Sony has announced that it will purchase Bungie, the original developer of Halo and now Destiny, for $3.6 billion. It's a major move that comes shortly after Xbox's own acquisition of Call of Duty developer Activision Blizzard only a couple of weeks back.
As announced in a PlayStation blog post, Bungie will "continue to independently publish and creatively develop" its own games. The confirmation of this came directly from Bungie CEO Pete Parsons. With that, Destiny will remind as a multi-platform game with full cross-play continuing. Any future games from Bungie were also noted as not being exclusive to the PlayStation platform.
This deal will mark the seventh biggest video games acquisition in video game history, sandwiched inbetween mobile developer Moonton by ByteDance for $4 billion and Minecraft maker Mojang by Microsft at $2.5 billion, at sixth and eighth respectively.
I’m absolutely thrilled to welcome Bungie to the PlayStation family! Bungie create community-driven games with outstanding technology that are enormous fun to play, and I know that everyone at PlayStation Studios will be excited about what we can share and learn together. pic.twitter.com/VySocfBxtxJanuary 31, 2022
"First off, I want to be very clear to the community that Bungie will remain an independent and multi-platform studio and publisher. As such, we believe it makes sense for it to sit alongside the PlayStation Studios organisation, and we are incredibly excited about the opportunities for synergies and collaboration between these two world-class groups," said Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and president Jim Ryan as part of the announcement.
He added: "Bungie’s world-class expertise in multi-platform development and live game services will help us deliver on our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers. Bungie is a great innovator and has developed incredible proprietary tools that will help PlayStation Studios achieve new heights under Hermen Hulst’s leadership."
Following this, Ryan further confirmed (via GI.biz) that Sony will look to make "many more moves" in the future, suggesting further acquisitions are on the way.
Bungie has limitless potential to unite friends around the world.We have found a partner in PlayStation that shares our dream and is committed to accelerating our creative vision of building generation-spanning entertainment.Our journey begins today.https://t.co/PLuVn48zdy pic.twitter.com/kAhRbAg3vDJanuary 31, 2022
"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," Parsons further added.
It's incredible to think that once all these deals go through, Xbox will own one-time PlayStation mascot Crash Bandicoot, while Sony will own the maker behind Xbox's biggest mascot in Master Chief. What a world.
