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Sony PlayStation has officially acquired Bungie, the studio behind the popular MMO FPS franchise Destiny and the creator of Halo. The acquisition comes only weeks after Microsft Xbox’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Sony PlayStation is the second biggest video game publisher by revenue, just behind Tencent. Over the last couple of years, Sony has been expanding its roster of first-party PlayStation Studios by acquiring long-time collaborators like Bluepoint Games and Housemarque, as well as support studios such as Nixxes and Firesprite.
Sony’s acquisition of Bungie is arguably the biggest for the brand, closing the deal at $3.6 Billion USD.
Bungie will remain as an independent multiplatform studio following the acquisition by Sony PlayStation
Aside from Destiny, Bungie is best known for the Halo Series. The studio not only created the original trilogy but gave the Xbox its flagship title and paved the way for the first-person shooter genre.
After Bungie’s separation from Xbox in 2007, it entered into a 10-year publishing deal with Activision Blizzard. During this period, the studio released the two Destiny titles, Destiny in 2014 and Destiny 2 in 2017. After being independent for almost a decade and a half, Sony PlayStation has acquired Bungie for $3.6 Billion USD.
Speaking on the acquisition, Jim Ryan, the President & CEO, of Sony Interactive Entertainment said,
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. Bungie is a great innovator and has developed incredible proprietary tools that will help PlayStation Studios achieve new heights under Hermen Hulst’s leadership.
Interestingly, the acquisition of Bungie, the creator behind Halo, came weeks after Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard, the former publishing parent of Bungie, and gained rights to Crash Bandicoot, the former PlayStation icon.
Speaking on the future of Bungie as a PlayStation Studios, Hermen Hulst, the Head of PlayStation Studios said,
I have spent a great deal of time with the senior team at Bungie and it is clear their experience and skills are highly complementary to our own. We will be ready to welcome and support Bungie as they continue to grow, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for this incredible team.
Bungie is said to be joining as an Independent Multiplatform developer, supporting their titles across all of the primary platforms. However, what it exactly means for players, both on and off the PlayStation console, is yet to be seen.
