Sony Interactive Entertainment acquires Bungie for $3.6bn, but its Destiny is to remain multi-platform and independent

Sony and Bungie yesterday announced that Bungie is joining the PlayStation Studios family of games dev companies, alongside a long list of high quality developers such as Naughty Dog, Suckerpunch Productions and Insomniac Games. 

For those who, unlike me, are not obsessed with Bungie games, Bungie is currently the developer and publisher of Destiny 2 as well as one or two other unannounced IPs, and was also the studio that created the Xbox-exclusive hit title Halo. Over the past 10 years Bungie has moved from being owned by Microsoft, to partnering with Activision, before becoming an entirely independent developer and publisher in 2019. Bungie now becomes an independent subsidiary of Sony which will continue to develop and publish its own games.

What does this mean for Bungie and its games?

Bungie and Sony have made it unequivocally clear that Destiny 2 and other Bungie-developed games will not become PlayStation-exclusive games. In a very interesting and open interview with gamesindustry.biz Bungie and Sony state that Bungie will remain independent and committed to building its games and communities on all platforms, "including rival consoles". 

Instead the aim here seems to be to pool talent and resource. Bungie will suddenly have far deeper pockets to expand its games, not only in terms of development resource for the games themselves (though do expect some big developments there), but also for moving into other entertainment mediums, such as TV and film, which Bungie has been hinting at for some time now. The evidence for this comes in a long job list Bungie posted in its own announcement of the news. Recent television shows based on video games, such as Netflix's Arcane and, to some extent, The Witcher, as well as the upcoming Halo series, have garnered huge interest and success with their target audiences. Bungie will likely be looking to use its new-found funding to expand the Destiny world, which already has quite a deep and involved lore (exemplified by a near 4 hour YouTube video explaining it all (as of 2 years ago) from 'My name is Byf'!).

What's in it for Sony?

In my post on the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard acquisition, I noted that PlayStation Studios typically develop and publish single-player, story-driven games which are most often released as PlayStation console exclusives. Jim Ryan, PlayStation CEO, suggests that might be about to change. In his interview with gamesindustry.biz, he states that PlayStation is looking to expand into "live-service" games (games that, after release, are regularly updated, expanded upon and changed over time, like Destiny 2) and aims to become increasingly multi-platform. Bungie has over 7 years of experience developing arguably the most successful live service multi-platform game of all time, and Sony sees the benefit of having that experience on tap to "considerably accelerate" its own journey.

Is this a response to the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard announcement?

No. It's simply not possible that a deal this big could have been realised in the two weeks since Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring Activision Blizzard, and Jim Ryan has confirmed that the conversations with Bungie have been going on for a number of months. However, there does seem to be some sort of "arms race" now happening in the "console wars" with Sony and Microsoft acquiring studios at an unprecedented rate and at enormous cost. 

Microsoft acquired Bethesda last year and, assuming nothing changes, is soon to acquire Activision Blizzard, and Ryan finishes his interview by saying that "we should absolutely expect more [acquisitions by Sony Interactive Entertainment]... we are by no means done... we have many more moves to make". 

The early indications seem to be that the console war meta may be shifting from a focus on creating console-exclusive content, to a battle about who has the most valuable games subscription service and where is best for gamers to play their favourite titles. The games subscription model has been spear-headed by Microsoft's Xbox Games Pass offering, which holds a vast library of games, including both Xbox exclusives and many other games from third-party developers, which can also be purchased separately on a PlayStation. Sony, on the other hand, has its own subscription service called PlayStation Now, which currently focuses primarily on PlayStation-exclusive games from PlayStation Studios, but that offering may be expanding. 

In future, if you want to play Bungie's Destiny 2 on Xbox you will be able to, but if it's your main game it may be more appealing and cost-effective to play it on a PlayStation (assuming it becomes part of the PlayStation Now subscription service). Additionally, purchasing the game separately for Xbox will now ultimately lead to profits for Sony. The same may be true in reverse for the likes of Activision Blizzard's Call of Duty on Xbox Games Pass and if purchased separately on a PlayStation. 

I expect we'll continue to see console-exclusive games for some time on both PlayStation and Xbox (thankfully not Destiny 2!). However, as these giants continue to acquire more studios, and the list of truly independent developers becomes shorter and shorter, they will certainly receive increased antitrust scrutiny from the competition authorities.

Image: Sony