Sony buys Bungie in shock $3.6 billion deal

Another day, another industry-shattering gaming acquisition. Just weeks after Microsoft announced its intent to purchase Activision Blizzard, Sony has now announced that it’s acquiring Bungie, the studio behind Destiny and Destiny 2. This is an interesting deal for several reasons, but the biggest is that it appears Bungie will retain a higher degree of independence than most acquired studios do. Destiny 2 fans playing on Xbox can breathe a sigh of relief, too, as it seems the game won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

PlayStation/Bungie

While neither Bungie nor Sony revealed specifics about the acquisition, GamesIndustry.biz reports that Sony is paying $3.6 billion for Bungie. The acquisition was announced in three different places, with Bungie announcing the deal on its blog and Sony announcing it with messages from both PlayStation boss Jim Ryan and PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst.

In his message, Ryan characterized the acquisition as a “strategic step” for PlayStation while saying that Bungie will retain its independence. “Bungie’s successful track record in multi-format publishing and live game services will assist us in realizing our ambitions to take PlayStation beyond the console and increase our potential audience,” Ryan said. “They will remain independent and multi-platform, will enjoy creative freedom, and their track record in developing massively successful franchises in the sci-fi shooter genre will be highly complementary to SIE’s own IP portfolio.”

In its own blog post, Bungie reiterated that point about remaining independent. “We remain in charge of our destiny. We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,” the studio wrote. “We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.”

That doesn’t mean that Sony and Bungie will act as wholly separate entities after the acquisition is complete. Bungie says that in the immediate future, having Sony write the checks means that it can hire more people, so presumably, that means Destiny 2 will be better supported in the future. It also opens the possibility of Bungie working on new games as it continues to build out Destiny 2.

For now, we know that Destiny 2 will continue to be multi-platform, so that’s probably a relief for everyone who plays it on non-PlayStation platforms. It’ll be interesting to see how Bungie retaining its independence plays into future releases from the studio because for now, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot that’s changing at Bungie HQ. We’ll let you know when both companies share more, so stay tuned.