How Sony's Bungie Buy Fits Into Its Larger PlayStation Plans

ign.com:

January couldn’t end with at least one more massive gaming acquisition it seems. Just a few short weeks after Xbox’s industry-shaking announcement of its plans to acquire Activision Blizzard, Sony has announced its decision to purchase Destiny developer Bungie; not as massive, but nonetheless monumental.

Immediately after the news, there was a lot of chatter framing it as an immediate, knee-jerk counter to Xbox, as if the two publishing giants were playing a game of tennis. Instead, I see Sony’s acquisition of Bungie as a clear encapsulation of Sony’s ambitions for the PlayStation brand we have seen over the last few years, and will likely only continue to see as the years progress.

Before Bungie, Sony’s biggest acquisition was, arguably, bringing Insomniac Games in-house in 2019. But there have been less prolific moves made that speak to a bigger plan, and we can sort them into a few different buckets. Firstly, Sony has been concentrating on sealing the deal with studios it has a long history with to guarantee a steady stream of exclusives, like Insomniac, but more recently Returnal devs Housemarque, the makers of the Demon’s Souls remake, Bluepoint Games, and Firesprite, a studio founded by former Studio Liverpool leads that is already proving to be a big PSVR asset. These purchases are key to assuaging any fan’s concerns: even as PlayStation moves into new spaces, it is by no means giving up on the cinematic and action-focused exclusives that have come to define it.

Secondly, it’s focusing on deals with teams that can help bolster and support PlayStation’s brand both on and off PlayStation platforms, like Nixxes Software and Valkyrie Entertainment. Nixxes is well known for its PC porting prowess (the Tomb Raider and