Big video game companies just can’t stop buying studios

theverge.com:

Sony just announced its intent to acquire Destiny maker Bungie for $3.6 billion, capping what’s been an absolutely massive month for gaming acquisitions. Take-Two kicked things off with its deal to buy Zynga for $12.7 billion, which at the time may have counted as the biggest deal in the video game industry, but Microsoft significantly one-upped that just a week later with its $68.7 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard. The total value of all three acquisitions, assuming they all go through, is a staggering $85 billion.

With Bungie, Sony will house the talent behind the hugely popular Destiny 2, and it seems likely the company will use Bungie’s expertise to help create similarly expansive and long-running live service titles. Sony is renowned for its expensive single-player games like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, but it doesn’t have its own take on Fortnite or Destiny that’s updated regularly over the course of many years to keep players coming back.

While PlayStation boss Jim Ryan said in an interview with Gamesindustry.biz that the Bungie deal wasn’t a response to the big acquisitions already announced in 2022, it’s hard to look at Sony’s recent purchases as anything but an attempt to keep up with a tidal wave of consolidation in the industry. Just in 2021, Sony acquired PC port developer Nixxes Software, Returnal developer Housemarque, The Playroom maker Firesprite Studios, PlayStation remake / remaster experts Bluepoint Games, and God of War support studio Valkyrie Entertainment.

Microsoft has also been on a buying spree, acquiring ZeniMax Media / Bethesda Softworks in 2021, Psychonauts 2 developer Double Fine Productions in 2019, and announcing a five-studio