Sony snaps up ‘Halo’ and ‘Destiny’ creator Bungie for $3.6B

techcrunch.com:

Bungie, the studio responsible for the creation of Halo and Destiny, two of the gaming world’s biggest franchises, has been acquired by Sony. It’s part of a consolidation and turf war being waged as the next generation of gaming (and the metaverse, whatever that is) builds up steam.

The news was announced by both companies Monday morning (with industry sleuth Jason Schreier reporting early) and the deal valued at $3.6 billion. That may be just a fraction of Microsoft’s recent $60B Activision Blizzard acquisition, but Bungie is no less a legend in gaming.

Beginning as a Mac-focused studio in the ’90s with forgotten classic FPS Pathways Into Darkness and the influential Marathon, Bungie threatened to change the balance in power in the gaming world with Halo, which was intended to serve as the moment Apple took gaming seriously. Even Steve Jobs got in on the hype.

But then Microsoft announced it was buying Bungie and making Halo an exclusive to its new Xbox console — seemingly disappointing Apple so hard the company gave up on gaming entirely until it struck gold with the App Store.

Halo grew to become one of the Xbox’s flagship franchises, but after a few sequels Bungie was spun out into an independent company, to pursue original IPs while Microsoft retained the Halo brand. In 2013 the independent Bungie revealed Destiny, which became a huge hit, and in 2017 its sequel made its debut and is still active.

Bungie continued to be associated with its longtime publisher Activision back in 2019, even further freeing up the company to… be acquired. Seems it was going to happen either way, so might as well do it on your own terms.

Bungie takes back its Destiny and departs from Activision

The acquisition is a clear land grab by Sony as