Sony Buys Bungie
It might be Year of the Tiger in 2022, but it's also the Year of Studio Acquisitions.
Some might say it was destiny that Sony buys Bungie.
Here is what we know of the acquisition deal so far:
Sony spent $3.6 billion in their deal to buy Bungie. The Microsoft x Activision Blizzard acquisition was priced at $68.7 billion. (A good thing to note about the Activision deal is the ongoing legal cases that are going to rack up some coin. Bungie has had their share of toxic work environment callouts and other HR-related dealings, but none that are as current or high-profile as activity at other studios.)
The future of Bungie's development
Bungie's history is important here, so get ready for a history lesson.
Bungie was previously owned by Microsoft from 2000-2007, helping put Xbox on the map with Halo: Combat Evolved. After Bungie went independent, they had a publishing deal with Activision (2010) that was dissolved in 2019. Bungie has also had business with NetEase back in 2018 when the Chinese publisher invested $100 million in Bungie to support the self-publishing of original IPs.
(I've seen a few online articles mention that they are unsure how NetEase's involvement with Bungie will affect the Sony/PlayStation acquisition.)
Bungie has had a lot of tangos with gaming industry giants, so it will be interesting to watch how long they stick around with Sony.
Questions from players almost immediately jumped towards Bungie's largest IP, Destiny. Official comments on Destiny have shown that the game will continue to be multiplatform and cross-play, and Bungie notably extended that promise to their future projects as well.
Bungie stated: "We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community."
The next natural question is: if Sony isn't interested in using Bungie for PlayStation exclusives, then why'd they buy them? There has been some interesting speculation online about what exactly Sony/PlayStation has in mind for Bungie's IPs, future and current. Bungie has been working on several non-Destiny projects over the past few years, and both Sony and Bungie want to move into new spaces. Destiny's universe would be an impressive candidate to receive the silver-screen treatment, and streaming services like Netflix are constantly hungry for more content. With Microsoft stepping into the TV ring with the new Halo show in development with Paramount, it makes total sense that Sony would want to expand the worlds they own. Sony isn't unfamiliar with games in its library translating to screen-- The Last of Us TV show and the new Nathan Drake movie, for example-- so expanding out to include Bungie's IPs in their multimedia plans sounds like a huge payout for all involved.
What are your thoughts on the future of Bungie? What are your hot takes on Sony and the PlayStation platform's future with this major studio under their belt?
