Highlights
- Capcom's Chief Operating Officer, Haruhiro Tsujimoto, has stated that the company would decline any acquisition proposal from Microsoft, emphasizing that the two companies would be better off as equal partners.
- Tsujimoto believes that organic growth and in-house talent development are the best ways for Capcom to compete in the gaming industry, diverging from Microsoft's strategy of acquiring companies to boost its content library and market penetration.
- Despite Microsoft's pending acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Capcom's refusal to consider buyout offers is not surprising, given its current historic momentum and focus on expanding into the mobile gaming market.
Capcom would not be open to getting acquired by Microsoft were the Xbox maker to attempt tempting it with such a proposal, a senior company official has revealed. This hypothetical was entertained amid the Japanese gaming giant's efforts to maintain its unprecedented momentum which just led Capcom to its best-ever year.
Microsoft is finally on the verge of completing the biggest deal in the gaming industry's history after procuring the CMA's preliminary approval of its $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition in late September. With that blockbuster buyout now approaching the finish line, some industry watchers are already speculating about whether its shopping spree will see any signs of slowing down in the near future.
But even if it doesn't, targeting Capcom would be futile, with its Chief Operating Officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto revealing that he'd "gracefully decline" any acquisition proposal from Microsoft. Elaborating on that point in a recent interview with Bloomberg, Tsujimoto opined that the two companies would be "better if we were equal partners." Prior to fielding the question about a potential Microsoft acquisition, the executive identified organic growth and in-house talent development as the optimal way for Capcom to continue competing moving forward. That outlook stands in contrast to Microsoft's own gaming strategy, which prioritizes acquisitions as a way to swiftly bolster the company's content library and market penetration.
Seeing how Capcom is currently enjoying historic momentum, its stated unwillingness to entertain buyout offers doesn't come as a particular surprise. Granted, Activision Blizzard was also just 12 months detached from its own best-ever year when it agreed to Microsoft's acquisition proposal, but that deal came at a time when the company already wielded immense presence across every relevant gaming platform.
Meanwhile, Capcom is only now truly ramping up its mobile push, having recently confirmed that the last two mainline Resident Evil games are coming to iOS devices in late 2023. Tsujimoto said he expects such AAA mobile experiences to help the company hit its target of 100 million sales during its current fiscal year, which started on April 1. On that note, the executive said Capcom wanted to bring its big-budget games to mobile much earlier, but its in-house technology wasn't able to support those ambitions up until recently.
Capcom isn't the only company that recently ruled itself out of any acquisition talks concerning Microsoft or any other suitor. Larian Studios did the same in early August, with its CEO saying he has no intention of selling the Baldur's Gate 3 developer to Microsoft, as much as he finds such speculation "flattering."