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Former SIE President Jack Tretton wants to buy a gaming company

Jack Tretton has shared that his SPAC is looking to make a big gaming acquisition.

Donovan Erskine

April 7, 2022 8:40 AM

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Jack Tretton was a heavily influential voice at Sony Interactive Entertainment and PlayStation from the creation of the original console up through the PS4’s life cycle. Though he’s no longer at the company, Tretton is far from done with video games. Now the CEO of PowerUp Acquisition, Tretton has stated that he’s looking to acquire a video game company.

This news comes directly from Tretton, as he recently spoke about it during a chat with Axios. Tretton is currently the CEO of a SPAC named PowerUp Acquisition, which is currently in the market to make a major video game company acquisition. In his conversation with Axios, Tretton states that he’s looking to acquire a company for $1 - $2 billion. While the company had initially given itself an 18-month deadline to make such a purchase, that’s now been shortened to 15 months.

“The fact that we were willing to go to 15 months and sweeten the pot for investors, I think was an indication that we felt very confident that there were a number of tremendous targets out there that we could land,” Tretton explained. As the former PlayStation boss, it’s no surprise that Tretton would like to see PowerUp acquire a traditional game developer or publisher. However, his business associates have other areas of expertise. He cites company president Gabriel Schillinger, who is big into the world of crypto.

Tretton goes on to say that he’s not looking to acquire a gaming company in disarray so that they can fix it and turn it around. “We're not looking for a company that's in disarray, that is on the way out of business and is a reclamation project.”

With nearly two decades at one of the most successful companies in gaming, it will be interesting to see how Jack Tretton steps back into the video game world. For any necessary updates on that front, you can count on Shacknews.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a young journalist from Maryland, who likes to game. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge Scream nerd and film fanatic that will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_