Will Disney make an acquisition in the video game market?

It's no secret that Disney is practically buying out the whole entertainment world. Let's see what they've done so far:

• Disney bought Marvel, giving them an edge in the comic book industry.
• Disney bought Lucasfilm, which gave them the huge cultural phenomena of Indiana Jones and Star Wars

So it seems that a video game acquisition would be a logical next step. Clearly, they had the money to put several well-known video game characters/product placements in Wreck It Ralph, so they could actually do this.

I would think that Nintendo is the most obvious choice for them to buy out, as they have had the most cultural impact of all video game companies. But then again, I've also found out that Japanese pride law prevents foreign companies from buying out their native companies, so they'll have to contend with that.

I highly doubt they'd even consider buying Nintendo. They don't seem to need or want an acquisition, since they've already made a big game like Disney Infinity and continue to make content for it.

The existence of Touchstone certainly didn't stop them from buying out Lucasfilm, though.

Ex-fuckin-actly.

I'm not even sure Disney would care much as long as it's the top-selling company at the time.

edited 3rd Jul '14 10:20:33 AM by KingKix

That's different. Star Wars was -and is- a huge media juggernaut that Disney already had close ties with in shows, movies, merchandise, and maybe even a few video games if I'm not mistaken. It was almost inevitable that they'd buy them out eventually because they wanted Star Wars, and didn't want to deal with a middle man.

Before anybody says it: They're not going to try and do the same thing with Mario or something. There isn't a precedent of that aside from Wreck-it Ralph having cameos and expys, which isn't unique to Disney.

Oh, and keep in mind, Disney's potential targets won't just be limited to Ninty. Now if I could only think of other potential targets, I would say so.

I've heard speculation about Disney buying Capcom, which is actually possible right now. Not likely, but it would be interesting.

Nah. Disney is mostly movies. If you notice, Marvel still runs itself. The Disney portion mostly use the characters for movies. Since video games wouldn't work too well as movies, I don't see it happening.

@Sterok: Again, Japanese law prevents foreign companies from buying out native companies.

How about Ubisoft? Although that one might be a bit problematic with the Rabbids being on Nickelodeon.

Or they could go for either EA or Activision.

I don't think it's likely. They shut down both Junction Point Studios and Lucas Arts (preferring to license out their franchises instead to companies like EA - also cancelling a mostly-complete HD remake of Day of the Tentacle, the fiends). I'd even thought they'd shut down Disney Interactive by this point, although it would appear they merely laid off a quarter of its staff ("merely" seems kind of a mockery of those people's livelihoods, admittedly, but it's better than shutting the entire thing down). It sounds more like they're scaling back game development than expanding it.

While there's plenty of "Disney games", I do not think they have the market opportunity to expand into the area by purchasing something.

I think stuff like Epick Mickey was about testing the waters...the thing was not much of a resounding success to the demographics of Disney (which they expanded with the purchase of Marvel, but only to specific products) to warrant their common interest in the area.

Besides, Ubisoft, Nintendo, and the vast majority of companies touch and elaborate on way too many thematics that i highly doubt would be of Disney's interest to elaborate on...

Then again, Disney is an entertainment monster. Thankfully, their products are not shoddy at all, so if anything got bought out by Disney, I would likely deem it an upgrade.

Before that, they also shuttered Black Rock (Pure, Split Second) and Propaganda Games (devs of the Turok reboot and Tron 2.0).

It may me misrembering message board speculation as fact, but I think one of the reason given for shuttering Lucas Art was that Disney preferred to farm out the big-budget "AAA" projects to third-parties (like they're doing right now with Star Wars and EA). S'yeah, I don't think it's likely either.

edited 3rd Jul '14 11:53:21 AM by Glowsquid

Plus, they'd need to dish out MASSIVE stacks of cash to even have a chance of convincing Ninty to sell. Remember, Nintendo has several BILLION dollars in the bank right now

What about Rare? Oh wait i forgot. Project: Spark.

They're owned by Microsoft, and they would probably rather end up bought entirely than lose any of their game development studios and I Ps, which would sink even a company of Disney's size pretty quickly.

Yeah, that's why I said "Oh, wait."

Why not buy out Square-Enix? Or would that lead to bigger problems

SE is too JP focused for Disney. They already own all the rights to the characters in KH. They don't need anything else from them.

Also, they can't be bought because Japanese law says only Japanese companies can buy Japanese companies. Pretty sure we've gone over this before.

Yep. It was when someone said that Activision(I think?) would buy Capcom.

I believe someone hid the fact that the law is more about pride than anything.

Japanese company, and certain laws pertaining that.

EDIT: Beh, forgot to refresh conversation.

edited 3rd Jul '14 12:41:00 PM by GaryCXJk

"Hello, Japanese laws, this is big fucktons of Disney money speaking. Mind changing your mind so I can buy this company and stop it going down the toilet?"

"Yeah, no problem mate, fire on in there. As long as the wheels of commerce are greased enough, you know?"

"That's brilliant. Thanks."

Actual transcript of a phone conversation.

Basically, if Disney wants to buy Square, or any other Japanese games company, Disney buys Square, or any other Japanese games company. Laws don't mean shit if the sums of money are huge enough. Don't be naive, folks.

You're underestimating just how insular Japanese companies can be.

Plus, if they're going to start buying out companies, it would probably follow the EA example of swallowing up up-and-coming developers or existing, but not hugely successful developers than IP giants like Nintendo. It's likely cheaper and they have more to tempt smaller companies with.

As for Lucasfilm, Disney was literally helped by Lucas wanting to hand over the reins to someone else. Disney helped by offering a metric fuckton of money, but Lucas has likely been getting offers like that for decades. You can't force a successful entity to sell out if they don't have to, and don't want to.

edited 4th Jul '14 5:07:03 AM by CrimsonZephyr

What's the limit to how big of an acquisition they could make?