Sony announced the acquisition of Bungie, the developer of the Halo and Destiny series for $3.6 billion. Later, Bungie came out to explain that “Destiny 2” and the new games under development would not be PS exclusives, and continued to maintain a multi-platform strategy. So the question is, why did Sony buy Bungie if it wasn’t for exclusivity?
In a recent blog update, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said: Bungie’s successful track record of multi-platform distribution and instant-service games will assist Sony in its ambition to take PlayStation beyond console platforms and grow our potential audience.
Ryan added that Bungie will assist Sony’s other first-party studios with future live-service games. Vice versa, other Sony studios will also strengthen Bungie’s own game IP.
This is a strategic step in continuing to evolve the gaming experience we create, Ryan wrote in a blog post. Bungie’s expertise in creating world-class services and long-term community engagement is remarkable and will support many more from PlayStation Studios in the future.
The development of an instant-service game. Likewise, we see the outstanding skills PlayStation Studios possesses to enhance Bungie’s existing and future IP portfolio.
Sony has publicly stated on multiple occasions that they want to start putting more emphasis on multiplayer and live-service experiences, and we currently know that multiple third-party companies are developing exclusive games for the Sony PS5, including Deviation Games, Haven Studios, although we don’t know yet What an instant-service game from Sony’s own first-party studios will look like in the future.
The following is the main answer of SIE President Jim Ryan in an interview with foreign media Gamesindustry.biz: Bungie will operate autonomously within SIE, and they will continue to distribute games on other platforms. We understand the importance of this.
We’ve grown the studio organically, but we’ve also made some acquisitions over the past few years. Whether it’s Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, Suckerpunch Productions or more recently Insomniac. We understand how important it is to give these studios enough space and independence while providing strong support when and where it is needed.
Pete (Bungie CEO Pete Parsons) and I spent a lot of time talking, and we were struck by how similar we saw the world and how complementary our two organizations were. We are like two pieces of a puzzle that fit together. They make big, immersive, endless games. And the advantage of the PlayStation, as you know, is the single-player game, which has a rich narrative. Our studio makes these games, and they are the best games you’ll find anywhere.
I’ve been talking about expanding the size of the PlayStation community and expanding beyond our historical console heartland. This can take many forms. One of the main ones is that the great games we’ve made over the past 25 years can be enjoyed in different places and played in different ways.
We’re starting to go multi-platform, as you’ve seen. We have an aggressive roadmap for instant services. Having the opportunity to work with, and especially learn from, the great people at Bungie…it will greatly speed up our journey of discovering ourselves.
I’d support making our own (online service games), but if you have the potential to work with a partner like Bungie, they’ve done it there and learned their lessons and have a great team who have the potential to help We…we think we can do things that would have taken years, but with Bungie, we can dramatically shorten the time it takes to get those things right.
Bungie CEO Peter Parsons:
- PlayStation acquisition will help accelerate our own plans
- Bungie IP can be adapted into a movie/ TV series
- Praises long-term and overall positive relationship with Sony
- Ryan also confirmed that Sony’s acquisition of Bungie has been going on for several months, “It’s not about industry consolidation, it’s all about a shared vision and how we can make things better together.”