There has been a lot of talk when it comes to studio acquisitions after Xbox’s deal with Blizzard and Sony’s acquisition of original Halo developer Bungie. People are now looking at which other big studios could find themselves under a console banner, and Platinum Games (NieR: Automata, Bayonetta) CEO Atsushi Inaba says that he’s open to the idea… on one condition.
Talking to Video Games Chronicle, Inaba says that he is open for any offers as long as the freedom of his studio is respected. When asked about the Activision deal, he says, “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.”
When it comes to the idea that Platinum could be acquired by a bigger company soon, he goes on to say, “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.”
If anything, Inaba does express in the interview that he thinks there is a lack of consolidation when it comes to Japanese companies. If anything, these acquisitions seem to be more common when it comes to the west.
For now, we don’t know what the future holds for Platinum Games, but it’s just one of the several studios that could be acquired in the near-future.
