Almost two weeks after Microsoft acquired gaming giant Activision Blizzard, Sony is reportedly in the midst of making its own mammoth purchase by adding Destiny studio Bungie to its PlayStation Studios roster.
BREAKING: Sony is buying Bungie, the maker of Destiny — another seismic gaming deal that comes just two weeks after Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard.
Bungie put Xbox on the map. Now it's part of PlayStation Studios. Filed to Bloomberg Terminal, hitting web soon
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 31, 2022
According to GamesIndustry.biz, Sony’s acquisition of Bungie comes with a whopping $3.6 billion price tag. While the acquisition could eventually mean that Bungie’s Destiny franchise will be exclusive to the PlayStation platform, it doesn’t seem like that will be the case any time soon. In a post on the PlayStation Blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) President and CEO Jim Ryan said that “Bungie will remain an independent and multiplatform studio and publisher.”
While Sony won’t be getting an exclusive franchise out of this acquisition, should it go through, the studio will be able to have any future releases from Bungie be platform-exclusive. It would be a massive change considering Bungie’s history with Xbox as the developer behind the Halo franchise before 343 Industries took the reins.
At Bungie, the news of the pending acquisition was met with positivity by CEO Pete Parsons, who called Sony Interactive Entertainment “a partner who unconditionally supports us in all we are and who wants to accelerate our vision to create generation-spanning entertainment, all while preserving the creative independence that beats in Bungie’s heart” in a blog post. Parsons went on to say that staff at the developer wouldn’t notice any changes except for some new faces in its offices. “With SIE’s Support,” Parsons wrote, “the most immediate change you will see is an acceleration in hiring talent across the entire studio to support our ambitious vision.”
Currently, Bungie is working on Destiny 2, with the game’s next expansion, The Witch Queen, set to release on February 22.
