Sony invests $250m in Epic Games to acquire a minority stake

[mutantsushi]

This "OMG Sony will keep UE from MS" stuff is funny, like Sony running PSN on MS' Azure didn't already happen.
Fanboys aside, does anybody think Sony cares enough about MS to even bother? That's just not real threat to them.
UE is already successfully licenced to 3rd parties despite Epic's own games competing in market, that's just not real issue.
There's plenty of industries where one player even fully owns "tool maker" widely used in industry, e.g. Dassault (CATIA).
Or MS' own Word which was always available on their main "competitor", Apple/Macintosh, because everybody makes $.
Could be interesting if Sony's 1st party engines merge with UE, although that would be a good ways into the future likely.

I've always been saying Sony wants to get into crossplatform/PC like MS has, and teaming with existing player who is relatively
neutral with good 3rd party relations is solid way to do so, rather than trying to start own PC store from scratch and so forth.
Somebody said they didn't think much of Epic Store besides their free games, but I think consumers can miss business side of things.
Epic Store seems to have great developer/publisher relations, and that is really what matters for building store/distribution business.
It just makes sense for Sony to partner with 3rd party with inertia like Epic, than try to build own thing from scratch (look at history).

If there a full tie-up with Epic in the future, I don't see it in form of "buying" Epic which is currently %20 of Sony,
and buying it off the hands of the VCs invested in Epic would come at purchase premium, so vastly more likely would be
at least partial merger with Sony contributing assets possibly including it's entire Playstation business, which could also bring
cash (from VCs cashing out, if only partially) to re-invest in their other business lines (HW) that could use the investment funds.
Sony's position with PSVR also seems aligned with Epic and driving that forward could also be major route of synergy with Epic.
Extending Epic Store platform in other areas, to include film/TV streaming as well as "chat" and so forth, also holds promise.
(btw, interesting that Disney also has a stake in Epic, probably more than Sony's current investment although unclear being private)