M&A around FS20

[Dominique_K 10,138]

Opening a new field of speculation to the pleasure of our conversation !  

Let's see :

- MS has been looking for ways to monetize the secondary (DLC) flight simulation market. Flight was a  first attempt and disaster because they offered too little for the base game and tried to corner the market ; They say they've learnt from their mistakes then.

- MS has a  strong policy of acquisition of game studios (nXile, Obsidian, Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games etc.). I wouldn't be surprised to see Asobo enters the fold one day or another.

- Our beloved  addon developers will presumably be in a not so confortable financial position due to the drying up of their market since the E3 Announcement. And I suspect that some would be happy to sell their company after 10 or 15 years of hard work.    

So are we going to see MS buying some top-tier studios (PMDG, OrbX, FSdreamteam, Carenado etc) in the next 18 months  ? I wouldn't be surprised. What do you think ?

 

 

[Deleted 250]

What is FS20? 

[Julkensen 47]

Microsoft never took a dime off of independent developers for flight simulator. It was dovetail who introduced that idea of taking 30% or the retail price from developers to allow them to sell for their half assed plateform. I think this is the main reason why they failed. No decent developer was going to accept that. They were left with their default subpar sim.

I don't think microsoft has any intention to change their  business model with fs20. They'll focus on releasing a good base platform with an sdk and let the 3rd party developers do their business.

As for acquisition of  3rd party devs, I don't think this is going to happen. The independent studios bought by microsoft are milion dollars companies with a size far greater than any of household names in the flight sim industry like pmdg or fslabs.

[Dominique_K 10,138]

13 minutes ago, 238932 said:

Microsoft never took a dime off of independent developers for flight simulator. 

 . The independent studios bought by microsoft are milion dollars companies  

- MS didn't take a dime because the industry massively refused its conditions to enter the Flight DLC market.

 - I think that Orbx and PMDG are, sale-wise, multi-million dollars companies. 

Edited November 1, 2019 by domkle

[b737800 470]

45 minutes ago, domkle said:

Opening a new field of speculation to the pleasure of our conversation !  

Let's see :

- MS has been looking for ways to monetize the secondary (DLC) flight simulation market. Flight was a  first attempt and disaster because they offered too little for the base game and tried to corner the market ; They say they've learnt from their mistakes then.

- MS has a  strong policy of acquisition of game studios (nXile, Obsidian, Undead Labs, Playground Games, Ninja Theory, Compulsion Games etc.). I wouldn't be surprised to see Asobo enters the fold one day or another.

- Our beloved  addon developers will presumably be in a not so confortable financial position due to the drying up of their market since the E3 Announcement. And I suspect that some would be happy to sell their company after 10 or 15 years of hard work.    

So are we going to see MS buying some top-tier studios (PMDG, OrbX, FSdreamteam, Carenado etc) in the next 18 months  ? I wouldn't be surprised. What do you think ?

 

 

I also think the directors of Asobo might be in for quite the payment bonanza.

As for the existing add on developers - if their market has dried up then their company value has already taken a dive, so a business sale might already be out the window. They need to adapt and probably already have the creative talent onboard to enable them to do that. Whether they have the commercial vision is another story. Microsoft has certainly put them in a position and short to mid term cashflow might well become an issue. However, it also presents new opportunities for them which hopefully will be good news for us the end users.

[188AHC 2,138]

There is no "Pleasure" in discussing something that literally is none of our business.  How Microsoft deals with their partners, who they purchase, or who they absorb is their business alone.

I don't think this topic is something we need to be getting into unless they announce something relevant to our situation. This can lead to an area we don't want to visit.