Atsushi Inaba, who recently took over the mantle of President and CEO for PlatinumGames, has stated that the studio would be open to the idea of being acquired by a larger company should their freedom be respected and maintained. This was stated during a recent interview with VGC, in which when discussing the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, the outlet asked Inaba if PlatinumGames would consider acquisition offers.
Inaba responded, stating:
The most important thing for us is to have the freedom to make the games that we want to make. What I hear about the recent acquisitions, I don’t think Microsoft is going to start micromanaging Activision to where they take away all their freedom… I don’t think it’s going to be a relationship like that.
I think there’s going to be a lot of mutual respect there and I think Activision will be able to continue doing what they do best. That’s also what’s most important to us at the end of the day, whatever form that takes for us and our company. So I would not turn anything down, as long as our freedom was still respected.
He then went on to discuss the state of Japan, where mergers and acquisitions do not often take place, referring to that fact as “weird”. He continued by saying:
I agree you don’t see that a lot [of acquisitions] in Japan and personally, I think it’s weird. For some of these big companies with all their money you sometimes think, ‘come on! Buy some companies up already!’ It does feel strange to see Japanese companies being passive all of the time.
Some of the recent movement we have seen in Japan includes Yakuza Creator Toshihiro Nagoshi opening up a new studio with funding from Chinese company Netease, as well as the acquisition of Suda 51’s studio Grasshopper Manufacture by the same company. Primary rival to Netease, Tencent has also made moves into Japan, recently purchasing Wake Up Interactive for $44 Million. There is also Ghostwire: Tokyo developer Tango Gameworks who was acquired by Microsoft as part of the Zenimax acquisition.
Much of what the future holds for PlatinumGames most likely rests on several titles they have released this year. Their next title is the self-published shoot-em-up Sol Cresta which will release as a multi-platform title on February 22. After that they have the Square Enix published live-service game Babylon’s Fall which will release for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Steam on March 3. Finally, the long-awaited third game in the Bayonetta series, Bayonetta 3, currently has no date for release but is slated for 2022 and will be exclusive to the Nintendo Switch.
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