First Microsoft buys Activision Blizzard, now Sony buys Bungie. The battle of the giants goes into the next round. Will Destiny soon be PS-exclusive?
We already reported on what was probably the biggest deal in the history of gaming, when Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard for an incredible $70 billion. As a reaction to this, the next deal followed out of nowhere, although not quite as huge. Sony announced its intention to acquire the developer Bungie. Now that a few months have passed, Sony's acquisition of Bungie is finally complete. What are the implications of this deal, and what does it mean to PlayStation and Xbox? Let's take a look at what we know so far.
Sony Takes Over Bungie for $3.7 Billion
Sony has just announced that the acquisition of Bungie is officially complete. At a measly $3.7 billion, Bungie is significantly cheaper than Activision Blizzard, but that's no surprise since Activision is a publisher with multiple studios and franchises, while Bungie is 'just' one development studio. Here's the deal announcement:
The agreement to acquire Bungie has closed. So now we can officially say... welcome to the PlayStation family, @Bungie! pic.twitter.com/x5jVmelaxl
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) July 15, 2022
Most gamers will know Bungie for the first Halo games before they handed over development to 343 Industries and started a new success story with Destiny. Bungie has always been known for delivering extremely good shooter gameplay, especially on consoles – after all, that's what made Halo so popular in the beginning and keeps Destiny alive today. In addition, the studio works closely with their community, listens to suggestions, and lovingly cares for their titles even after years.
Will Destiny Be PlayStation-Exclusive?
After the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, one of the most important questions was whether Call of Duty would become Xbox-exclusive. This would mean that PlayStation could lose their most successful shooter franchise, as CoD has a huge PS community. Even though it has already been confirmed that CoD will continue to be released on PlayStation, Sony's purchase of Bungie now secures a studio that would be able to deliver an excellent CoD shooter replacement for PlayStation.
But to get back to whether Destiny or other Bungie titles will be PS-exclusive in the future: No. Bungie wrote the following on their blog post about the acquisition:
We remain in charge of our destiny. We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games. We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.With SIE's support, the most immediate change you will see is an acceleration in hiring talent across the entire studio to support our ambitious vision. If this speaks to you, and you want to help us put a dent in the universe, we are hiring across all disciplines for Destiny 2 and for all new worlds beyond.
As with Microsoft and Activision, Bungie will remain independent for the time being and will continue to publish its games for all platforms. We are definitely curious to see what the kings of console shooters will conjure up on our screens in the future with Sony's support. In the quote above, they already mention that they are hiring for Destiny, but also for "all new worlds beyond". That sounds like a new IP, doesn't it?