Capcom says no thank you to the idea of Microsoft acquisition or making big purchases themselves
For the past handful of years, big developer / publisher acquisitions have been the name of the game for Microsoft and Sony from Bungie to Activision Blizzard itself and beyond.
Capcom has remained near the top of the list for those who may be feasibly up for grabs during that time, but it doesn't sound like they're interested.
Bloomberg recently got to interview Capcom COO Haruhiro Tsujimoto at Tokyo Game Show 2023 where he was asked about the current environment for big buyouts in their periphery.
"I think there have been many [merger and acquisition] talks in the game industry," said Tsujimoto via Bloomberg. "There was once a time we were a target, but rather than acquiring an outside company, we prefer organic growth.
It is important to train and develop human resources in-house in order to carry out growth strategies. I also believe we can utilize external partners, but we have no intention of acquiring companies."
To follow that up, he was also asked what his response would be if a corporation like Microsoft approached Capcom looking to make a deal.
"I would gracefully decline the offer because I believe it would be better if we were equal partners," responded Tsujimoto.
Many places would probably love to be in the position Capcom is in and would be looking to sell high, but given their performance and history as of late, it seems they don't want anyone else in charge of their destiny.
Capcom's stock prices reached an all-time high back in May and continued to do so on the backs of major successful releases like Resident Evil 4 and Street Fighter 6, earning them not just a bunch of money but also some more good will from the gaming community.
Tsujimoto still says that PC is the target / primary platform for their games though they are looking to push more into the mobile market now after the new deal with Apple to bring RE4 to the new iPhone 15 Pro.
Moreover, they're still committed to trying to reach 100 million games sold in a year ending at the end of next March, which is more than double than their last fiscal year of 41.7 million games.
There's no mention of a Sony merger in their conversation, but it sounds like Capcom is pretty happy with the way their plans have been coming together over the past generation and looking forward.
All that work to refresh the company from within and putting more focus on quality has been doing them wonders though that doesn't mean they don't still make gaffs fairly often too.
