Sony Invests $250 Million Into Fortnite Dev Epic Games, But Not For PS5 Exclusives

@bdrtfm:
As you stated, epics games sell a tonne on PC and Xbox, aswell as a fair amount elsewhere including mobile and switch, and now sony will profit from all of those sales, aswell as potentially receiving better support for the technical side of the ps5 when it comes to UE5 games.

@bdrtfm: What is Sony going to get? Are you kidding me? Why does anyone invest in a heavily profitable company?

(not so subtle) Hint: They are going to get oodles and oodles of $$$.

@bdrtfm: What are they going to get? Epic is slated to be worth around 17 billion dollars in the near future; what they'll get is a return on their investment - which is why anyone invests in any business.

@bdrtfm:It is not as simple as what your saying above. Currently games are made by developers ( who use sometimes dozens of studios- including my own graphic print shop) to create the huge complex 50-200+ million dollars AAA games. Of course the developers would never put their own money up for this- there in lies the publisher, whois biggest job is to gather investors (provide the money), deal with legal, promotion, and vast network of merchants digital/brick an mortar. The platform Sony/MS/Nin/mobile/pc etc etc , are the gate keepers, their biggest job is gate keepers deciding what games get released onto the platform. Thus Licensing and charging 20-45% per game. So Everyone gets to make money.

Platform>publisher>developer>studio

EPIC games is a publisher/developer, taking on a few roles, but always using different corporation status to insulate it from failure, overtaking, and tax breaks- tons of tax breaks. But that also means they need investors. Just like SquareEnix, Capcom, EA, Name any publisher -they will take money from anyone, because even if the game fails- it will protect the publisher from huge losses and protect the developer as well. But back to epic/sony, Sony also invested heavily into their own countries developers Squarenix, capcom, konami, atlus for over 20 yrs now. For a few reasons. It is a good investment, kinda guarantees your competition will not buy out their exclusivity, great tax breaks. Not just Asian developers but many different ones, and also not just games but a wide range of services all over the place - financial, electronics, and more.... just like MS.

The gaming industry is so many billions now, they are embarrassed to say. And none of them are fanboys, they will take money, spend it, and invest it anywhere they think will benefit their own investors. That's just business. Luckily this is great for us gamers. Strong competition, new IPs, so many more games per years then the previous, choice. This also keeps prices down, not only per game but also hardware. Just how business works. MS/Sony have especially been spending money left and right pre-9th gen, on just about everything publishers, IPs, tools, and expanding their retailer reach - esp through EU like Poland, Slovenia.

So basically Sony is investing in Epic to ensure some of their games make it onto their platform, and also as an investment. If I was MS/XBOX, I would worry - and I am sure they cross investing to ensure their own best interest.