Does Sony have a long-term software strategy? | Opinion
In all the furore over Microsoft's record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it's almost been possible to forget that Sony recently had a major acquisition of its own – a far cry from the scale of the Activision deal, certainly, and not even a match for the price tag of Microsoft's earlier Zenimax acquisition, but Sony's $3.6 billion buyout of Bungie was a big step for the company nonetheless.
The acquisition strategy that has built up Sony's studio system had been a relatively cautious process of accretion for the most part. Studios like Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Guerrilla Games were bought out after years of working increasingly closely with Sony, effectively functioning as Sony "second-party" developers for a while before being brought in-house as first-party studios.
The Bungie deal was a departure from that strategy. While PlayStation was a major platform for Destiny and Destiny 2, Bungie acts as a multi-platform publisher of its own games, a status that was promised to continue even after the expensive acquisition was completed.
At the time of the deal, back at the start of 2022, this looked like a fairly major evolution of Sony's software strategy – which had also recently begun to embrace non-PlayStation platforms, with well-received PC releases of major first-party titles. Bungie would bring that a step further, while also bringing live service expertise that would develop this side of the business for Sony as a whole.
Meanwhile, from Bungie's side of things, the focus was on independence and growth; the studio's autonomy would survive the acquisition, while the resulting injection of capital would enable it to grow and achieve its plans much more rapidly.
Nearly two years on, a
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