PlayStation planning major acquisition in response to Xbox Activision deal

After its rival’s successful business merger, PlayStation seemingly has its own plans to match Xbox’s success with an acquisition.

It’s pretty ironic when you think about it. PlayStation was blatantly opposed to Xbox acquiring Activision-Blizzard, which has finally happened following months of legal back-and-forth.

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PlayStation’s opposition to the deal was largely due to fears it would ruin competition in the game industry, as it now gives Xbox the power to make popular Activision-Blizzard IPs like Call Of Duty, Crash Bandicoot and Spyro The Dragon exclusive to its consoles. Head of Xbox Phil Spencer has at least made it clear there are no plans to make Call Of Duty exclusive.

Now though, it seems PlayStation aims to fight fire with fire, as it’s rumoured it’s looking for a new acquisition of its own, though who that could be is anyone’s guess.

There’s plenty of speculation though, with top picks being Take-Two (the parent company of Grand Theft Auto’s Rockstar Games), EA, and Square Enix. That being said, Sony confirmed earlier this year that it's got $5 billion to spend on investments, meaning the majority of game studios and publishers will likely be out of the question.

This means the other plan is actually branching out from video games, and acquiring companies in completely different industries. Midia Research’s senior games analyst Karol Severin believes this could be the move PlayStation make, especially following its recent venture into TV and film.

Severin said, "Sony has one of the most impressive content catalogues on Earth. Bringing it together in a subscription offering, for example, could pose a solid competitive answer to Xbox’s cross-platform efforts … It will be increasingly difficult to compete with Microsoft on games only.”

The ball is in PlayStation’s court, but it’ll need to think of something quick, as Microsoft could already be eyeing up its next major acquisition.