Hogwarts Legacy and Mortal Kombat in Microsoft’s Hands? Warner Bros. Considers Discovery Licensing Its Brands

Update (August 8, 6:15 p.m.)

During the presentation of the financial results for the second quarter of 2024, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav of Discovery explained that The company is considering licensing its trademarks to third-party developers. (via IGN). Therefore, we have not received a direct confirmation or denial of the following reports, although Zaslav’s words at least indicate a significant decrease in Warner Bros. Games’ activities.

Original post (August 7, 2:49 p.m.)

Warner Bros. Discovery has been in a tough financial situation for months. The solution to fixing the budget is to tighten the belt decisively by cutting spending on projects that are not profitable enough. Soon, the victims of the savings may include, among others: the video game division.

According to information obtained by Financial Times journalists (via In GC), Media giant executives are considering selling Warner Bros. Games.which is responsible for publishing successful works such as Hogwarts Legacy, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, and the series human combat.

It is worth noting that this is not the first time that there has been speculation about a possible sale of Warner Bros. Games. Previously, this information was circulated in 2020, when the owner was AT&T Group. At that time, Microsoft and Take-Two expressed their interest in acquiring the branch.

At the time, the potential deal was valued at up to $4 billion. Now the amount is likely to be higher given how successful it has been. Hogwarts LegacyIn addition, there is a Wonder Woman release, a project that Monolith Productions is working on.

Interestingly, There is a lot of gossip behind the scenes of the industry.The Redmond giant is still interested in a potential deal. Microsoft’s main competitor in the race for well-known brands is China’s Tencent.