Sony Is Buying Bungie. $3.6 Billion. 5-6 Months In The Making

I thought they were independent the whole time. They just made exclusive deals like the way Remedy does until now.

Sony needed a FPS dev so I guess that fills this spot.

This can't be their answer though to what MSoft has done. Can it?

Would be cool to see them develop a new Killzone or Resistance. Can't say I'd be too excited by a new bungie IP though.

missed opportunity? bungie been making 9 scored games for many years now. this is great news for sony fans. i rather have bungie over blizzard anyday. but I think buying third parties is getting out of hand.

I was wondering the same thing.. either inflation has hit or MS got a steal with the Zenimax acquisition and all those IPs/Studios

I am NOT downplaying this acquisition but 1 IP vs MANY

Not sure how accurate this list is but I am assuming everything published during and before MS is owned by MS .. which means Bungie has 1 or possibly 2 IPs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Bungie_video_games

Please edit the OP. This is NOT a response to MS buying Activision.

This is a multibillion $ acquisition that takes months to negotiate, due diligence, and obtain board endorsement, etc. It was in the works well before the MS deal. The only thing it may have done was get the lawyers off their asses to finalize the terms and structure.

https://www.theverge.com/22910846/sony-bungie-acquisition-playstation-destiny-halo

Bungie will continue to be a multiplatform and independent studio and publisher, and it will sit alongside the company’s PlayStation Studios developers, Jim Ryan, the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment said in a post on the PlayStation Blog. “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,” he said.

Bungie is telling the audience flatly that its future games will not become PlayStation exclusives. “No. 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,” writes Bungie, in an FAQ about the deal. In that FAQ, Bungie also discussed how the acquisition will affect the long-running hit Destiny 2:

There you have it. I'm ok with this now. It'd be nice if more of these acquisitions ended up like this.

1. Who cares Desiny 2 sucks ass.

2. The games will still come to PC and like 99% of PS5 games will be better on PC.

Eh...don't think so. We are forgetting that it was Activision who let Bungie free from their deal early without a 3rd game. So clearly Destiny didn't meet Activision's projections. It's probably something else in the works which Sony knows about and for which they bought it.

MS bought Bungie and I assume bought the rights to that IP when they did...I doubt they allowed Bungie to take it with them when they left MS

Saw that, too. Phil is a class act/PR genius.

@Zero_epyon: Oh, I'm probably mistaken. I do recall a 10 year(?) commitment with Activision and Destiny though so maybe they were independent? Either way, fascinating turn of events.

ms and now sony doing their bit to keep the dwindling system wars flame burning. respect

lol, i thought this was a riff on the other faux-news and came here to yell at you for taking advantage of me :-P

That's pretty big, I guess? I'd say it was a less valuable purchase because of the narrower scope of Bungie, but I think if anything Sony needs to expand/reclaim some competence and its foothold with action oriented FPS titles and such. So this is probably a good move for them in terms of a healthy diversity in their portfolio

All future Bungie games are confirmed multiplatform and include Xbox according to Bungie. This is announced on their site. They were also interviewed and they were asked.

Q. Bungie has future games in development, will they now become PlayStation exclusives? No. 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 unified Bungie community.

I honestly don't understand Sony's play here.

If this is meant to counter Microsoft, they kinda paid a huge chunk of change for a single studio.

What do they get besides Destiny? Does Sony get pre-Halo games like Marathon?

Also, they still have to keep Bungie's games multiplat.

I honestly am confused by Sony's move here. This seems like a large chunk of change to pay for one studio and they can't even make those games exclusive.

@getyeryayasout: Tell me about it! Just the other day I was at the store, and some old biddy grabbed me by the arm and yelled "WHEN ARE THEY RELEASING ONI 2!!!". And I said "soon, Agitha...soon".

Sony getting the cheap seats

Not only did they buy them, but they didn't force them to be exclusive unlike power hungry Phil Spencer aka CEO of video games or whatever title they crowned him with.

Destiny 2 made $300 million from microtransactions in 2019 alone. And there’s a Forbes article claiming, (without actual numbers) that 2020 was en even bigger year. I’m not saying Destiny 2 is some smashing success. But it’s usually in the Steam top 10, most played Xbox and PS games, and there’s still new content dropping.

And you’re misrepresenting the breakup with Activision.

I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist but let me put on my tin foil hat and be the first to say, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a mutual understanding/deal going on b/w MS and Sony on carving up the industry b/w them behind the scenes. Wouldn't be the first time that has happened or the first industry to have happened in. It's better to share the pie between them then let it be threatened by a new party (Amazon/Google/Apple etc.). Very possible while the world is distracted with this supposed 'competition', they are actually consolidating for their ecosystems.

Another thing if Bungie costed $3.6B then we can very safely assume that the price tag of Capcom etc. isn't in 5-8B range what people were hoping. We can easily double that now.

Seems like a waste to be honest, I mean I never cared for the Destiny games and Marty O'Donell no longer works there anymore. If Sony bought a major game company such as Konami or Sqaure-Enix it would be major news just like when Microsoft bought Bethesda and Activision-Blizzard. I hope Bungie makes an interesting new ip for Sony or something similar to the Halo games but we will have to wait and see in the future.

It's definitely a desperation buy...staying multiplatform....this was done soley to keep MS from buying them

@BenjaminBanklin: so they spent all that money and they won't make anything exclusive to Sony in any way.

Yup that sounds like a smart move. Honest.

They aren't....Bungie wanted MS to acquire them but MS told them to **** right off because they were asking too much

3.6 billion yet Mojang was 2.5 billion and Minecraft is massively bigger than Destiny is.

Only Sony was dumb enough to pay and did so out of desperation

@iamthetruth101: price went up as soon as Microsoft started spending the mega bucks.

@caryslan2: well, i think the "play" is to diversify their portfolio and beef up their FPS chops which had somewhat faded away in recent memory. This could make them a lot of money... isn't that why they buy these businesses?

I think they may change their tune on the multiplat nature (as MS had done in the reverse direction) but I see a couple of reasons why they won't:

1) they are currently multiplatifying their other games, at least to the extent that they are embracing PC

2) Sony loves playing the good guy - you can find a lot of examples in the history of the console wars where Sony waited for MS to do something and then responded the opposite way. MS was a meanie and is locking some games behind their walls? Don't worry gamers, Sony is your special friend :-)

Really I am confused now. What exactly is Sony buying?

The games are coming to Xbox as well, which is great for all of the gaming community.

This is been in process for 5 months.

I'm not misrepresenting the break up but actually putting the light on it as I did back then when they became independent. While it was blown away on the media and forums that Bungie took a bold step against the evil Activision by saying no to them. People forget that it was Activision who held more cards with the deal not Bungie, so it was essentially them making it happen before the 10 years and a 3rd game.

Seems expensive for Bungie

@gifford38: they have produced destiny 1 and 2 in the last 10 years. Hardly producing 9 scoring games for years.

But why though? Almost all of bungies talent left over a decade ago.

Lmao nice, I loved Halo 1-3 the golden days of Bungie. Destiny is not my jam tho, actually hate Destiny.

I had no idea Bungie was worth that much. 3.6 bill??

Sony always failed at making an FPS at the same caliber as Halo. Maybe with Bungie they can make something happen.

Let Bungie make killzone and maybe it will finally be a great FPS 😂😂😂😂

@getyeryayasout: 😊

Apparently Bungie has been working on something else for awhile now. Interested on seeing what it might be.

@iamthetruth101: Regardless of the reasoning, they just dropped nearly $4B on a single studio and confirmed they aren't done with acquisitions. That should end all of the nonsense around how Sony / PlayStation can't afford to spend billions. They just did.

This has to be the worse buy ever. 😂

Will be curious to see if they want to keep Destiny going or make something new. If they keep Destiny alive maybe they can finally focus on a more story driven experience this time, as Destiny 2 got more content it felt like they archived all that stuff, took the fun out of it by giving players upgraded characters.

Makes more sense they'd go with a single western studio as it's cheaper just to throw a few million at Japanese devs for exclusivity rights than to buy a publisher outright.

See some commenting if this was a good use of money. Sony definitely needs something to respond to the Activision-Blizzard acquisition and this is at least something to signal competitive posture going forward, and timely announcement too. Better than say spending more to buy out a whole publisher. And, depending on what they plan on doing, may be worth the investment. We'll have to see.

@lamprey263: Their future games are going to remain multi-platform. Which begs the question? What is the point? The prices is insane for a single studio.

In context, it makes the Zenimax deal look like an absolute bargain. The amount of ips, studios and talent MS got for twice as much is unreal.

Bungie sporadically releases some fps games. 3.6 billion is insane.

I don't see how this isn't a knee jerk reaction. MS obviously has a plan with Activision. Sony suddenly decided they need to look strong and paid up the ass for Bungie.

Hey maybe we'll get Oni 2!

Wow this is getting ridiculous. We're going to have 3 gaming companies controlling everything if this continues.

@Pedro: like putting them on Xbox or PC too? I figured Sony would be putting all their stuff on PC eventually.

Is that just for Destiny and the Bungie studio? Of course they didnt get Halo (still MSs IP). what else did they get?

Hmm. on the other side Sony have a good track record of introducing new IP. A new bungie IP backed by sonys resources could be of interest. They also dont have a FPS outside killzone (which has been idle for quite some time). so maybe they are thinking of taking a punt at that.

Or a Marathon reboot. Do bungie still own that? Ah marathon...i could never get it to run well on my crappy mac back in the day...but it looked cool. I also love the name :P.

@lamprey263: It seems both.