Sony Group has $5.1 billion to spend on investments until 2024 (update: reduced to $3.7 billion)

[Shoot]

Can you give us an update on the ¥2 trillion in the investment budget?

Hiroki Totoki: Yes. We spent almost ¥1.3 trillion by the end of last year. We have one more year.

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Watch Sony Group's Morgan Stanley conference from 30:45 to hear it directly.

In 2021:

Sony Group said on Wednesday it will spend 2 trillion yen ($18.39 billion) over the next three years on strategic investments, including a push to expand subscribers to its gaming and entertainment services.

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In 2022:

Sony has now revealed it has spent 850 billion yen (roughly $7.4 billion) of its allocated budget, leaving about $10 billion left for further purchases. Sony's current bill includes the substantial $3.6 billion buyout of Bungie, as well as billions in share buybacks.

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Now in 2023, Sony has ¥700 billion remaining for investments. This translates to around $5 billion USD.

Sony's investments since the $18.4 billion announcement include the following.

List of acquisitions by Sony - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Acquisitions

16 June 2021	Somethin' Else	Music	UK		Sony Music Entertainment	[SUP][80][/SUP]​
29 June 2021	Housemarque	Video game	FIN		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][81][/SUP]​
1 July 2021	Nixxes Software	Video game	NED		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][82][/SUP]​
9 August 2021	Crunchyroll	Film, television, video on demand	USA	$1,175,000,000	Sony Pictures Entertainment/Aniplex	[SUP][83][/SUP][SUP][84][/SUP]​
8 September 2021	Firesprite	Video game	UK		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][85][/SUP]​
29 September 2021	Fabrik Games	Video game	UK		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][85][/SUP]​
30 September 2021	Bluepoint Games	Video game	USA		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][86][/SUP]​
4 November 2021	Som Livre	Music	BRA	$255,000,000	Sony Music Entertainment	[SUP][87][/SUP][SUP][88][/SUP]​
1 December 2021	Bad Wolf	Television	UK		Sony Pictures Entertainment	[SUP][89][/SUP]​
10 December 2021	Valkyrie Entertainment	Video game	USA		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][90][/SUP]​
20 January 2022	Ultra Records	Music	USA		Sony Music Entertainment	[SUP][91][/SUP]​
1 February 2022	Lasengle	Video game	JPN		Aniplex	[SUP][92][/SUP]​
3 March 2022	Industrial Media	Television	USA	$350,000,000	Sony Pictures Entertainment	[SUP][93][/SUP]​
21 March 2022	Haven Studios	Video game	CAN		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][94][/SUP]​
15 July 2022	Bungie	Video game	USA	$3,700,000,000	Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][95][/SUP][SUP][96][/SUP]​
18 July 2022	Repeat.gg	Esports	USA		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][97][/SUP]​
4 August 2022	Right Stuf	Film, television, e-commerce	USA		Sony Pictures Entertainment/Aniplex	[SUP][98][/SUP]​
29 August 2022	Savage Game Studios	Video game	GER		Sony Interactive Entertainment	[SUP][99][/SUP]​
25 October 2022	Pixomondo	Visual effects	USA		Sony Pictures Entertainment	[SUP][100][/SUP]​
7 November 2022	Beyond Sports	Software visualization	NED		Sony Electronics	[SUP][101][/SUP]​

Pending Acquisitions

22 September 2021

Zee Entertainment Enterprises

Film, television, video on demand

IND

$1,575,000,000

Sony Pictures Entertainment

[102]

Stakes

23 June 2021	Alamo Records	majority	Music	USA		[SUP][147][/SUP]​
18 October 2021	Scopely	minority	Video game	USA	$500,000,000	[SUP][148][/SUP]​
4 November 2021	Devolver Digital	5.03%	Video game	USA		[SUP][149][/SUP]​
9 November 2021	Japan Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing	20%	Semiconductor	JPN	$500,000,000	[SUP][150][/SUP]​
19 January 2022	Ceremony of Roses	majority	Merchandising	USA		[SUP][151][/SUP]​
3 May 2022	AccelByte	minority	Video game	USA		[SUP][152][/SUP]​
31 August 2022	From Software	14.09%	Video game	JPN	$122,000,000	[SUP][153][/SUP]​
11 November 2022	Rapidus	minority	Semiconductor	JPN	$7,500,000	[SUP][154][/SUP]​

Some things are missing like Sony's $1 billion investment in Epic Games last year.

 

[Ehoavash]

Hopefully they don't waste it on a overvalued studio like Bungie 🤢

 

[dom]

Now in 2023, Sony has ¥700 trillion remaining for investments. This translates to around $5 billion USD.

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¥700 trillion - typo

 

[skeezx]

chump change

 

[Kromis]

Interesting, I've never heard of Rapidus. Never looked into the semiconductor industry in Japan (or never knew it had one).

 

[Tigerfish419]

So much for them buying EA, Take Two and Ubisoft lol idk why that keeps coming up.

 

[Mass Effect]

Yeah Sony ain't gonna be out here acquiring major publishers, not without some heavy borrowing.

 

[orochi91]

Chump change, lol

 

[Shirkelton]

I could use a little walking around money, @_xxx_sssjsephiroth_jim_ryan_xxx

 

[DC5remy]

Hopefully they don't waste it on a overvalued studio like Bungie 🤢

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That hurt

 

[Ehoavash]

Interesting it doesn't include the amount of $$$ they invested in Epic games

 

[kurahador]

And they gonna spent it all chasing GAAS.

 

[Gitaroo]

Buy some more tech support studios. Hexadrive or something

 

[BBboy20]

9 August 2021

Crunchyroll

Film, television, video on demand

USA

$1,175,000,000

​

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15 July 2022

Bungie

Video game

USA

$3,700,000,000

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O_O

 

[LilScooby77]

Woah they own Zee entertainment? That's something I'm surprised to not know about.

 

[Ovvv]

No publishers I hope.

 

[Vigilante Joker]

And they gonna spent it all chasing GAAS.

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No publishers I hope.

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This is for Sony as a whole, not PlayStation.

 

[ToddBonzalez]

Wow, you can get 1/14th of Activision Blizzard for that money!

 

[sn00zer]

Boy it's going to look real weird of Sony makes some big gaming moves while arguing against Microsoft.

 

[St. Elmo's Fire]

Boy it's going to look real weird of Sony makes some big gaming moves while arguing against Microsoft.

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[HMS_Pinafore]

No publishers I hope.

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Bethesda sold for $7.5 billion. This isn't enough to purchase any major or semi major publisher.

And this 5.1 Billion is for all of Sony to spend, not just the gaming division.

 

[Kopite]

Boy it's going to look real weird of Sony makes some big gaming moves while arguing against Microsoft.

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Companies being hypocrites aren't anything new.

 

[IIFloodyII]

Bethesda sold for $7.5 billion. This isn't enough to purchase any major or semi major publisher.

And this 5.1 Billion is for all of Sony to spend and not just the gaming division.

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All of Sony for the next year, it'll probably mostly go to one or two big purchases at this point. Any publisher size acquisition would take more than that. Not that I think Sony are going to buy one.

 

[vivftp]

I'll just quote myself from the PS OT:

On the subject of using their M&A budget to pick up studios like Arrowhead, Deviation, Firewalk, Ember Lab and whatnot... well even Sony acquired all their partner studios combined it would probably only equal a single digit percentage of that 5 billion dollar budget.

My guess is that they may aim for a target that can benefit multiple divisions of Sony Group. For example if they went after Square Enix then they get IP, content and resources that can benefit SIE, Sony Pictures, Sony Music and their anime division. It's a one stop shop.

Kadokawa would also feed into multiple Sony Group divisions.

I maintain my hope that if Sony does go after a publisher that they give 'em the Bungie deal where they sit alongside PlayStation Studios and Bungie under the SIE umbrella and are allowed to continue to publish content on other platforms. It's the healthiest way of handling such an acquisition for everyone involved.

 

[Lump]

Selfish me says: Maybe invest in a small team to establish a PC interface for the PSVR2 so I'm 1000 times more tempted to get it.

 

[boltz]

If they were to buy Square Enix, it would be a combo of shares and cash anyway.

 

[vivftp]

Selfish me says: Maybe invest in a small team to establish a PC interface for the PSVR2 so I'm 1000 times more tempted to get it.

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That won't happen until they have a proper way to monetize sales of VR content on PC. Otherwise they're just pissing away headsets and money to the PC community with no real way to earn a return on those sales.

Maybe down the road they have a much larger selection of first party content they can sell to the PC community? Maybe they open some sort of PlayStation PC store front to make revenue. Who knows. If the headset's being sold at a loss then they definitely won't add PC support until the can earn revenue off that community.

All of that aside, the budget being talked about here has nothing to do with R&D and whatnot, which would have its own separate budget.

 

[Tigerfish419]

I maintain my hope that if Sony does go after a publisher that they give 'em the Bungie deal where they sit alongside PlayStation Studios and Bungie under the SIE umbrella and are allowed to continue to publish content on other platforms. It's the healthiest way of handling such an acquisition for everyone involved.

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Wait are we against market consolidation and platform holders buying publishers or not? the flip flop between it being ok or not is so weird.

 

[Chemo]

Kadokawa is the smartest move, I think. Square-Enix makes a lot of sense too.

 

[boltz]

Publisher buys in general still suck though.

 

[vivftp]

Wait are we against market consolidation and platform holders buying publishers or not? the flip flop between it being ok or not is so weird.

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Your mistake is somehow believing that we're a hive mind and not a bunch of individuals. There is no flip flop.

 

[crimsonECHIDNA]

Kadokawa is the smartest move, I think. Square-Enix makes a lot of sense too.

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Kadokawa is one that always stood out to me. Another thing in there anime venture would be GKids.

 

[Captain of Outer Space]

Just give me about $100k.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

It's nuts to me they paid $3.6 billion for just Bungie when MS straight up bought an entire publisher with all their devs and IPs for ~$7.5 billion with Bethesda.

 

[Nahbac]

Wait are we against market consolidation and platform holders buying publishers or not? the flip flop between it being ok or not is so weird.

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You can be on the anti-consolidation side and at the same time hope if a publisher is bought that they are mostly hands off—this isn't zero sum.

 

[Gavalanche]

Wait are we against market consolidation and platform holders buying publishers or not? the flip flop between it being ok or not is so weird.

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Not everyone is against them. Both console OTs show that.

 

[BasilZero]

Hopefully they spend some money on making bigger improvements to their TV lines

And hopefully spend not only more funds but also find better writers, etc for their Marvel movie verse (and other movie IPs and TV shows).

 

[Ovvv]

You can be on the anti-consolidation side and at the same time hope if a publisher is bought that they are mostly hands off—this isn't zero sum.

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Too busy looking for a gotcha

 

[Jarmel]

It's nuts to me they paid $3.6 billion for just Bungie when MS straight up bought an entire publisher with all their devs and IPs for ~$7.5 billion with Bethesda.

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Bungie made out very well in that deal.

 

[boltz]

Can we get 250K for a new handheld Sony? Start a kickstarter!

 

[Deleted member 129418]

I hope they buy Google with all that money!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[MegaSackman]

Just enough to fund Bloodborne PS5 remake, nice.

 

[canderous]

Sounds like enough to buy Take Two. /s

Can't believe that story from a few days ago lmao

 

[GameAddict411]

Selfish me says: Maybe invest in a small team to establish a PC interface for the PSVR2 so I'm 1000 times more tempted to get it.

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They are probably losing money on those units and the only way to make money is through VR games on their store. If they just port the Headset to PC, it will take away sales from console players and on top of that lose the guaranteed revenue from VR game sales. It's a lose lose.

 

[vivftp]

It's nuts to me they paid $3.6 billion for just Bungie when MS straight up bought an entire publisher with all their devs and IPs for ~$7.5 billion with Bethesda.

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Sony paid 2.4 billion for Bungie, and the remaining 1.2 billion is meant for employee retention.

Additionally, Bungie are one of the few studios who have been able to create and grow a very successful live service game with Destiny and Destiny 2. They've got valuable experience and data that Sony's going to leverage for their 10+ live service games that they've got incubating. Not to mention Bungie are working on multiple new games and transmedia efforts.

I think the Bungie acquisition is gonna make a helluva lot more sense to folks in the next couple of years.

 

[M. Wallace]

Buy the rights to GTA VI

 

[GameAddict411]

It's nuts to me they paid $3.6 billion for just Bungie when MS straight up bought an entire publisher with all their devs and IPs for ~$7.5 billion with Bethesda.

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Yeah. Even with Destiny impressive numbers, Sony was ripped off with that purchase. I also generally dislike of the internal drive for GaaS games. I think they don't respect the player time and usually have very limited content that is artificially limited to make people grind them to death.

 

[Pai Pai Master]

It's nuts to me they paid $3.6 billion for just Bungie when MS straight up bought an entire publisher with all their devs and IPs for ~$7.5 billion with Bethesda.

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They paid a premium to keep a lot of Bungie's top-in-the-industry talent on board, which will pay off when those people help other PlayStation studios build themselves up for GaaS development and support. The acquisition itself was $2.4bn.

 

[Sulik2]

That explains why they haven't bought SE yet, not enough money in the bank.

 

[vivftp]

Sounds like enough to buy Take Two. /s

Can't believe that story from a few days ago lmao

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These are merely projected budgets, not hard limits. Every 3 years Sony lays out their projected M&A budget for the upcoming 3 years, and out of the current cycle, they've got 5.1 billion left budgeted for the next year. They can easily choose to exceed that budget should they want to. That doesn't mean they're going after Take Two or anyone else on that scale, but the fact that this M&A budget exists isn't proof that they definitely won't pursue a large scale acquisition.

After the next FY ends on March 31 2024 and they give us their annual report a month later, we should find out what their projected M&A budget will be for the next 3 year window.