Did you wake up anticipating that Bungie will be bought out again? I sure didn’t and yet here we are – Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that it will acquire Destiny developer Bungie for $3.6 Billion.
GamesIndustry.Biz reports that the deal will still have Bungie running their company as “an independent subsidiary” of SIE. That means, in paper, that the developers will remain a multiplatform studio with the option to “self-publish and reach players where they choose to play.”
As you all know, I mainly cover Bungie and Destiny content. With this acquisition, Sony Loyalist will have a field. It doesn’t mean that Destiny will be exclusive to Sony platforms, and it may not even mean that they’ll be locked to exclusive content – but it can mean that newer games can get an exclusive window for a couple years before they’re released to other platforms.
Why is this a big deal? Bungie is the creator of two of the most prolific games to ever hit the industry: Halo and Destiny. The developers house some of the best creative minds in the industry with gameplay mechanics, storytelling and AI structure that still rivals most, if not all shooters to date.
Bungie’s DNA is independence, but with their ambition comes with the need of great financial backing – which led them to jump from multiple investors, most notably Microsoft and then Activision, to then inevitably having them buy back their company to be independent once again. With their track record, this is a surprising…. yet not so surprising news regarding their re-acquisition as Bungie seemed adamant this time around. However, with the rise of popularity with Destiny in the last 4 years, maybe their ambitions grew further than any of us have anticipated.
President CEO Jim Ryan had this to say, “We’ve had a strong partnership with Bungie since the inception of the Destiny franchise, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to officially welcome the studio to the PlayStation family.”
In the official PlayStation blog post, Ryan begins by confirming their independence by giving clear affirmation to the gaming community and by stating that Bungie will “sit alongside the PlayStation Studios organization.” Expect some seriously insane collaborating effort moving forward as Sony will gain access to Bungie’s proprietary tools.
A separate blog post by Bungie calls SIE acquisition “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 independent that beats in Bungie’s heart.”
Bungie reaffirms that it retains the ability to independently publish and develop their games.
This is Sony’s sixth acquisition since 2021, though most of its studio’s acquisitions have been studios with long histories with PlayStation.
Of course, this timing is interesting as Microsoft acquired Activision|Blizzard for $70 Billion – solidifying a new age in the gaming industry, an age of acquisition.
My perspective? We are going to see some hefty expansions once again for Destiny 2, perhaps far bigger than anything Forsaken and The Taken King has given us, now that Bungie has additional studios to assist with development. This is entirely a win-win scenario for all gamers if all these affirmations are to be taken literally.
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