I bet we'll see a big Japanese game company come in for another big merger. Konami/Capcom?
I'm really hoping Namco Bandai sees this as a golden opportunity since they have been rivals and have handled tons of similar IPs, but doubt they have the resources available to pull this off and make it work.
Just praying EA keeps their claws out of it, aside from the 1st party system makers. Only thing worse could be Zynga rising from the dead and purchasing it while laying off 8 more studios they bought out.
Is there much precedent for a western publisher buying Japanese developers? I can't see an EA or Activision going for them. It'll probably be some Japanese tech firm we've never heard of that wants to break into gaming or something. It's a lot of money.
Or you know, a bunch of guys on a Retro gaming site.
It would cost $1.3B USD to buy a 51% stake in Capcom.
The company isn't, "for sale", it's just no longer "not for sale".
Chances are someone like SquareEnix or Konami would come in to purchase a stake. I don't think anyone would be happy with that situation, considering those companies history with takeovers.
Are you going to get that buy in price back from profit through Capcom over this generation? No. No, you are not. (Probably not over the next generation either) Especially if you make them exclusive. Capcom had a revenue of $800-$950M USD over the last few years, but that doesn't deduct operations cost, and that money isn't going to go directly into the owning company's pocket.
I doubt anyone will touch Capcom until they are actually failing, and the stock is hitting rock bottom.
However, some companies will probably try to court Capcom.
One company barely holding it's head above water buying another - if there's one thing the gaming industry has shown us the past 20 years it's that the larger developers become; the more difficult it is to remain viable. I mean, we're having threads about whether Nintendo should get out of the hardware game to remain viable and in the next breath they should drop a billion on Capcom? Just because the "can" do it, doesn't mean it makes any financial sense.
What I wouldn't give for Nintendo to purchase Capcom and save all of their neglected franchises. Or at least have Capcom taken to auction so that Nintendo could pick up the rights to Megaman.
Maybe now Nintendo will acknowledge Metroid has a fanbase?
