Sony to acquire Bungie, could pitch Destiny series against the Call of Duty franchise
Microsoft has been extremely acquiring gaming studios to bolster its Xbox and PC gaming portfolio. It recently announced a move to acquire Activision Blizzard Inc in a multi-billion dollar deal. Apart from this, Take-Two Interactive Corp recently announced its move to acquire mobile game developer Zynga Inc. To keep up with the pace, Sony Group Corp has announced that it is acquiring Bungie Inc, a US-based video game developer, which has worked on multiple popular titles including Destiny and Halo franchises.
Sony Group Corp has announced that it is acquiring Bungie Inc for $3.6 billion. This acquisition will provide Sony with access to one of the most popular first-person shooter games, Destiny, that will compete against the Call of Duty series.
Sony regularly keeps acquiring video game studios, with Bungie being its largest acquisition of the past decade. The company usually acquires small studios and enhances them like Naughty Dog and Guerrilla Games. Apart from these, Sony back in 2019 acquired Insomniac Games and Housemarque to help bolster its PlayStation exclusives library.
With the acquisition of Bungie, Sony will have a replacement for the Call of Duty franchise for the future, if Microsoft at a later point decides it wants to take the series exclusively to Xbox and PC. During the announcement, Sony did state that Destiny 2 and other titles won’t go solely to PlayStation platforms.
“This acquisition will give SIE access to Bungie’s world-class approach to live game services and technology expertise, furthering SIE’s vision to reach billions of players,” Sony said in the statement. Bungie will continue to operate independently, “maintaining the ability to self-publish and reach players wherever they choose to play.”
After the acquisition is complete, Bungie will function as an independent subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company will continue to be helmed by Bungie’s current Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons. The total amount disclosed includes employee incentives and is subject to customary working capital and other adjustments.
History of Bungie
Bungie was initially started back in 1991, and was then acquired by Microsoft in a $30 million deal. The company was back then working on Halo, an IP that Microsoft still continues to milk. Halo proved to be extremely popular and put Xbox on the map. However, in 2007 Bungie and Microsoft parted ways and the studio started working on Destiny with Activision. Then in 2019 they parted ways with Activision to self-publish and operate Destiny independently.
Destiny 2 was where Bungie started to wear into its own model of not releasing a regular cadence of sequels and instead to grow the game offering new expansions and season passes. This move proved immensely popular, pulling over 20 million million players since 2019, according to Bungie.
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