Sony Purchases Bungie for $3.6 Billion

[Moonface]

So, this is not as clear cut as the title makes it seem. I too thought this was Sony outright buying Bungie and having them as a PlayStation developer, but it is weirdly not the case here.

• Bungie will remain an independent and multi-platform studio
  
• Bungie will help "deliver on our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers"
  
• Bungie has "developed incredible proprietary tools that will help PlayStation Studios achieve new heights under Hermen Hulst’s leadership."
  
• Bungie will be allowed to "self-develop, self-publish and reach players where they choose to play"
  
  

I am absolutely thrilled to announce a new member will be joining the PlayStation family!

I’ve been a fan of Bungie for many years. I have admired and enjoyed the games that they create – and have great respect for their skill in building worlds that gamers want to explore again and again.

Bungie makes games with outstanding technology that are enormously fun to play. They also have unmatched dedication to the communities that play their games, and everyone at PlayStation, and PlayStation Studios, will be excited about what we can share and learn from them.

I have spent a great deal of time with the senior team at Bungie and it is clear their experience and skills are highly complementary to our own.We will be ready to welcome and support Bungie as they continue to grow, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for this incredible team.

We believe games have limitless potential, and that to do anything worthwhile in entertainment, we must bet big on our vision, on our studio, and on our incredible team of trusted creators who build unforgettable worlds that truly matter to people.

In Sony, we have found a partner who unconditionally supports us in all we are and who wants to accelerate our vision to create generation-spanning entertainment, all while preserving the creative independence that beats in Bungie’s heart. Like us, Sony believes that game worlds are only the beginning of what our IPs can become. Together, we share a dream of creating and fostering iconic franchises that unite friends around the world, families across generations, and fans across multiple platforms and entertainment mediums.

Today, Bungie begins our journey to become a global multi-media entertainment company.

CREATIVE FREEDOM

“Since taking flight in 1991, Bungie has always charted the future with our own star map – a path that is driven by our people and for our community. We are continuing that journey with new worlds in development, and we can’t wait to share them with you.

With Sony, the potential for our universes is unlimited. Our future games will take bold steps into unexplored spaces for Bungie, continue to push the boundaries of what is possible, and will always be built on a foundation of creating meaningful, lifelong friendships and memories.

We remain in charge of our destiny. We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games. We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.

With Sony’s support, the most immediate change you will see is an acceleration in hiring talent across the entire studio to support our ambitious vision. If this speaks to you, and you want to help us put a dent in the universe, we are hiring across all disciplines for Destiny 2 and for all new worlds beyond.

THREE DECADES AND COUNTING

“What makes our worlds come to life is our community and our people in the studio. Our people are the soul of Bungie. Empowered by our people, we have pushed the boundaries of what we thought was possible and transformed who we are as a company.

Over the past 30 years, the inviting worlds we’ve built have turned into thriving communities, and that community is the true magic. These communities have taken Bungie beyond games. They have forged life-long bonds, and humbled us with the real, meaningful good they drive within us and the world.

More than anything, Sony understands that our people and our community are both the priority, and the heart of our success, and are willing to stand alongside us as we continue to use our platform to drive action towards a more welcoming and equitable world. Our goal is to build a place where the world’s most creative and talented people can come and do their best work, no matter who they are, where they are from, or how they identify.

That’s the real dent in the universe we want to make — the one we want to last beyond us.

Be a part of this future with us. See you Starside.

I'm really confused as to what the purpose of this purchase is, because it seems like Sony is just going to collaborate with Bungie on things and that this purchase is to prevent any other company from doing the same or presumably outright buying the entire company, although I don't know who would because they left Microsoft years ago and both sides probably aren't interested in a purchased partnership. $3.6 billion just to have the exclusive rights for collaboration and access to Bungie's tools seems pretty steep though, especially when it isn't like Sony is lacking in studios who create and share tools with each other already.

This really feels like one of the weirdest studio "purchases" I think I've ever seen and I still feel like I'm not getting it properly.

[Maniakkid25]

Inb4 Destiny 2 sucks

But seriously, this is...confusing, to say the least, especially given the history of Bungie itself. I suppose what they are trying to say is they'll be a second party company, a la Rare was in Nintendo. That, however, is my best guess at this relationship.

Edit: reading the summary of this announcement on Wikipedia does shed more light, but only raises more questions. If Bungie plans on going multi-media, why did Sony INTERACTIVE acquire them, then, when that's their primary video game arm? Why not Sony Media proper? I am very confused, still.

[Moonface]

My impression of Destiny 2 was that the basis for a very good game is there but it's just marred by very questionable choices by Bungie, particularly when it comes to expansions and such.

I'm guessing that SIE has more use for Bungie than Sony as a whole, considering the majority of the announcement focuses on PlayStation and how the two parties will collaborate. It might also be that PlayStation is generally more stable when it comes to income compared to Sony proper, since besides movies Sony doesn't really put out anything else that makes them comfortable money.

I also discovered this deal was being worked on over the last six months, so nothing about this is a response to the recent Activision purchase by Microsoft. It's also apparently not the only acquisition PlayStation was working on and that there are more still to be announced, so I wonder who else they'll look for?

[Dragon Lord]

So from what I've been reading around, I keep seeing articles saying that Bungie will continue to be able to publish Destiny on other platforms, but no mention if any other games will be multi-plat. This could be a situation where only future Destiny titles are free to be multi-platform (which would bring money to Sony regardless since they'll own Bungie, and microstransactions/DLC in Destiny across all platforms = $$$$$$).

Either way, we'll definitely see some PlayStation exclusives come out of this. We may also see PlayStation exclusive content for Destiny 2 or whatever future Destiny games come along.

One thing this does is put Microsoft in a bad light. If Sony buys Bungie and let's them continue to publish their games wherever they want, while Microsoft buys up companies and forces them to make games Xbox exclusive, people are going to think poorly of Microsoft. Not saying it is an intentional PR move by Sony, but it could be a little jab at the competition. Basically them saying, "Wow, look at that. Microsoft bought Activision and then made Call of Duty exclusive, while we bought Bungie and let Destiny stay multi-plat so everyone could enjoy it."

Also as for Sony buying more companies yet, I definitely could see Square Enix being one of them (possibly in a similar deal to this one). I see a lot of people guessing Take-Two Interactive (which would bring Rockstar and 2K under Sony).

[Maniakkid25]

One thing this does is put Microsoft in a bad light. If Sony buys Bungie and let's them continue to publish their games wherever they want, while Microsoft buys up companies and forces them to make games Xbox exclusive, people are going to think poorly of Microsoft. Not saying it is an intentional PR move by Sony, but it could be a little jab at the competition. Basically them saying, "Wow, look at that. Microsoft bought Activision and then made Call of Duty exclusive, while we bought Bungie and let Destiny stay multi-plat so everyone could enjoy it."

This is ignoring the fact that Phil Spencer keeps saying that he will continue honoring current multiplatform contracts and explicitly said he "wants to keep Call of Duty [i.e. one of the most lucrative games in the industry] on Playstation". And Minecraft, despite being owned by Microsoft, is currently available on all platforms (though not without significant friction from Sony, IIRC, because they didn't want do deal with Microsoft's log-in process or however you want to word it). Psychonauts 2 and Outer Worlds, as well, were multi-platform. Currently, I don't think Phil Spencer (current head of Xbox) wants to hobble the game industry by forcing console exclusives on the devs and publishers that it has under its house. Note that I say Phil Spencer, not Microsoft; I do think he is basically the only thing keeping this from snowballing into an anti-trust problem.

Honestly, as far as Sony acquiring SqueEnix, I don't see that happening in our current ecosystem. Activizzard was on a significant downturn when the acquisition happened. While SqueEnix has been on a down trend as well (down about 3 dollars over 6 months, just checked), they haven't plummeted 20% over 2 months. Honestly, if Sony is looking for a power play, I think the likely targets are Konami and Sega Sammy. Sega Sammy recently finished selling off its arcade division, so they're already treading shaky ground, and Konami is just a lucrative by thanks to their Pachinko arm. SqueEnix has a lot more clout than both of those, yes, but I don't think the cards are there right now for it to happen.

[Moonface]

So from what I've been reading around, I keep seeing articles saying that Bungie will continue to be able to publish Destiny on other platforms, but no mention if any other games will be multi-plat. This could be a situation where only future Destiny titles are free to be multi-platform (which would bring money to Sony regardless since they'll own Bungie, and microstransactions/DLC in Destiny across all platforms = $$$$$$).

Either way, we'll definitely see some PlayStation exclusives come out of this. We may also see PlayStation exclusive content for Destiny 2 or whatever future Destiny games come along.

One thing this does is put Microsoft in a bad light. If Sony buys Bungie and let's them continue to publish their games wherever they want, while Microsoft buys up companies and forces them to make games Xbox exclusive, people are going to think poorly of Microsoft. Not saying it is an intentional PR move by Sony, but it could be a little jab at the competition. Basically them saying, "Wow, look at that. Microsoft bought Activision and then made Call of Duty exclusive, while we bought Bungie and let Destiny stay multi-plat so everyone could enjoy it."

Also as for Sony buying more companies yet, I definitely could see Square Enix being one of them (possibly in a similar deal to this one). I see a lot of people guessing Take-Two Interactive (which would bring Rockstar and 2K under Sony).

I don't think any game Bungie creates will be forced by Sony to be exclusive considering they remain entirely independent, so Sony has zero say over what they do when it comes to creating games. The closest to exclusivity Bungie might have to do for full games is timed exclusives, but if they wish to branch to other platforms after that they are free to do it with no involvement from Sony. Anything that stays 100% exclusive is likely just content, which wouldn't surprise me since Bungie has already done content for Destiny that arrived to PlayStation before other platforms.

Destiny also has to stay multi-platform by design. Destiny 2 allowed players to carry their characters over, and if a Destiny 3 did the same it would be an absolute shit storm to suddenly tell everyone on other platforms that they either a) can't bring their characters over to PlayStation or b) they can but have to play on PlayStation. If each game was individual like CoD is then it would be more feasible, but with how Destiny works it can't happen unless Destiny 3 forces everybody to start over, which I also don't think would go down well even for players on PlayStation.

As for Sony buying SE, I don't see why they would bother. FF7R is still exclusive to them and so is FF15, so Sony is already getting benefits from SE without even owning them. I agree with @Maniakkid25 that something like Konami seems far more likely, considering how beloved their IP's are and that Konami is just making pachinko with them. Silent Hills never went beyond the PT demo and made bigger waves than most fully released games and is still talked about today, and I can see Sony wanting to try and capitalize on that more than a company like SE which already benefits them with huge exclusives.

[Dragon Lord]

Microsoft also said that Bethesda games would continue to be multiplatform, until the deal was finalized and quickly did a 180 and said that future Bethesda games would be Xbox exclusive. Xbox and/or Phil Spencer are masters of saying things very vaguely so they can then turn around and say, "I don't know what you guys are talking about?" later.

The fact that Sony came out immediately and stated that Bungie's games (Destiny at the very least) will always remain multi-platform is a huge plus to them. While I personally think Microsoft will keep CoD on PlayStation, simply for the fact that they'd be losing out on WAY too much money by pulling it, I could also see them doing the same thing they did with Bethesda. Any games that ActiBlizz is currently in a contract with Sony will remain on PlayStation, but once those contracts are up, poof. Then they'll hold the game(s) hostage in an attempt to get Sony to put Xbox Game Pass on their system.

@Moonface - Square Enix could be huge for them because SE is a very beloved developer in Japan, and Sony has been creating a bit of a shaky relationship with Japan lately. Also FFXV is on Xbox as well, so it's not PS exclusive. Though so far Final Fantasy XVI seems to have only been announced for PS5, though that's probably just a matter of being a timed exclusive. Anyways, SE going under the PlayStation brand would bring a lot of interesting games under Sony. We could end up seeing something like Octopath Traveler ported over to PS4/PS5, or maybe the Bravely Default Games or even the upcoming Triangle Strategy, which would be an interesting fit on PlayStation considering its extreme callbacks to the likes of Final Fantasy Tactics (PlayStation exclusive) and Tactics Ogre (mostly on PlayStation, had one game on GBA that I know of). 

Sony could also spark some interesting revivals from SE -- such as the long desired Legend of Dragoon Remaster/Remake. Possibly even a revival of the Parasite Eve IP, which I know a lot of die-hard PE fans have been wanting for a long, long time. 

With how intertwined PlayStation and Square Enix have been since the PS1 days (when Square Soft and Enix were still separate), it would just feel "right" for Sony to bring SE under their brand officially, and would likely hint at the end of Square Enix games showing up on Xbox. 

I'd like to see it happen just because I think Square Enix could use the help that Sony could provide them fully in this scenario. Maybe Sony would also finally get rid of that useless hack Nomura. I can dream at least.