them).
Topher
Gold Member
All good points. I agree this hypothetical doesn't make sense on many levels.
bentanchorbolt
Banned
Epic isn’t getting bought out lol. They have a giant storefront on PC, the gold standard gsme and movie engine tech, and games that print money.
ChorizoPicozo
Member
Did you meant Fornite?