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News Saber, Nintendo Switch's No. 1 port studio, secures independence from Embracer through $500m investment

9-Volt

9-Volt

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Amazing news, especially for Switch 2. Now they're free, they can take up even more port jobs for Switch than ever. Don't forget, some very important studios are under Saber's banner, including Aspyr (Star Wars remasters for Switch), ZEN (no 1 pinball developer), 3D Realms (boomer shooters) and 4A (Metro series)
 
ILikeFeet said:
being reduced to a port studio in the title is a massive disservice. Saber is huge
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Well, from a Switch owners perspective, their ability to work magic on Switch is the best thing about them. But yes, their original IP's cannot be ignored, Mudrunner series especially needs more recognition.
 
It sounds like the KOTOR remake is still alive. That is probably an end of the generation game at this point.
 
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Better to tough it out on your own than leave your fate at the hands of the higher ups at Embracer. Hopefully Gearbox can get out as well like Jason hinted at in one of his Tweets.
 
Nice! Saber is definitely a highlight of the last few years with ambitious ports and some awesome development studios. Also, Tim Willits moved over there a few years ago and I’m naturally inclined to root for any id dna.
 
Huh! Good for them, and any company able to escape from Embracer's incompetence.
 
HockeyBird said:
Better to tough it out on your own than leave your fate at the hands of the higher ups at Embracer. Hopefully Gearbox can get out as well like Jason hinted at in one of his Tweets.
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Swedish gaming company Embracer Group AB will sell one of its largest subsidiaries, Saber Interactive, to a group of private investors in a deal worth up to $500 million, according to a person familiar with the transaction.
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Not really on their own, they just changed which ghouls in suits they answer to.
Considering the circumstances, it's hard to do worse than Embracer, but you never know...

Hoping for the best anyhow.
 
Wish this option could have been more accessible to a number of studios to remove themselves from Embracer's umbrella before they got crushed (Free Radical Design 💔), but at least there are some survivors who are gonna escape the carnage of Wingesfor's incompetencies.
 
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Dardan Sandiego said:
Yeah, hopefully other studios like Gunfire and Tarsier can save themselves as well. As others have said, fuck Embracer.
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I think that’s the thing, they haven’t so much saved themselves, they’ve been saved by ‘a group of private investors’. It’s not clear who that is, but to be fair they couldn’t be worse than Embracer’s financial incompetence. Any port in a storm if it keeps the studio going and jobs where the staff need them to be, fingers crossed.
 
PixelKnight said:
I think that’s the thing, they haven’t so much saved themselves, they’ve been saved by ‘a group of private investors’. It’s not clear who that is, but to be fair they couldn’t be worse than Embracer’s financial incompetence. Any port in a storm if it keeps the studio going and jobs where the staff need them to be, fingers crossed.
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It's no different than any publicly traded game publisher I think, each has its own shareholders. Saber still have to answer them but will be much more creatively free compared to Embracer.
 
9-Volt said:
It's no different than any publicly traded game publisher I think, each has its own shareholders. Saber still have to answer them but will be much more creatively free compared to Embracer.
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Yeah, fair. Couldn’t be any worse.
 
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Is the Embracer situation the biggest blunder in the history of gaming?
They came out of nothing, bought a myriad of studios, layoff thousands of people and now they seem to get rid off everything. All that because they gambled in a failed Saudi Arabian bet.
There should be a documentary about it.
 
Enpsty said:
Is the Embracer situation the biggest blunder in the history of gaming?
They came out of nothing, bought a myriad of studios, layoff thousands of people and now they seem to get rid off everything. All that because they gambled in a failed Saudi Arabian bet.
There should be a documentary about it.
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I’m sure there will be, all heavily documented too. Just a bizarre gamble that led to the whole ‘acquisition wars’ and has done a huge amount of damage to both swathes of the industry and developers working within it. Hopefully more of those studios and companies get let go as Embracer has little choice but to take what deals it can get now, then it’s bones can finally disappear. What complete incompetence, a speedrun of how to fuck up a multinational on a colossal scale
 
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Evilnemesis8 said:
Not really on their own, they just changed which ghouls in suits they answer to.
Considering the circumstances, it's hard to do worse than Embracer, but you never know...

Hoping for the best anyhow.
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Oh for sure, but being private is its own thing. Not all investors are like this unfortunately, but if the new guys think that the level of profit they bring in is enough and sustainable, they'd be more willing to just let Saber do its thing VS pushing for constant growth like public shareholders do.

It's just whether or not the new owners will do that is the main question...
 
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This reads like one of those parody forum thread titles: "Flip Wars publisher Nintendo to announce Switch 2"

Good news for Saber. They deserve better.
 
Enpsty said:
Is the Embracer situation the biggest blunder in the history of gaming?
They came out of nothing, bought a myriad of studios, layoff thousands of people and now they seem to get rid off everything. All that because they gambled in a failed Saudi Arabian bet.
There should be a documentary about it.
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I still think the Unity mess is way way worse. But Embracer is at least competing with the title.

However, if Embracer can sell Gearbox for a good price, it could be a good thing for Embracer. Gearbox is a way too big fish for Embracer, where each game release affects Embracer way too much (and Embracer knows nothing about AAA games). Tina Tina's low sales figures affected the whole company in totally unproportional ways.
 
I don't want sound negative but I wouldn't be surprised if they did very little on switch 2. They helped build a name off of porting amazing games for switch. Sometimes that is enough for a dev studios and they move on. Only time will tell.
 
They got: Fractured Byte (Switch port studio), 3D Realms/Slipgate (Boomer shooter factory), New World (Insurgency) and few other assist studios.

The rest will remain at Embracer: Aspyr, Zen (pinball games), 4A (Metro), Tripwire (Maneater/Killing Floor), Beamdog (MythForce). I hope Aspyr's relationship with Nintendo will do good for them.
 
Tron1 said:
I don't want sound negative but I wouldn't be surprised if they did very little on switch 2. They helped build a name off of porting amazing games for switch. Sometimes that is enough for a dev studios and they move on. Only time will tell.
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There'll be plenty of demanding titles for them to port.
 
It's interesting that in Swedish media this is portrayed as Embracer divesting themselves from Russia more than being part of digging themselves out of the mile deep debt hole they have dug themselves in. There was a story in Swedish media a while ago about how Embracer were the Swedish corporation with largest revenue in Russia. They also have ties to the Swedish defence industry and therefor the large business in Russia was portrayed as a serious national security risk.

Not to start a discussion on the value of geopolitical considerations in business and investment, my point is mainly that I think Swedish media are underestimating how much this is about Embracers financial position and how little it's about their "scoop".

Edit: I also think for the record that it serves Embracers interests to play along with the "we are divesting from Russia"-narrative rather than the "we are currently in a doom spiral and are liquidating everything possible at the moment"-narrative.
 
9-Volt said:
They got: Fractured Byte (Switch port studio), 3D Realms/Slipgate (Boomer shooter factory), New World (Insurgency) and few other assist studios.

The rest will remain at Embracer: Aspyr, Zen (pinball games), 4A (Metro), Tripwire (Maneater/Killing Floor), Beamdog (MythForce). I hope Aspyr's relationship with Nintendo will do good for them.
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Dammit I was hoping 4A would go too. I don't want the series to die because of some Embracer fuckery.
 
worth noting that 4A does not come with the metro series, embracer still has the rights to that.
 
Enpsty said:
Is the Embracer situation the biggest blunder in the history of gaming?
They came out of nothing, bought a myriad of studios, layoff thousands of people and now they seem to get rid off everything. All that because they gambled in a failed Saudi Arabian bet.
There should be a documentary about it.
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Came in here to ask this same question.
Been following the industry my whole gaming life and have never seen such a blunder.
It almost feels like this was the contingency plan for them from the start. I just didn’t expect them to pull the trigger so fast, even against the backdrop of the pandemic.
 
Hurray for Saber, hoping more will come after that.
I'm always worried about the fact that these shit stains have Asmodee in their catalog.
 
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bixente said:
Well, look at games like Alan Wake 2 or Star Wars Outlaws. Not saying they'll work on those. But getting titles like that to run on Drake I imagine will be very impressive, even with dlss. And PS5 Pro isn't out yet, either.
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Alan Wake 2 runs well on ROG Ally. Avatar struggles even at 360p, but there's a lot of asterisks there that Drake won't have. there's a good deal of wiggle room there, I would think. the limiting factor will be if Ubisoft wants to do the work
 
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AxkilAvenger said:
Came in here to ask this same question.
Been following the industry my whole gaming life and have never seen such a blunder.
It almost feels like this was the contingency plan for them from the start. I just didn’t expect them to pull the trigger so fast, even against the backdrop of the pandemic.
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At the time the company was just a resurrected THQ, it didn't seem so insane.

And then the 8chan incident happened and an event horizon was seemingly crossed.
 
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