Capcom up for potential purchase.

It was announced today that Capcom shareholders have voted to end the company's takeover defense, leaving the company open to a potential purchase. Originally implemented back in 2008, the takeover defense consisted of several strategies that would help them ward off other enterprises attempting to buy the majority of Capcom's stock.

At the latest investor meeting, shareholders voted against renewing Capcom's takeover defense, meaning the company's stock is now susceptible to being purchased by another organization.

This doesn't necessarily mean the end of Capcom and all of its legendary IPs, but if an outside company acquires over 50% of Capcom's stock they will gain exclusive rights to many of their most popular franchises. Still, any potential buyers will have to cough up quite a bit of money in order to pick up the company. - Source

Lets be real now that this is on the table someone will cough up the change to buy them. They have a huge lineage and a ton of IP's Id be willing to bet Microsoft lays down the cash to purchase the stock.

EA will buy them, slowly drive the entire thing into the ground.

Sony should buy them. SONY, by gamers FOR gamers, the Live, Learn and Love way. Capcom take note how it's done. AWWWWW YEAHHHHHHH

I was thinking the exact same thing.

Seth Killian will buy them and rule that shit.

harmonix should buy them

colin burpo's dad should buy them

they won't be bought is my guess

If a console maker buys them, that limits the number of platforms Capcom games will be released on. I wouldn't mind Nintendo buying them, though, since they seem to be good at making game companies get their act together and make good games (e.g. even Silicon Knights).

Wait, I don't really care that much about anything Capcom makes I think...

Sony buys Capcom.

Megaman exclusive to PS4.

Come on Iron Galaxy

Giant Bomb should hire Capcom.

A world without Capcom, though... Then again they've been in such a weird state lately that it already feels like their glory days are behind them. Deep Down is still currently the only thing they've publicly got on their plate at that, with most of their other stuff stagnating or having been left on the side of the road to rot into obscurity... Maybe it wouldn't be the worst outcome if all dem IPs fell into the hands of other companies anywhoo.

damm, this could be big, especially if one of the big 1st parties decides to buy them.

would be wild if say sony/microsoft buys them and something like street fighter becomes exclusive to one of the systems.

Suqeenix should buy them , or I dunno meh?

You can fuck all the rest as long as Street Fighter lives on. But really, Capcom makes a lot of my favorite games so I hope this all works out.

Why bother? Mightas well try and cozy up to Inafune and have him make another game for PS consoles.... I liked Megaman 9 ..... >.> <.< >.>

Though I guess if Sony did buy Capcom they could give Inafune the rights to Megaman so I can finally have my damn Legends 3...

Also, where the hell is Breath of Fire?

WB Interactive needs to buy them thus making Mortal Kombat Vs. Street Fighter a reality. Lets go!

I just hope they get bought by someone that do good with them I guess, like Iron Galaxy!

I would LIKE sony to buy them up but lets be real here Sony doesn't have the liquid assets to throw around right now to purchase another company when they themselves are barely keeping afloat.

@snail:

I'm not sure Nintendo would buy them. They're waiting for their opportunity to buy Sega, if only to tell the company, "We won."

Some Chinese company will buy up all the stock. Megaman goes f2p mobile

I really, really hope above all else that no hardware manufacturer buys them. I mean can you imagine the situation where you're a fighting game fan, and you happened to have already chosen the wrong next-gen console before all this? I can.

I think they won when they started dressing up Sonic as Link. Buying them would just be mean.

It would be cool if Nintendo bought them and we had SF dudes in Smash Bros.

An unrealistic dream of mine is that a company like CH or IF bought them and forced them make Japanese games.

They'd probably fetch a better price if they had titles out there. Assuming they actually are for sale (hardly conclusive that they are).

But man this is a game changer, the thought of a potentially irrelevant Capcom is a frightening one to me. Whatever happens, I hope their IP avoids the fate of Sega's.

Honestly I think the most likely buyer might be Microsoft. If for not other reason than to hurt Sony.

@video_game_king: That would be the darkest day. HOW WOULD I PLAY HATSUNE MIKU?

They aren't up for sale. They've just chosen to not protect the stock from outside interests, which could mean that they feel comfortable that a takeover won't occur any time soon.

Like this.

@vuud: Mega Man is already in Smash Bros without requiring Nintendo owning them. I bet they could have made something work if they really wanted to.

Only because Capcom is a third party. If Capcom were to be bought by Sony or Microsoft, in all likelihood, such deals with Nintendo would probably not happen.

As pointed out, Capcom isn't up for sale as much as the board decided they won't automatically move to protect themselves from someone buying a majority stake.

Entertaining the idea that someone like Nintendo should buy them: I'm not sure it is a good idea at all that any of the vendors should buy Capcom. This situation kind of reminds me of the Rareware thread. Capcom, like Rareware, had a few big hits and some interesting games but nothing that technically worth spending a lot of money on. The legacy of Microsoft buying Rareware is that they basically ended up with their old IP and the shell of the old company. How would that benefit any of them?

Microsoft could buy them and then there would be no Capcom games ever in Japan; makes sense.

@hailinel: I understand that but my point was that Nintendo owning Capcom isn't a prerequisite for their characters to appear in Smash Bros.

If someone buys them, it will a company with a ridiculous amount of capitol, cause this will be a billion+ dollar deal.

It would be Tencent.

What this really means is that the investors have zero confidence in the current leadership. Hopefully this will lead to a change at the top of Capcom.

I don't think we know if they are or aren't. If they retain a commercial banker then we know they are shopping themselves.

as you said all they did was drop poison pill protection. But they could have done for a lot of reasons, one of those reasons though could be they are at least open to the idea of listening to offers. Another could be maybe they want to go private and an insider may be accumulating shares. Or as you said they could be confident that they won't have to fend off a takeover. I think it's much more likely it's some sort of version of the first ,otherwise why not just extend the takeover protection?

Bottom line, you're right we don't know yet.

So this is why Ono San bounced right?

Actually, I was wondering if Sega could buy Capcom. Then we could have a Mega Man/Resident Evil/Hatsune Miku/Sonic the Hedgehog/Persona/Etrian Odyssey crossover game, for shits and giggles. Or just some kind of massive crossover game, really. Considering all the "VS Capcom" fighting games, maybe we could get some of those in there too.

But, anyway, Capcom has definitely seen better days. I hope if somebody buys them, they can turn themselves around and start making a lot of good games again.

Project X Zone?

Unrealistic but Sony should buy them.. All PS4/Vita exclusives. Exclusives are what make either console actually interesting.. Not all this boring "eh get whatever controller you like" junk.

Sony should resurrect Japan's video game glory days.. Square Enix can start making awesome single player Final Fantasy and other RPGs again (FF14 is good alternative though)

New Power Stone, Mega Man, Resident Evil, Bionic Commando, Breath of Fire, Dragon's Dogma, Auto Modellista downloadable game, and a legit gorgeous console based Monster Hunter.

Also Sony should resurrect Genki Racing stuff. New Shutoku Battle and Kaido Battle! All Souls games Sony exclusive.. just because!

ALL PS4 EXCLUSIVE! And make them not suck! Mwuahahahaha Eastern vs Western game development.. Halo, Forza and Elder Scrolls vs Tokyo Jungle, Gran Turismo and Shenmue..

Then MAAAYBE Microsoft will get off their ass and dig out some decent games.

Then I can watch all the fanboys fight and argue to the death for my entertainment while I sit around and play every system because that's how I roll! Ahhhhahahahaha

None of the big three is in any position to buy capcom, yes not even Nintendo or Microsoft. If anyone buy capcom, it would be company with ridiculous amount of money to burn like Tencent or those type of snowball of success company and if those companies end up buying capcom.........well......get ready for megaman social, SF social and RE social non stop.

A crossover game that I've heard good things about, then. And includes Atlus properties, not Namco ones.

Facebook should buy them.

If you try to drive something into the ground that is already trying to drive itself into the ground, does that mean it will actually improve?

What the hell? Do you just have an answer for everything?

@random45:

Project X Zone.

My two bets are Sony or Sega.

Blue Moon bet? Hori or Mad Catz or who ever is really big in the fighting game peripheral scene buys the Street Fighter stuff.

Divide and conquer.

You know I haven't heard that Microsoft buying them out rumor in over 2 years. Curious if that's still happening. But I wouldn't be surprise to hear Disney buying them but they closed a few studios and fried a large staff from Infinity. So that would be unlikely unless it's just to get the IP.

...with Atlus properties in it.

@video_game_king said:

@random45:

Man, this is why I love you.