So What Changes With Sony’s Acquisition Of Bungie Finalized? Nothing, Allegedly

Games So What Changes With Sony’s Acquisition Of Bungie Finalized? Nothing, Allegedly Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. New! Follow this author to improve your content experience.

Got it! Jul 16, 2022, 09:43am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin The deal Sony Yesterday, Bungie officially joined the Sony family, which if you told me that in the Halo 1-3 era, I would have said you were insane. But these are different times, and Bungie has been on a wild ride over the past decade or so: They left Microsoft to enter into a 10 year deal with Activision for Destiny, leaving the Halo IP behind. They left that deal early, retaining the Destiny IP but becoming fully independent.

They’ve continued to grow Destiny into one of the largest, most consistent live service games on the market, and were eventually picked up by Sony for $3. 6 billion. The unique part about this deal is what is not changing after this acquisition.

We seem to be entering a new era where just because a major console manufacturer is scooping up a big publisher and a lot of IPs, that does not necessarily mean console exclusives are in the cards. So for instance, while Microsoft is making all its Bethesda games exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem after its $7 billion purchase, they have promised to not do that with a number of high profile Activision series after its $68 billion, regulatory interest-attracting purchase there, saying that existing franchises like Call of Duty and Overwatch would remain multiplatform, as to not disturb those existing communities. But the Bungie/Sony deal seems to have resulted in the best terms of all.

Not only is Destiny staying multiplatform and not becoming a Sony exclusive, but Bungie has said it will remain independently operated and be able to release its future new games and IPs multiplatform as well. Recommended For You 1 ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date More stories like this Fewer stories like this 2 Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director More stories like this Fewer stories like this 3 ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry More stories like this Fewer stories like this Destiny Bungie If you’ve been a Destiny player long enough, you may be wondering if there are some catches buried in here. One common idea is the fact that even if Destiny remains multiplatform, Bungie will go back to developing exclusive content for PlayStation players, which in the past included unique exotics, strikes, Crucible maps and armor, some of which made it to Xbox after a timegate, some of which never came over.

That is…also not happening. Bungie has said explicitly multiple times that it is not going down this path again. Nor have we even heard about any bonuses that could perhaps be less controversial, like Tier 3 PS Plus gets you the latest season of Destiny or something.

If that is happening, nothing like that has been announced. The purpose of these deal has always seemed to mainly be the following: Bungie will get a whole bunch of resources from Sony, that right now, seems to be mainly focused on hiring an absolutely ton of staff to support not only their existing Destiny team, but all their new incubation games they’re working on, which seem to include a Destiny mobile game and a new, non-Destiny 2 Destiny game, in addition to a non-Destiny IP somewhere in there. Sony will not just be earning profits from Destiny players (on all platforms), but their main goal is to get Bungie to help train their litany of single-player focused teams on how to make live games, where Sony has allegedly a dozen live projects planned in the next few years.

Some we know about, like The Last of Us 2 Factions, others remain a mystery. While I doubt Bungie will devote tons of manpower to working on those Sony games directly, they’re meant to be in an advisory role. Then, a final bonus, given that Sony has TV and movie production, and Bungie is very much interested in taking Destiny past games.

The most recent rumor is that an animated series is in the works, and Sony now owns a massive animated streaming service in the form of Crunchyroll. So no, this deal is not about PlayStation exclusive Destiny strikes. It’s a lot, lot more than that, and hopefully should only benefit, not disrupt Destiny players on all platforms.

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