Sony to Acquire Bungie for $3.6 Billion

In a clear warning to Microsoft, Sony announced Monday that it would acquire Bungie, the game studio that created Halo and Destiny, for $3.6 billion.

“Today I am happy to announce Bungie will be joining the PlayStation family,” Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan writes in the announcement post. “We are incredibly excited about the opportunities for synergies and collaboration between Bungie and the PlayStation Studios organization.”

Bungie was founded in 1990 and it experience modest success that decade with the Marathon and Myth titles. But the Halo franchise catapulted the studio to fame and fortune, with Microsoft acquiring the firm in 2000 so that Halo would be (mostly) exclusive to Xbox. After a string of successful Halo sequels, Microsoft spun off Bungie, making it independent again. But Halo remained with Microsoft, forcing Bungie to create a new, and very Halo-like, new series called Destiny that never quite reached the lofty peaks of its predecessor.

Why Bungie might be open to yet another acquisition is clear enough: it clearly needs (or at least wants) the money.

But Sony’s desire to own Bungie is curious. It’s a one-megahit-wonder whose one megahit is owned by Microsoft. And Sony, in that warning to Microsoft, with regards to the software giant’s planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard, is pledging to keep Bungie independent and multi-platform, meaning that future games will not be exclusive to PlayStation.

Maybe that’s the answer. Sony hints that this acquisition is part of a new strategy to expand its audience, and it matches neatly to my notion that console exclusivity is on the way out as we move to a multi-platform, cloud-based gaming world.

“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,” Ryan adds. “Bungie is a great innovator and has developed incredible proprietary tools that will help PlayStation Studios achieve new heights under Hermen Hulst’s leadership.”

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Conversation 22 comments

  • Triakis

    01 February, 2022 - 9:00 am

    <p><br></p>

  • yoshi

    Premium Member
    01 February, 2022 - 9:08 am

    <p>I can’t wait to live in a world where I don’t need to buy two consoles to play all the games I want to play.</p>

    • LT1 Z51

      Premium Member
      01 February, 2022 - 9:20 am

      <p>Well if you want to play certain Nintendo titles you’ll still need two.</p><p><br></p><p>Generally, I never got all three I bought Nintendo and then the one of the generation I thought was better. So PS2 over OG Xbox, 360 over PS3, One over PS4, Series over PS5. Final Fantasy coming to Xbox with 360 made me switch (was the only reason I had a PS2 and it could play PS1 cause I skipped that).</p><p><br></p><p>Strangely, I didn’t buy a Switch, maybe the Switch "2" I’ll buy. I’m still burned about buying a WiiU (which is what I play Breath of the Wild on).</p>

    • thretosix

      01 February, 2022 - 1:31 pm

      <p>Well thanks to Sony and Microsoft it won’t be 20.</p>

    • stimshady

      01 February, 2022 - 2:52 pm

      <p>will never happen. years ago we had sega mega drive and nintendos… sonic &amp; mario… different consoles, different games. </p>

  • Chris_Kez

    Premium Member
    01 February, 2022 - 9:39 am

    <p>While not the cornerstone franchise that Halo is, Bungie’s Destiny is a pretty big title, no? I’m not a gamer myself, but I’ve heard of Destiny quite a bit the last few years and I think a new one is coming. This might be Sony’s bid for a big multi-platform franchise.</p>

    • rm

      01 February, 2022 - 10:11 am

      <p>I liked the original Destiny until I found out that paying for the game didn’t get you the whole game. All of the story lines required you to purchase DLCs to complete them. Then Destiny 2 was released with micro-transactions for pay to win and issues with loot drops. I have never purchased or will purchase Destiny 2. Maybe someday they will get it right and I will buy a future game.</p>

      • jaime.morris

        01 February, 2022 - 3:46 pm

        <p>Destiny 2 was never pay to win. Most games nowadays have dlc that you’d have to purchase to continue the story. Warcraft does the same thing. </p>

  • nine54

    Premium Member
    01 February, 2022 - 10:41 am

    <p>Interesting, but this in no way compares to Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. If Sony really wanted to "retaliate," it would attempt to buy EA or something of that scale. </p>

    • toukale

      01 February, 2022 - 10:45 am

      <p>This is all about "COD."</p>

    • jgraebner

      Premium Member
      01 February, 2022 - 3:08 pm

      <p>There is no way that this is a reaction to the Activision/Blizzard purchase. This size deal had to be in the works for more than just 2 weeks.</p>

  • MoopMeep

    01 February, 2022 - 11:06 am

    <p>Bethesda for 7.5 billion seems like a pretty good deal now… Personally I like them better than Activision too.</p><p><br></p>

  • bluvg

    01 February, 2022 - 11:41 am

    <p>So unrealistic… someone teach those aliens how to hold trombones and trumpets.</p>

  • Donte

    01 February, 2022 - 1:25 pm

    <p>Why????? They have one game right now that is old and on the down. Maybe they will release a new shooter for Sony….</p><p><br></p><p>Resistance Fall of Sony!!</p>

    • christianwilson

      Premium Member
      01 February, 2022 - 3:02 pm

      <p>Sony’s strength in recent years has been in high quality single player experiences. Do they have anything that competes with persistent games like Minecraft, Fortnite, Roblox, Apex Legends, or an MMO like World of Warcraft? Destiny 2 slots into Sony’s portfolio as an answer to those games and it is still plenty popular. It has the potential to get a lot bigger with Sony’s resources and opens the door to Destiny becoming a multimedia franchise. </p><p><br></p><p>I have seen a lot of criticism about this acquisition but it seems like a good fit for everyone involved.</p>

  • sykeward

    01 February, 2022 - 2:15 pm

    <p>Watching Sony and MS snapping up hardware studios left and right makes me think we could one day see a console market that achieves what 3DO attempted in the early 90’s: A unified console hardware spec that companies built their own branded hardware to and was compatible with all 3DO games. It feels more possible now than it has before, at least to me: The Xbox and PlayStation have been on similar hardware for 2 generations now (3 if you count half-steps like PS4 Pro/Xbox One X), but both MS and increasingly Sony are building towards hardware-independent services as the long-term drivers for profits in gaming while acknowledging the necessity of having capable console devices in homes. AMD has successfully produced several iterations of hardware well-tailored for this space and is poised to continue. Using the same hardware platform would help drop hardware costs for both Sony and MS while allowing them to continue to offer backwards-compatibility in a way that’s easy to maintain. Finally, the main hurdle for 3DO was the lack of software royalties that hardware makers could use to offset hardware losses, and that isn’t a problem now. I know it’s probably a pipe dream, but I’d love to have a single console with Uncharted AND Halo, Forza AND Gran Turismo, where the main choice is cosmetic hardware design and my preferred controller type.</p>

    • christianwilson

      Premium Member
      01 February, 2022 - 2:52 pm

      <p>Sony and Microsoft are gearing up for a streaming future. Your smart TV will become that one device that can play everything. Instead of it being an open market where you play the game you want on the device you want, you’ll be subscribing to the service(s) that has the games you want.</p>

  • slerched

    Premium Member
    01 February, 2022 - 3:00 pm

    <p>Don’t care.</p><p><br></p><p>Bungie is a one hit wonder and Destiny isn’t that hit.</p><p>Activision is just about COD and MS is WAY overpaying.</p><p><br></p><p>If MS goes back to plumb Activision’s coffers for content that other, better studios can develop then maybe it’ll be a win.</p><p><br></p><p>Does Activision itself even develop anything anymore? Pretty sure all development is done by the companies they purchased.</p>

  • mikegalos

    01 February, 2022 - 3:05 pm

    <p>It isn’t a warning to Microsoft. It’s a sop to frightened shareholders. </p>

  • thedeuce01

    01 February, 2022 - 4:42 pm

    <p>Both my boys spend way too many hours per week playing Destiny on Xbox and all of their friends have dropped COD and the like and moved to Destiny. It may not be as big as COD, and my experience is purely anecdotal, but I bet the growth over the last 6 months has been quite large. </p>

  • scovious

    01 February, 2022 - 5:04 pm

    <p>I’m very pleased to see old-guard gaming companies taking hold of quality studios rather than see them snapped up by companies who know nothing about gaming like Tencent, Facebook, Google, Amazon or god forbid disappear behind Apple’s walled garden. I like that Sony might be showing a change in strategy toward a more multiplatform future, but it’s hard to know if it’s an actual pivot in strategy or if this is Bungie’s unique ability to demand their own freedom just because of how badly Sony needed experts in multiplayer, matchmaking and live service games.</p>

  • sharpsone

    01 February, 2022 - 8:21 pm

    <p>Let them have Bungie it’s pretty much a studio of former glory. They lost Halo and lost gamers in the process. Destiny 1 was okay but I quickly lost interest. This seems like an act of despair by Bungie and most of all Sony. </p>

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