Nearly six months after its official announcement, Sony Interactive Entertainment, PlayStation’s parent company, has finally completed its acquisition of Bungie, the developer behind the Destiny series. The acquisition was revealed in a press release on January 31, with Bungie now officially part of the PlayStation family, although only as an independent subsidiary and multiplatform publisher.
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
Sony’s announcement of the acquisition was seen by many as an attempt to stay competitive with its main competitor in the gaming space, Microsoft. Just days before the Sony-Bungie reveal, Microsoft made headlines as it set a record deal in the industry by buying off Activision-Blizzard, the troubled publisher best known for the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises. At the time of writing, the agreement on the Microsoft and Activision-Blizzard deal has not yet been sealed, although that can be attributed to its overwhelming financial girth; Microsoft will buy Activision Blizzard for a whopping $68.7 billion. Several lawmakers have called it into question, with some bringing up antitrust laws that can hinder the sale.
If certain reports are to be believed, however, Microsoft’s record-setting deal will be finalized soon. Microsoft is only waiting on the FTC’s approval, and if the governing body does not ask for additional information, the deal will be finalized.
That said, Sony’s acquisition of Bungie may not be the exclusive-pumping deal expected by many of the platform’s most vocal fans. Bungie has reiterated via its FAQ released for the exclusive deal that the publisher will remain a “self-published, creatively independent” studio, with future games in development not becoming PlayStation Exclusives. It will be interesting to see if Bungie upholds these ideals as the deal is now sealed and if we will continue to see multiplatform games from the team outside of Destiny 2.
On the other side of the pond, Microsoft stated that “Call of Duty and other popular Activision Blizzard titles available on PlayStation through the term of any existing agreement with Activision.” This comes after the company was questioned extensively on the status of the highly popular first-person shooters; for the most part, Call of Duty remains one of the highest-selling games on PlayStation, and it will be a significant loss if Microsoft decides to make the next games in the series exclusive to Xbox and PC.
