Sony Interactive Acquires Bungie

Sony Interactive Entertainment has announced that they’ve acquired Halo creator and Destiny developer Bungie for $3.6 billion. This announcement comes just two weeks after Microsoft acquired Activision-Blizzard, as the content wars continue to rage on. Interestingly, news coming from both PlayStation and Bungie stress that Bungie will continue to be a multi-platform developer.  Instead, Bungie appears to be joining the PlayStation family because of their “world-class expertise in multi-platform development and live game services”, according to SIE President & CEO, Jim Ryan.

While statements like this can always be read into, it’s important to note that PlayStation doesn’t really have a foothold in the live services market compared to Microsoft or other games publishers. Most of their games from the PlayStation 4 generation are single-player experiences that tend to be done after release and a wave of DLC.  At the same time, Sony is trying to enter the PC space and mobile space more with their games to reach a larger audience than is possible on the PlayStation 5.

As for Bungie, the developer will continue developing new content for Destiny 2, but they’ve been working on a new IP for the last few years. There’s little information out for this new IP, since it remains unannounced, other than job postings which are mostly too varied to peace together yet. It is seemingly targeting 2025 though.