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Monday, January 31, 2022

Sony Interactive Entertainment Acquires Bungie for $3.6 billion... bungled?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - What do they get out of it?

In yet another unexpected morning announcement, Sony Interactive Entertainment acquired Destiny 2 developer Bungie. (You may also know Bungie for developing the Halo series... a long time ago. That's no longer a thing they do.) For $3.6 billion!

What does Sony say they get out of this deal? Both Jim Ryan, PlayStation President and CEO and Hermen Hulst, Head of PlayStation Studios say that Bungie's team are experts at building out game communities and maintaining games as a service. I mean, Bungie has been all about Destiny 2 since... 2017. And they have content planned all the way into 2024. That's all the company has been doing.

As for Bungie, they (and Sony) stress that Bungie will continue to have “creative freedom.” More importantly, they mention that Destiny 2 will continue to be multi-platform (Xbox and PC, along with PlayStation... oh, and Stadia) and that the non-PlayStation experience won't be degraded. There won't be any PlayStation exclusive content either, and cross-platform play will continue. Non-Destiny 2 games that Bungie will eventually develop will also be multi-platform. At least, that's what they're saying now! But there's some reason to believe it. Check out this trailer... or at least the first three to seven seconds of it:




While I don't care about MLB The Show 22 or have any idea who Shohei Ohtani even is, the relevant part in this trailer released around the same time as the Bungie announcement is that there is a Nintendo Switch snap... into a PlayStation logo, because it's developed by Sony San Diego Studios. Obviously a first-party development studio for Sony.

MLB The Show 22 Nintendo YouTube trailer Sony PlayStation Studios logo
Usually, Nintendo hides the logos of their competitors on their presences!


What I'm trying to say is that there is some very recent credibility when Bungie says that their game(s) can continue to be multi-platform. Of course, no one's saying Destiny 2 will be on the Switch or anything, but at least Bungie's old pals over at Microsoft get to benefit from the Xbox having it.

Speaking of Microsoft, this is obviously not a move specifically to counter Microsoft's announcement that they are acquiring Activision Blizzard two weeks ago. Sony didn't negotiate this whole deal in two weeks. It's been in the works for months! Besides, Bungie is a waaaaay smaller fish than Activision Blizzard. I mean, Bungie has one game. Activision Blizzard has a LOT more than that. (Destiny 2 used to be one of those games!)

Alright, maybe I'm being too mean about Bungie only having Destiny 2, because it's clear that Sony plans to use what talent hasn't already left Bungie to make their own development studio to inform their other studios on how to do Games-as-a-Service. (They outright said Bungie will support the other first-person PlayStation studios in developing “future live service titles”...) Does it still count as “creative freedom” when Hermen Hulst will come knocking and say that 60% of Bungie's developers need to be reallocated to work on other Sony Interactive Entertainment projects and away from Destiny 2 or whatever?

In other game acquisition news, The New York Times acquired that Wordle game that's all over social media (Twitter) for a low seven-figure sum. I just played Wordle for the first time ever for the purpose of this article, and I got it right on guess #4. (My guesses were Trust, Clout, Leapt... and then the answer, Light. I don't think I should feel bad about spoiling it because there'll be a new problem soon anyway.)


Wordle 226 4/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜🟨⬜⬜🟩
🟩⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

That's three figures less than what Sony paid for Bungie (let's say 3,600,000 versus 3,600,000,000), and as far as I can tell, more people play Wordle than Destiny 2. Sure, Wordle is free... but only for now! The New York Times will probably roll it into its New York Times Games subscription soon for $40 a year.



I don't think Sony needed to spend billions for some consultants on how to do Games-as-a-Service that will put their games on competitor platforms anyway! But, hey, this won't be their only acquisition, I'm sure. I just hope they don't buy out a game publisher I actually care about.


If you try to search for Destiny 2 content on KoopaTV.org, you won't find much, because no one on the staff cares about it. Unlike the acquisition two weeks ago, this isn't huge industry-changing news. Also, as someone who prides himself in the command of the English language, should Ludwig be a Wordle guy? Should KoopaTV revive its game development efforts because it seems like any game developer nowadays has a good chance of being bought out for massive sums by larger corporations, and that seems like a great way to make money quick? Let him know in the comments section.


Sony and Bungie aren't having the smoothest time completing the acquisition.

5 comments :

  1. Another small step closer to having to welcome our megacorp overlords...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I suppose I SHOULDN'T try to sell KoopaTV ownership from Koopa Kingdom property to some corporation.

      Delete

  2. Wordle 227 3/6

    🟨⬜⬜⬜🟨
    ⬜⬜🟩🟨🟩
    🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

    'kay I'll stop. >_>;

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wordle 231 5/6

      ⬜⬜🟨⬜🟩
      ⬜🟨⬜🟨🟩
      ⬜🟩🟨⬜🟩
      🟨🟩🟩🟨🟩
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      ;)

      Delete
    2. Wordle 231 5/6

      🟨🟨⬜⬜⬜
      ⬜🟨🟨⬜⬜
      🟩🟨🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩⬜🟨
      🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

      Delete

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