Ian Patrick, FISM News
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The game developer acquisition battle is heating up as Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced that they will purchase Bungie, creator of the Destiny and Halo franchises, for $3.6 billion. This news follows the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard for a massive $69 billion and leads many industry experts to believe that the next phase in the “console wars” will revolve around these types of acquisitions.
SIE President & CEO Jim Ryan released a statement on the matter praising Bungie for their innovation in gaming and their achievements as a studio, saying the two have shared “a strong relationship.” He said “Bungie’s successful track record in multi-format publishing and live game services will assist us in realizing our ambitions to take PlayStation beyond the console and increase our potential audience.”
Herman Hulst, the head of PlayStation Studios, echoed these sentiments in a separate blog post on SIE’s website saying that Bungie being a part of the Sony team “will increase the capabilities of PlayStation Studios, and of Bungie, and achieve our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers.”
As for whether or not Bungie games will be made exclusive to PlayStation, Jim Ryan confirmed that they will continue to be “independent and multi-platform.”
They will remain independent and multi-platform, will enjoy creative freedom, and their track record in developing massively successful franchises in the sci-fi shooter genre will be highly complementary to SIE’s own IP portfolio.
Ryan also confirmed in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz that, as far as future acquisitions for Sony are concerned, people “should absolutely expect more.”
Bungie released their own statement through their website, saying that SIE will help them “to create generation-spanning entertainment, all while preserving the creative independence” that they want to maintain. Bungie CEO Pete Parsons confirms on Twitter that the first real change for the studio will be hiring more talent to come onboard.
With SIE's support, the most immediate change you will see is an acceleration in hiring talent across the entire studio to support our ambitious vision. Bungie will remain creatively independent and multiplatform. https://t.co/FTz5qlzt8S
— pete parsons (@pparsons) January 31, 2022
SIE’s purchase is significant on two fronts, the first being what seems to be a heated battle between Sony and Xbox-maker Microsoft to buy developers with popular franchises. Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard in mid-January gave them access to popular IPs such as the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises, as well as some timely classics like Spyro the Dragon and Crash Bandicoot.
IGN sees the storied “console war” – used to describe the battle among Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo to see whose game system would dominate – becoming more of a “content war.” These developer and studio acquisitions seem to point to a future where the hardware takes a backseat to the content as cloud gaming and streaming have made playing games more convenient and accessible than ever before.
With this in mind, a big fear from the gaming community at the start of these acquisitions was that many of these developers would make their games exclusive for their new parent company. However, it seems that both Sony and Microsoft are, for the time being, allowing these studios to remain multi-platform.
Many in the industry, such as Mortal Kombat developer Ed Boon, praised the move in keeping games accessible to all platforms:
Refreshing how both (recently acquired) Bungie and Activision will continue to publish games for their competitor's console. 👍
— Ed Boon (@noobde) January 31, 2022
The other reason the Bungie purchase is significant is because it was once a Microsoft studio and it gave Xbox its most popular and recognizable franchise: Halo. Bungie created the first few Halo games, from Combat Evolved to Reach and everything in-between. One could argue that Bungie is the reason Xbox is one of the gaming powerhouses today.
Of course, with the Activision Blizzard purchase Microsoft acquired Spyro and Crash Bandicoot which were PlayStation exclusives in the beginning. Still, neither gaming company appears vindictive in their motives. Even Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer commented on the purchase congratulating Bungie on their job well done and PlayStation for “adding a talented team to” their portfolio.