| aTokenYeti said: They paid $3.6 billion for a studio with a single IP that brings in an absolute maximum of $200 million per year in revenue. There are studios with half the employee headcount that bring in double that yearly. That tells you all you need to know about the confidence Sony has in the live service games they currently have in development. As to my second point, it’s not going to “tank” Sony’s future negotiations, but it is going to raise bidding prices and make Sony have to agree to things they otherwise wouldn’t. If Sony is attempting to acquire a Square Enix, for example, it stands to reason that square would see the terms of the deal Bungie got and would ask for either a higher price out Sony, more production autonomy written into contract, or both. That is not a position Sony wants to be in. Compare this deal on the balance to the $200 million they paid to purchase Insomniac. That deal has probably already paid for itself 5-10 fold. |
Absolute maximum $200M per year based on what? The upcoming Destiny 2 DLC itself has over 1 Million pre orders. The game is consistently one of the most played games on various platforms since its launch in 2017 & has a ton of MTX. It's also an IP that lends itself well for Sony Pictures, in a decade where video game movies and television adaptations are more popular, and profitable than ever. You also can't ignore Bungie's track record for creating popular multiplayer games despite owning one IP. Some people think Starfield could be huge based on Bethesda's track record, and rightfully so, but the same can be applied to Bungie and Matter. And no, Sony acquired Bungie for 2.4B, the 1.2B is after the acquisition closes and will be distributed over several years, and it's not even under Sony's M&A budget.
Bidding prices nowadays are going to be raised and it has nothing to do with Bungie's deal. Your example with Square Enix is flawed, especially since Sony and Square Enix Holdings are multimedia companies, an acquisition would benefit multiple arms within Sony Corp and not just PlayStation, production autonomy might not matter as much as overall synergy. PlayStation isn't even the first platform holder to offer "independent publishing" post acquisition, but somehow, those kind of terms will only be brought up when negotiating with Sony? What if other publishers want to have a Minecraft deal with Microsoft and this Bungie deal emboldens that? Its not as simple as twisting Sony's arm until they bend to certain terms and agreements like you're making it out to be.
