Acquisitions

Ever since launching the PlayStation 5, Sony has been on something of a buying spree, but it looks like the company isn't done yet. After acquiring Housemarque, Nixxes, and Firesprite earlier this year, Sony has made the announcement many fans were waiting for. Sony has confirmed that it's acquired Bluepoint Games, the studio responsible for several PlayStation remasters and remakes, including Demon's Souls on PS5 and Shadow of the Colossus on PS4.

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Apple is making a big move in the realm of classical music today, announcing that it has acquired classical music streaming service Primephonic. That, obviously, means Apple is looking to soup up the classical music offerings of Apple Music, as Primephonic will apparently be shut down and relaunched as a standalone Apple Music Classical app. Unfortunately for current Primephonic users, there seems to be a rather large gap between that shutdown and eventual relaunch.

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NVIDIA is already making big plans on its investments in the Arm ecosystem, most of which hinges on its acquisition of the UK-based company currently owned by Japan's SoftBank. We haven't heard much about the status of that process recently, but the latest news that has just surfaced isn't that encouraging, at least for NVIDIA. The acquisition has already been uncertain as far as the UK is concerned, and insiders are now saying that the country is inclined to reject the bid over national security concerns.

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The people that own WordPress just acquired Pocket Casts. In a world where popular, widely used, and excellent apps and companies are acquired and destroyed all the time, this acquisition actually seems like a best-case scenario. Given the relatively reasonable and decidedly non-destructive nature of the company since inception, it seems likely Automattic won't take a knife to Pocket Casts in any major way after acquisition is complete.

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While there aren't a ton of PlayStation 5 exclusives at this early point in the new generation, the few that have been released have all managed to stick out. Perhaps most notably, we have Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart ushering in the new hardware generation in a big way, but before that game arrived on the scene, we had Returnal from Finnish studio Housemarque.

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Verizon recently sold off its rather ill-fitting media business, which included AOL and Yahoo, to a giant Las Vegas resort owner. Now one of its biggest rivals in the telecom market is doing something similar though with a slightly different spin. AT&T is now reportedly in talks to spin off its rather large media business in a deal that could see Harry Potter and Batman on the same large ship as the Discovery Channel and Food Network.

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Twitter has announced its acquisition of Scroll, a startup service that enables Internet users to read articles with all of the extraneous bits like advertisements removed. The company notes that Scroll will play a role in its subscription service plans, joining Twitter's newsletter plan with its recent Revue acquisition.

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AOL and Yahoo can perhaps be considered relics of the Internet's past. One of the first communication platforms and search engines, respectively, the two have long been displaced from their markets and have never fully recovered. There has been no shortage of attempts to revive their brands or embark on new ventures but those might have finally come to an end now that Verizon has sold the two off, along with the rest of Verizon Media, to an equity firm better known for owning one of Las Vegas's most popular resort hotels.

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Google quietly acquired Dysonics, a 3D audio startup, back in December 2020, according to a new report. The discovery was made via a recent USPTO filing and seemingly confirmed by multiple employees who now list Google as their employer on LinkedIn. Though Google hasn't commented on the acquisition, the nature of the startup hints at a bright future for Pixel Buds and Nest speakers.

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The anti-Instagram, VSCO, may be acquired by photo board company Pinterest, according to a new leak. Though the sources caution that a deal may not ultimately materialize, they claim that talks are taking place between the two companies about a potential acquisition, one that would put VSCO under Pinterest's control.

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Microsoft already has at least two communications platforms so what's the harm in having one more. For a time, Skype seemed to be its one chatting and calling solution until Slack and later Zoom forced it to grow Microsoft Teams. Now it might be taking on yet another communication, this time with a bent towards gaming, as Redmond gets deep into talks about buying Discord for a lot more than its recently valued worth.

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Dish Network has announced plans to acquire Republic Wireless, the ultra-cheap MVNO wireless service that offers data-only plans and more. Once the acquisition deal closes, Dish will have control over the Republic Wireless brand and various 'supporting assets,' earning itself around 200,000 wireless customers.

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