Sony acquires 'Destiny' game studio Bungie in $3.6 billion deal

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2022
Bungie, the veteran game studio that created the "Destiny" and "Halo" franchises, is being acquired by Playstation producer Sony for in a deal worth $3.6 billion, in a deal that continues the consolidation of the games industry.




Announced on Monday, Sony Interactive Entertainment has agreed to purchase Bungie. The $3.6 billion deal, which includes the purchase price and employee incentives, will bring the "Destiny" studio under Sony's control.

The Bellevue, WA-based Bungie will continue to operate as an independent studio after the deal's closure, and will still be able to self-publish titles. Despite Sony having its own PlayStation platform, Bungie won't be prevented from publishing onto others, such as Microsoft's Xbox.

"First off, I want to be very clear to the community that Bungie will remain an independent and multi-platform studio and publisher," writes SIE President and CEO Jim Ryan. "As such we believe it makes sense for it to sit alongside the PlayStation Studios organization, and we are incredibly excited about the opportunities for synergies and collaboration between these two world-class groups."

"In SIE, we have found a partner that fully supports us and wants to accelerate our vision of creating meaningful entertainment experiences that span generations, all while valuing the creative independence that is the heartbeat of Bungie," said Bungie CEO and Chairman Pete Parsons.

The acquisition still faces regulatory approval and other conditions before it will fully close.

The announcement arrives during a period of consolidation for the games industry, with several high-profile acquisitions currently underway.

Bungie is best known for kicking off the "Halo" and "Destiny" franchises, but it has a long history with macOS as well. The company started with "Gnop," "Minotaur," "Operation Desert Storm," and "Pathways Into Darkness" before launching the Mac-gamer favorite "Marathon" series and "Myth." And, the company initially showed off "Halo" on a Mac at a WWDC.

On January 10, Take-Two Interactive said it was in the process of acquiring mobile gaming giant Zynga in a $12.7 billion deal. Later in the month, on January 18, Microsoft said it had agreed to purchase Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, a move that will make it the third-largest gaming company by revenue in the world.

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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 22
    JinTechJinTech Posts: 1,022member
    Wow. How far this company has come.
    9secondkox2watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 22
    BeatsBeats Posts: 3,073member
    Halo was Steve Jobs’ idea and was supposed to kick off a new generation of Mac gaming.
    9secondkox2
  • Reply 3 of 22
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Beats said:
    Halo was Steve Jobs’ idea and was supposed to kick off a new generation of Mac gaming.
    Nonsense.  Steve Jobs had nothing to do with making Halo.
    neoncat9secondkox2fastasleep
  • Reply 4 of 22
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Seems like it might be a panic purchase in response to Bethesda/Activision.  Not sure what Sony stand to gain from buying Bungie, aside from keeping Bungie out of Microsoft's pockets.
    9secondkox2
  • Reply 5 of 22
    crowley said:
    Seems like it might be a panic purchase in response to Bethesda/Activision.  Not sure what Sony stand to gain from buying Bungie, aside from keeping Bungie out of Microsoft's pockets.
    Microsoft used to own Bungie.  I think they got what they needed from them in the early days
    9secondkox2watto_cobra
  • Reply 6 of 22
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    crowley said:
    Seems like it might be a panic purchase in response to Bethesda/Activision.  Not sure what Sony stand to gain from buying Bungie, aside from keeping Bungie out of Microsoft's pockets.
    Microsoft used to own Bungie.  I think they got what they needed from them in the early days
    Exactly.  Not apparent why this is a good move.  Not that Bungie are bad, I'm Sony will get some return out of them, but if it's value add for PlayStation that they want then this doesn't make much sense.
    9secondkox2watto_cobra
  • Reply 7 of 22
    crowley said:
    Beats said:
    Halo was Steve Jobs’ idea and was supposed to kick off a new generation of Mac gaming.
    Nonsense.  Steve Jobs had nothing to do with making Halo.
    I dunno how much Steve Jobs had to do with it, but the original version of halo was meant to be more of a strategy game like halo wars and it absolutely started its life as a Mac game. At some point in development they got approached by Microsoft to make it an Xbox exclusive leading up to the consoles launch. Eventually we got the games they made and Microsoft bought out the IP for halo. 

    I personally can’t imagine Jobs being involved at all though, I doubt he took games very seriously in general. But it’s not impossible at least, since it was 100% a Mac game first. So nonsense is a bit extreme. 
    williamlondonBeatsdanoxCluntBaby92watto_cobra
  • Reply 8 of 22
    crowley said:
    Seems like it might be a panic purchase in response to Bethesda/Activision.  Not sure what Sony stand to gain from buying Bungie, aside from keeping Bungie out of Microsoft's pockets.
    My guess is that it involves a substantial future revenue stream first and "synergy" second. Blockbuster AAA games can be incredibly profitable, and every game Bungie rolls out will be an event. This isn't rocket science.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 22
    jcs2305jcs2305 Posts: 1,336member
    crowley said:
    Seems like it might be a panic purchase in response to Bethesda/Activision.  Not sure what Sony stand to gain from buying Bungie, aside from keeping Bungie out of Microsoft's pockets.
    My guess is that it involves a substantial future revenue stream first and "synergy" second. Blockbuster AAA games can be incredibly profitable, and every game Bungie rolls out will be an event. This isn't rocket science.
    Destiny 2 still makes a ton of money.


    Jim Ryan, the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, said in a post on the PlayStation Blog. “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,” he said.

    Sony has been rumored to be launching an online game service similar to XBox's game pass.. Bungie can also help with that.





    9secondkox2watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 22
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    crowley said:
    Beats said:
    Halo was Steve Jobs’ idea and was supposed to kick off a new generation of Mac gaming.
    Nonsense.  Steve Jobs had nothing to do with making Halo.
    I dunno how much Steve Jobs had to do with it, but the original version of halo was meant to be more of a strategy game like halo wars and it absolutely started its life as a Mac game. At some point in development they got approached by Microsoft to make it an Xbox exclusive leading up to the consoles launch. Eventually we got the games they made and Microsoft bought out the IP for halo. 

    I personally can’t imagine Jobs being involved at all though, I doubt he took games very seriously in general. But it’s not impossible at least, since it was 100% a Mac game first. So nonsense is a bit extreme. 
    Its origins as an RTS developed on the Mac are pretty irrelevant, they were so early on and didn't have much relation to the end product.  By the time it was being previewed and recognisable as the game that actually came out it was a third person action game, and not Mac exclusive, it was announced for PC and Mac.  But Steve Jobs had nothing to do with its inception in either form.  That's not even a rumour.  Beats has form for making these kinds of inventions, they continue to claim that Apple invented podcasts in spite of many people pointing out the inaccuracy.  I don't know why they do it, Apple and Steve Jobs have invented plenty of cool stuff without any need to make stuff up.

    Maybe just a pathological liar?
    edited January 2022 muthuk_vanalingamfastasleepwatto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 22
    Great news. Bungie benefits and gamers benefit.

    Bungie is an insanely great developer these days. Perhaps the single best house on the market.

    Great buy. 
    edited January 2022 watto_cobra
  • Reply 12 of 22
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,847member
    Great news. Bungie benefits and gamers benefit.

    Bungie is an insanely great developer these days. Perhaps the single best house on the market.

    Great buy. 
    Hardly, nothing but crap will come out of it….The state of gaming is the same as Music, Movies, and TV most of it bad……game play has died, picking your kids allowance ie…the parents credit card is the only thing happening these days…..
    williamlondonBeatswatto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 22
    entropysentropys Posts: 4,166member
    Bungie was always a great developer. Until it was bought by Microsoft to produce Xbox exclusives it was a Mac house.
    It started with Minatour, myth and marathon, a game so superior to its closest competitor on windows (Doom) it wasn’t funny. Many a lunch  time at the Mac based workplace I was in in the early nineties were happily spent in Marathon killing my coworkers over the network.
    the jobs reference I suppose happened because he featured a Mac only beta of Bungie’s next game, Halo.
    The original MS Xbox developers must have seen the demo and went and bought Bungie, and we didn’t get  halo on the Mac.

    this is of course, needs to happen for Apple Arcade to be taken seriously. It needs a must play “Halo” game to drive traffic.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 22
    danox said:
    Great news. Bungie benefits and gamers benefit.

    Bungie is an insanely great developer these days. Perhaps the single best house on the market.

    Great buy. 
    Hardly, nothing but crap will come out of it….The state of gaming is the same as Music, Movies, and TV most of it bad……game play has died, picking your kids allowance ie…the parents credit card is the only thing happening these days…..
    Really cannot agree with this.  Sony first party games like The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War have been some of the best games and story telling within games ever.  Bungie as part of the Sony stable is great news for them and gaming in general. 
    fastasleepwatto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 22
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,417member
    entropys said:

    The original MS Xbox developers must have seen the demo and went and bought Bungie, and we didn’t get  halo on the Mac.
    No, it came out first for Xbox but then was ported to PC and Mac later. I played it on my Powerbook in 2003.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 22
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    skingers said:
    danox said:
    Great news. Bungie benefits and gamers benefit.

    Bungie is an insanely great developer these days. Perhaps the single best house on the market.

    Great buy. 
    Hardly, nothing but crap will come out of it….The state of gaming is the same as Music, Movies, and TV most of it bad……game play has died, picking your kids allowance ie…the parents credit card is the only thing happening these days…..
    Really cannot agree with this.  Sony first party games like The Last of Us, Horizon Zero Dawn, and God of War have been some of the best games and story telling within games ever.  Bungie as part of the Sony stable is great news for them and gaming in general. 
    From reading more about this, it’s being framed as a technology purchase, that Sony want to invest big in “online, live service” games. That’s a very different prospect from the other first party games you mention, and not an area I’m interested in at all.  Could well be lucrative for Sony, but I don’t know that it’s good news for gaming.
    edited February 2022 watto_cobra
  • Reply 17 of 22
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,417member
    Great news. Bungie benefits and gamers benefit.

    Bungie is an insanely great developer these days. Perhaps the single best house on the market.

    Great buy. 
    Uh... they literally have one game currently, Destiny 2. I must assume you're a huge Destiny 2 fan, otherwise you'd have zero reason to say this. They're most certainly not the "single best house on the market" — that's insane.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 22
    entropys said:

    The original MS Xbox developers must have seen the demo and went and bought Bungie, and we didn’t get  halo on the Mac.
    No, it came out first for Xbox but then was ported to PC and Mac later. I played it on my Powerbook in 2003.
    Halo was presented at MacWorld 1998 as coming out for PC and Mac at the same time. Mac users went crazy at the time as this type of cooperative gameplay had never been seen before. Mac users were also pumped to see a AAA game like this coming out for Mac at the same time as PC. Then Microsoft bought Bungie and it became an Xbox exclusive. Below is the video Bungie presented at MacWorld in 1998.

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 22
    JWSCJWSC Posts: 1,203member
    jcs2305 said:
    crowley said:
    Seems like it might be a panic purchase in response to Bethesda/Activision.  Not sure what Sony stand to gain from buying Bungie, aside from keeping Bungie out of Microsoft's pockets.
    My guess is that it involves a substantial future revenue stream first and "synergy" second. Blockbuster AAA games can be incredibly profitable, and every game Bungie rolls out will be an event. This isn't rocket science.
    Destiny 2 still makes a ton of money.


    Jim Ryan, the president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, said in a post on the PlayStation Blog. “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,” he said.

    Sony has been rumored to be launching an online game service similar to XBox's game pass.. Bungie can also help with that.
    Xxx
    My son tells me that rerelease of Destiny 2 on his PS4 is almost unplayable it is so “laggy.”
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 22
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,417member
    entropys said:

    The original MS Xbox developers must have seen the demo and went and bought Bungie, and we didn’t get  halo on the Mac.
    No, it came out first for Xbox but then was ported to PC and Mac later. I played it on my Powerbook in 2003.
    Halo was presented at MacWorld 1998 as coming out for PC and Mac at the same time. Mac users went crazy at the time as this type of cooperative gameplay had never been seen before. Mac users were also pumped to see a AAA game like this coming out for Mac at the same time as PC. Then Microsoft bought Bungie and it became an Xbox exclusive. Below is the video Bungie presented at MacWorld in 1998.

    It was 1999, not 1998. And after it was released in 2001 for Xbox, it was released in 2003 for Mac and Windows. Not sure why you're telling me this.
    watto_cobra
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