What you need to know
- Sony is buying Bungie for $3.6 billion.
- When the deal closes, Bungie will be an "independent subsidiary" of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
- Bungie will remain a multiplatform studio.
Sony is acquiring Bungie for PlayStation Studios. The news broke on Monday, with Sony's stock trading halted minutes beforehand.
"We've had a strong partnership with Bungie since the inception of the Destiny franchise, and I couldn't be more thrilled to officially welcome the studio to the PlayStation family," said SIE president and CEO Jim Ryan, speaking with GamesIndustry.biz.
Bungie has a long history in the gaming industry, starting iconic franchises such as Halo and Destiny, the former of which is owned by Microsoft and currently managed by Xbox developer 343 Industries.
"Bungie create community-driven games with outstanding technology that are enormous fun to play, and I know that everyone at PlayStation Studios will be excited about what we can share and learn together," said Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios.
Ryan and Hulst added further that the acquisition of Bungie will aid PlayStation Studios in developing live-service games, while emphasizing that Bungie will retain its creative freedom. Bungie even retains the option to self-publish its games moving forward.
The video game industry is the midst of a consolidation phase, with Microsoft recently announcing its plan to buy publisher Activision Blizzard for almost $69 billion. Microsoft previously acquired Bethesda Softworks parent company ZeniMax Media for $7.5 billion, while Sony previously acquired multiple new studios in 2021, such as Firesprite, Nixxes and Bluepoint Games.
Easy to stock up
PlayStation gift cards are an easy way to grab currency for games, add-ons, themes, and more on the PlayStation Store. It's also perfect for grabbing some PS5 games, even if you don't have the console yet.
