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Sony PlayStation (Games)

Sony Buys 'Destiny' Game Developer Bungie for $3.6 Billion (bloomberg.com) 58

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Sony Group is purchasing Bungie, the U.S. video game developer behind the popular Destiny franchise, for $3.6 billion to bolster its stable of game-making studios. From a report: The deal announced on Monday is the third significant video-game acquisition announced this month, following Microsoft's purchase of Activision Blizzard for $69 billion two weeks ago and Take Two Interactive snagging mobile game leader Zynga on Jan. 10. Buying Bungie will give Sony one of the most popular first-person shooter games to compete with the massive Call of Duty series, which Sony's main rival now owns through Activision.
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Sony Buys 'Destiny' Game Developer Bungie for $3.6 Billion More

Sony Buys 'Destiny' Game Developer Bungie for $3.6 Billion

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  • I must be getting old (Score:5, Funny)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:16PM (#62224431) Homepage Journal

    I thought Bungie was famous for Halo. I mean I admit Destiny is cool. But it's not the first thing that comes to mind for me.

    • I remember Bungie for Pathways Into Darkness :-) Still number one in my book.

    • They have really only made 3 games Marathon Halo and Destiny

      How they have managed do do that for 30 something years is the impressive part

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

      Microsoft owns Halo, Bungie gave up the rights to it when they left Microsoft 15 years ago, in 2007. Since then they've made Destiny, Destiny 2, and -- er, I guess, actually, that's it.

      Sony presumably wants them for a Destiny 3 or maybe some new IP. Who knows.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Microsoft owns Halo, Bungie gave up the rights to it when they left Microsoft 15 years ago, in 2007

        But Bungie is the developer of Halo, even if it doesn't own the rights. Microsoft didn't buy the right to retroactive history modification from society.

        • Fun fact. Leonardo da Vinci doesn't own the Mona Lisa.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by _xeno_ ( 155264 )

          But Bungie is the developer of Halo, even if it doesn't own the rights.

          No, Bungie was the original Halo developer. It's probably most accurate to say a studio called Bungie created Halo. The current Halo developer is 343 Industries, which when founded, included some people from Bungie. Maybe it still does, I don't know.

          Modern Bungie developed Destiny and Destiny 2. I have no idea how many people who helped develop the original Halo games at Bungie are still at Bungie (I know some stayed with Microsoft when Bungie left) and I also don't know how many Destiny developers are stil

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Hodr ( 219920 )

            Way to miss the point, no one is arguing history (except you), they are "arguing" about the future.

            Halo is a signature brand for Xbox, and as the rights to Halo are owned by Microsoft this acquisition of "Bungee" will have no effect on future development of Halo games.

        • >Microsoft didn't buy the right to retroactive history modification from society.

          That's what you thought.

      • More link they have a good record in FPS games, which isn't something Sony has the talent to produce.

        Microsoft bought Doom and Call of Duty makers, and FPS games aren't some dying fad in games either. Sony wants to make sure that they suddenly lack FPS games I guess?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Junta ( 36770 )

        Presumably they don't trust third parties staying independent, given Microsoft buying up so many of them. So Sony probably feels forced to acquire, even if it's a mostly defensive move. Of course once they have it, I would say Sony is more likely to force an acquisition to be Playstation exclusive than Microsoft.

        • Microsoft seems to whole heartedly bought into subscription based services. If your revenue stream is as such, being multiple platform benefits the bottom line. I believe Sony hasn't pushed as much for subscription lock-in and as such has a greater motivate for PlayStation exclusives.

          We can say the same about being hardware company. Microsoft has never been a real hardware company. Sony pretty cleary is one.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by EvilSS ( 557649 )
        Their plan right now is to keep Destiny 2 going with yearly expansions and not do a D3. I think it's a bad idea and it's already had consequences like having to remove existing content to make way for new content (VERY popular with the player community BTW /s). Maybe Sony can convince them to re-think it. They also have another game in early development. Right now it's being called Matter but that's about all anyone outside Bungie knows about it. It's probably at least 2 years out at this stage.
      • I still think of the one Mac game sitting on the shelf when I worked at Electronics Boutique (so long ago).

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by N1AK ( 864906 )
      Possibly, but as Microsoft kept the Halo IP when they let Bungie go it wouldn't make sense to mention it here as it would likely confuse people into thinking Halo was becoming a Sony exclusive when it will remain a Microsoft one.

    • Isn't Halo a Microsoft game, from which they get their lame Cortana name from? That's gotta sting. I don't know about Destiny and images from it aren't familiar, I guessYoutube is doing a good job keeping it out of my gaming category.

      I remember Bungie only from Marathon, which is older than the many slashdotters or their maturity.

      • That's like saying isn't the Lamborghini Urus a Volkswagen car. Technically true thanks to money changing hands, but that's about the extent of it.

        • I don't know the background of it all. Though I was relatively confident that Microsoft didn't write Halo, in the same way that Apple didn't invent the smart phone.

      • I will always and only associate Bungie with Marathon. Everything else is just their latest incremental update to Marathon Infinity.
        Oh, and I like how "Bob" is in your name, Darinbob.

    • I thought Bungie was famous for Halo. I mean I admit Destiny is cool. But it's not the first thing that comes to mind for me.

      They are, but while Bungie was famous for the original Halo they do not own that IP anymore so saying "Sony Buys 'Halo' Game Developer" would be a bit strange since that is currently 343 Industries.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      I thought Bungie was famous for Halo. I mean I admit Destiny is cool. But it's not the first thing that comes to mind for me.

      Yeah, but Microsoft hung onto the Halo IP right after they spun Bungie back out again, so Bungie doesn't own Halo anymore.

      They still have other games like Marathon I believe.

      But the Bungie-Activision deal screwed Bungie up pretty much so there isn't much to Bungie anymore these days.

  • Is this good or bad? short term + long term? (Score:3)

    by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:38PM (#62224491)
    I am guessing bad short term because I don't have any plans on buying a PlayStation. However, if Sony is feeling a fire lit under their ass because of Microsoft, does this mean Sony and MS getting in a spending war and investing a ton into these studios to make good games? Even if they're pumping a ton of money into studios to make exclusives, they either lose their will and release them to PC after awhile or the funding could really help a lot of the employees of these well funded studios splinter off into cool startups as well as advance the state of the art of the industry.

    TMK, MS plans on continuing Call of Duty and other Activision games on PS as well. So they seem to be playing nice with others and just seeking to take your money, not control your platform choices...which I appreciate.

    I hope Sony at least keeps offering their games on PC. If you don't want to release on XBox, PCs are a nice compromise.

    • My suspiciao is that these aqusitions for both MS and Sony are driven by their outlook that the future of gaming is going to be as services and less as hardware. The war will not be PS6 vs XBox-Series-X2 but "Sony PS+" vs "Microsoft GamePass". In that future world platform exlcusives are the entire battlefront, hardware wil just be cheap and dumb streaming boxes.

      As far as Activision games on PLaystation as I understand it Activision has existing contracts to release the next 2 or 3 CoD games on PS so MS i

    • Issue is, they aren't investing in these studios, they are buying them out and consolidating the market. Different things.
      The more of these they do, the more likely governments will start to look at these deals and possibly make moves against them.
      They could have invested in their own companies and not risked any future oversight though.
      Time will tell if this is a trend or just a a sorta one time blip.
      We don't need all games being only for Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo (whatever new name) and only made by the h
    • You do not want Sony and Microsoft in a spending war...unless you want Sony to go bankrupt!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      Problem is expect to have to buy both a Microsoft platform (Xbox/Windows) and a Playstation if you want to be able to enjoy, as grabbing up all the game developers will be quickly followed by making them exclusive to the respective owner.

      Besides, beyond the acquisition, don't expect spending more on development. The acquisition money goes to stockholders, not to the developers, and it's more likely they would ultimately make cutbacks than they would bolster development resources (pressure to recoup that mo

      • From the direction of MS I think you may find they want their Xbox game pass service and streaming going to all platforms, the hardware doesn't make either sony ot MS money, it is the services and services profit best when more people have access.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Junta ( 36770 )

          I think the cloud gaming is still a non-starter, so for now while they may achieve some success moving gamers onto subscription, they'll still install locally.

          Thus supporting PS represents development expense they'd probably just as soon save. Beyond that, they may continue to want to try to drive people to the advantaged platform (their own) rather than encourage Playstation where Sony controls the UI and by extension what services get 'top billing' and 'best integration'. Much depends on the respective m

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by flink ( 18449 )

        Problem is expect to have to buy both a Microsoft platform (Xbox/Windows) and a Playstation if you want to be able to enjoy, as grabbing up all the game developers will be quickly followed by making them exclusive to the respective owner.

        Sony is increasingly releasing their first and second party games to PC after a delay of a year or two. Most of them seem to be pretty decent ports as well. I think the play going forward if you care about traditional "console" titles but don't especially value playing on your TV is a PC with gamepass (for MS content) and buying the occasional Sony game on Steam.

        I do agree that this is not healthy for the overall market though. Hopefully this makes way for some smaller independent studios to grow and fi

    • Both companies have been clear that there will be no platform exclusivity changes.

      They're not rolling this into Sony. They're just buying the stock as an investment.

      They're going to help Bungie hire people to create non-game spinoffs of Destiny. This is presumably TV and/or movies.

      It will also fund the creation of new games that Bungie wants to make, but don't have the money for.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • I don't know what Sony's end goal is...

    On one hand, Destiny 2 is a pretty decent product with a fairly constant revenue stream, with spikes for expansions and season passes. The usual live-service fair, that everyone is trying to make. However, they have a roadmap for the next few expansions already laid out, "Witchqueen" drops in a few weeks, "Lightfall" (working title) is slated for next year-ish and some final expansion... Destiny 2 Ep. 6 Return of Dinklebot? After that, I believe Bungie is free to do

  • Gotta compete with MSFT (Score:3, Insightful)

    by wakeboarder ( 2695839 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @02:55PM (#62224543)

    and that 60bil dollar blizzard acquisition.

    • Gotta love corporate mergers...

      You do not realize that Taco Bell is the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars. So. Now all restaurants are Taco Bell.

  • Oh goody, more vertical integration (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Monday January 31, 2022 @03:32PM (#62224665)
    that's always good for consumers.

    Fun fact, for at least the last 20 years the only metric used to determine if a buyout or merger is OK is whether it will raise consumer prices. So all a company has to do in order to get approval is pinky swear prices won't go up. If you're a large player you can make it up in volume while cheerfully ending all forms of competition.

    One of the few good things Joe Biden managed to do around our do nothing Congress is put people in charge at the FTC that changed that rule, but by the time they're seated these buyouts will have already gone through.

    Also, I found this fun factoid out from a comedy news Youtube Channel called "Some More News" and not from, say, CNN or Business Insider or any of the "mainstream" financial press. Because it's perfectly normal to need the 20ths century equivalent to court jesters for useful news and information...

  • Also, you can just play Destiny on PC anyway. God knows why anyone would play a shooter on console.

    • Its cross-play, so you can use the same characters to do the hard stuff on PC and casually shoot aliens while you're still in bed on the PlayStation.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by jjbenz ( 581536 )
      Some of us hate using mouse and keyboard.
  • ...or does it really feel like Bungie has no interest in actually being a separate company? What with signing themselves away first to Microsoft, before freeing themselves for a few years before signing themselves away to Activision, before freeing themselves for a couple years and now signing off to Sony.
  • Microsoft, known for its popular operating system Windows ME, buys game developer Blizzard, maker of The Lost Vikings.
  • Guess there is no chance of Sony bringing back the old Letters to the Webmaster or wanting to buy Bungie to finally complete Pimps at Sea?
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