If you're only starting the game, you won't be able to buy any company even if you cheat in money - all companies have a 2-year window where they can't be bought, even if you're starting your game in 2020 and the company was created in 1976.

For example, 1976 start: You can buy companies that are created in JAN 1976 after DEC 1977.

If a company is created in, let's say, JUN 1991, you'll need to wait until JUN 1993 to buy it.

Edit: Also, they're not available in multiplayer yet, just in case.

Edit 2: Companies that have platforms assigned to them (Sega, Atari, Nintendo, Sony...) can't be ever bought, unless you mess with the game files - and doing so can cause bugs or "accidentally" disable the consoles they would release.

so how do you buy them though? I started from the earliest point and its 1981 so i would've saw some by now correct? (dunno if it matters but I am on marathon mode and trying for Coey because im a huge NA and ROTK fan.)

Subsidiaries aren't something that are "offered" to you. The player has to decide when to buy them. They're also very expensive by default.

Click on the sixth icon in the lower menues, the one that looks like a bar graphic. Then choose Publisher & Developer, then Developer, look for the one that you want to buy, and the bottom option when you click on them should be "Buy company."

Edit: They will also be a major money sink, so be ready to spend millions just to keep them running before they ever start giving you profit. It's not an "easy money" system and you'll most likely not see any actual profit from subsidiaries until the 2000s and beyond.

TY! Found it. If not a developer then i might buy the publisher i use.

What Kyouko wrote above is correct
Let me just add that the subsidiaries do not operate in the sense that there is no real process going on there
If you make a save game just before a new game from subisidiary is released and try to reload and publish the "same" game several times, you will see that it is not the same
Once it turns out that the company has been "working" on a weak RTS for a year, sometimes on a great RPG, and sometimes on an average Skill. These will be different games, with different features, engines, etc. So don't be surprised if you expect the real design process to happen there. This is a totally random popup by RNG
The progress bar seems to be moving in the background, so there is a design process going on, but it's a fiction

@Ari: That can be a good move - as subsidiaries will give you a bigger profit cut if you publish through them, and you can set their profit share (what they give the developers they publish games for) so you can get $15 share out of a five star publisher (who will usually only give you $8.) You also save on production and stock space, which can be a good strategy if you want to focus on other things.

Edit: And Red Valour adds a good point: Everything the AI does in this game is randomized, so don't expect their game releases to make any sense. Heck, if you give them an IP one week before their newest game will be released (which they have been working on for months) the game they release could be a sequel/spin-off of the IP you just gave them.

Heck, in one run I was bored and "cheesed" things by re-rolling weekends, so I always had at least one contract game to work on.

The "progress bar" is actually a timer ruled by both the development time you set in their options, and the [SPEED] value in the Publisher.txt file, with a slight increase/decrease that's ruled entirely by RNG. There are no employees working on games there, just a timer emulating that.