During the FTC v. Microsoft trial, the tech giant made it clear that it wasn’t done making acquisitions. In fact, Capcom is a prime target given its successful IPs. However, the game developer isn’t really interested in being bought out.
In an interview with Bloomberg, Capcom’s chief operating officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto revealed how the game developer would respond to an acquisition offer by Microsoft. According to Tsujimoto, the studio would “gracefully decline” any offer from Microsoft.
“I would gracefully decline the offer because I believe it would be better if we were equal partners,” Tsujimoto said.
Capcom’s stance on being acquired also reflects its attitude towards acquiring other gaming companies. Tsujimoto says that Capcom prefers organic growth over purchasing other studios.
“I think there have been many M&A talks in the game industry,” Tsujimoto shared. “There was once a time we were a target, but rather than acquiring an outside company, we prefer organic growth.”
He adds, “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.”
The statement from Capcom comes just a few weeks after internal documents from the FTC v. Microsoft trial revealed a list of potential companies for purchase. Among the companies are some very big gaming studios such as Sega, Bungie, and IO Interactive.
Technically, Microsoft yet to secure its targets outside of ZeniMax Media. It’s still looking to close the $69 billion deal to purchase Activision Blizzard. The tech giant received provisional approval from the CMA just last week and it looks like the merger will be finalized before the mid-October deadline.
Capcom’s plans for the mobile gaming market
One interesting bit that was touched on in the interview was Capcom’s release of Resident Evil 4 on the iPhone 15 Pro. The game developer plans to have a significant presence in the mobile gaming space now that technology is available to make AAA titles playable on smartphones. Capcom said that it will continue to bring more titles to mobile devices as it targets selling 100 million units annually.
“Capcom’s high-quality games have finally become playable on smartphones with iPhone 15 Pro,” Tsujimoto stated. “Of course, we wanted to do it much earlier, but our technology were not able to meet the requirement. Now that we have the technology, we can continue introducing our games for the smartphones.”
“We have built relationships with Apple by participating in Apple Arcade. Our title became available on the new iPhone 15 Pro as a result of this relationship. I look forward to continuing to work with Apple as a strategic partner and grow together.”
During the iPhone 15 reveal, Apple shared its plans to make its flagship mobile devices one of the leading gaming platforms. However, there have been recent reports that the iPhone 15 Pro is struggling to run Genshin Impact on max settings. Many gamers worry that the more complex titles like Resident Evil 4 would suffer greatly on the smart device.
