Sony Buying Bungie for $3.6 Billion
Published: Feb 1, 2022
As we are only a month deep into 2022, there are already all kinds of things happening in the gaming industry, not the kind you might expect. While there are all kinds of esports events kicking off their leagues and circuits where professional players compete for various trophies, we are not talking about those events; we are talking about corporate buyouts.
Sony strikes back!
In case you missed it, not long ago, Microsoft decided to dive into their deep pockets and simply buy out Activision and make them a part of their company. The Microsoft-Activision deal was nearly 70 billion dollars ($68.7 to be exact) in cash! Of course, this put Sony on thin ice, as it seemed that Microsoft was about to dominate the gaming industry, but as a comeback, Sony decided to buy Bungie.
Who is Bungie?
If you do a quick google search, you might think that this deal is crazy for Sony and that they have gained a lot from their contract. Bungie developed the original Halo and a couple of other Halo games. They also created Destiny, “This deal is a steal, ” which you might be thinking.
While Bungie is indeed a developer of Halo, one of the best games to try out your esports betting skills in 2022, there is a small catch why the deal is not as great as it seems. For starters, when Bungie separated themselves from Microsoft back in 2007, they did not keep Halo as their intellectual property. Instead, they moved on as an independent studio, and in 2010 they agreed with Activision to publish their games.
In 2013, they developed Destiny, which was such a success that they developed Destiny 2 in 2017, which was an even more considerable success. As the partnership with Activision was over in 2019, they decided to be independent and publish Destiny 2 on their own until Sony acquired them on January 31st, 2022.
What is Sony gaining with this?
Bungie is a fantastic studio, they are good at making games, but they are not bringing much to the table. Destiny 2 is still quite a played game. In the last 30 days, it had over 50,000 concurrent players on Steam. Those numbers alone are impressive, and when other launchers and China are considered, the numbers are much more significant.
Bungie is joining PlayStation.
Here’s what to expect from this exciting news: https://t.co/s1L3PhQ9vK pic.twitter.com/0R1qhnEDKk
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) January 31, 2022
Is Destiny going to be a PlayStation exclusive now?
Here is the part where we do not understand why Sony decided to spend that much on Bungie. Since it is technically their only IP, Sony will have to do whatever they can to get back the funds they spent, which means that making it an exclusive for the PlayStation 4 and 5 would be an absolutely crazy thing to do.
With that said, Destiny will be available on all the platforms as it was until now, and future developments for the game will be available on all systems. This is something that the developer is strongly supporting, so there is no need to worry about transferring to PlayStation…at least not any time soon.
