Capcom Says It Would "Gracefully Decline" Acquisition Offer From Microsoft

Capcom has gone on the record to say that it would stay independent and decline a hypothetical acquisition offer from Microsoft while at the same time also not acquiring other studios itself.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Capcom chief operating officer Haruhiro Tsujimoto was asked whether Capcom would be interested in a bid offer to become part of Microsoft. "I would gracefully decline the offer, because I believe it would be better if we were equal partners," he explained.

Tsujimoto also provided his thoughts about acquisitions as a whole. He said that Capcom prefers organic growth rather than simply just acquiring another company. To him, it's important to train and develop talent in-house in order to execute growth strategies. However, Capcom can still utilize external partners, and has no intention of either being acquired or acquiring others.

Tsujimoto mentioned that Capcom was once a target of an acquisition. While it's unclear what he's specifically referring to, the Saudi government invested a 5% stake into Capcom last year.

Capcom isn't the only Japanese developer who said it'd decline an acquisition bid. Earlier this year, Sega chief operating officer Shuji Utsumi said that the company had no intention of being acquired at the moment too. Companies are frequently evaluating the possibility of acquiring others, as we recently saw with Microsoft eyeballing Nintendo, although the odds are always against these deals actually coming to fruition.