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

V-r0cK on 10 July 2020
twintail said:
EricHiggin said:
Looks as though I may have spoke too soon. lol. This really makes it look as though there's a lot more to the relationship than simply liking SNY's hardware decisions for PS5. I guess it could be that Epic and SNY have finally gotten to know each other well enough that it's time for the next big step, but I dunno. If this step is $250M, I wonder how much the ring is going to cost?

Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) Tweeted: @SenninSage Yes, here’s what I said back in May below. Serious investment discussions followed from the Unreal Engine 5 demo we showed on PlayStation 5. I guess they liked it!

https://t.co/c9x4q1v87P https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1281365385187602433?s=20

Well that clarifies it, Epic just did a really good job impressing Sony so much that Sony wanted in on them.



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Drakrami on 10 July 2020

Epic doesnt even need the money, they are 40% owned by Tencent, just raised like 1.25billion dollars last year. So no idea why this investment even took place unless there is a deeper collaboration.



sales2099 on 10 July 2020
twintail said:
V-r0cK said:
I knew there had to be something.

But $250M, what can Sony get out of Epic? Free exclusive Fortnite skins? lol jk

UE5 tech is going to be incredibly important going forward. This isn't just for gaming. This is about helping all facets of Sony's business where UE5 can be applied. Don't forget that Sony has a TV division, and even PlayStation has a new TV initiative. 

sales2099 said:

It finally makes sense why Epic showed a demo for a engine Sony has little interest in actually using while the competition has several teams using it.

Don’t like the other implications either.

- Free PR in the console industry that MS would frankly have to pay for. Nothing positive can ever be said about the Xbox brand going forward. All future UE versions will only have PS PR attached to it. 

- Timed exclusivity or full exclusivity for any Epic games going forward. Exclusive Fortnight deals and bundles for PS5. 

Edit: Kinda have a sour satisfaction knowing I was right when I called the UE demo a PS deal with Epic and I was reported and banned for baiting. That Epic just picked PS5 because it was just a nice piece of tech...I’m more realistic then that. 

lol, it's incredible how petty you always are about this.

Who cares if MS has more studios using UE than Sony does. Using their engine doesn't automatically mean you have some better working relationship with Epic. It literally means that MS is more willing to use the engine. A working relationship that benefits both parties requires interaction between said parties.

And guess what? That is what Epic and Sony have had for the last 4 or so years. 

https://www.gamesradar.com/uk/epic-reveals-how-its-been-working-with-sony-for-years-on-unreal-engine-5/

A minority stake of 1.4% now, and not the 4 years working closely with another, is the only reason for Epic is talking up PS5?

Petty, indeed. 

As I said, it’s weird they are partnering when Sony has little interest in actually using the engine. The demo highlights how it takes advantage of PS5s tech...this only makes sense if they have games in development that use UE5. Which they don’t. Otherwise if the games are multi plat development goes to the common denominator (PCs without SSD). Again, why partner up of one partner couldn’t care less about the engine? 

Which leads me to believe it’s a short term PR boost and someone else long term like Epic Store exclusivity. That demo should have got Xbox gamers excited due to the actual studios that are making next gen games with UE instead the PR went in another direction. It’s fair game if you spend $250 million, so really I can’t complain beyond expressing my annoyance. 



Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

V-r0cK on 10 July 2020
sales2099 said:

As I said, it’s weird they are partnering when Sony has little interest in actually using the engine. The demo highlights how it takes advantage of PS5s tech...this only makes sense if they have games in development that use UE5. Which they don’t. Otherwise if the games are multi plat development goes to the common denominator (PCs without SSD). Again, why partner up of one partner couldn’t care less about the engine? 

Which leads me to believe it’s a short term PR boost and someone else long term like Epic Store exclusivity. That demo should have got Xbox gamers excited due to the actual studios that are making next gen games with UE instead the PR went in another direction. It’s fair game if you spend $250 million, so really I can’t complain beyond expressing my annoyance. 

I thought it was weird too at first but apparently Day's Gone used Unreal Engine, and since they wow'd Sony so much with the PS5 Demo (and now that Sony has some shares with them) that we might see Sony to start encouraging their devs to start using UE5.  What this shows is that Sony now cares about this engine more than ever. 

In a business sense I'm curious as to why Sony and MS hasn't invested into Epic earlier.  So many games uses Unreal Engine and each of those games pay royalty to Epic, so by owning a part of Epic you too will get a slice of each of those games to some degree.  I wonder if now by owning a piece that Sony may strike some deal that they dont need to pay royalty to use UE5 for their own games.  Imagine Sony never needing their devs to create their own engine when Epic will do that for them, free of charge.

And as someone mentioned earlier that Epic has great technology for making movies so that could benefit Sony in their movie department as well.

All this leads me to believe that owning a piece of Epic can only be beneficial for Sony moving forward. 

....But I could be seriously wrong and overthinking all of this, and if anybody can tell me the negative for Sony owning a piece of Epic I'm all ears for discussion.



chakkra on 10 July 2020
V-r0cK said:
sales2099 said:

As I said, it’s weird they are partnering when Sony has little interest in actually using the engine. The demo highlights how it takes advantage of PS5s tech...this only makes sense if they have games in development that use UE5. Which they don’t. Otherwise if the games are multi plat development goes to the common denominator (PCs without SSD). Again, why partner up of one partner couldn’t care less about the engine? 

Which leads me to believe it’s a short term PR boost and someone else long term like Epic Store exclusivity. That demo should have got Xbox gamers excited due to the actual studios that are making next gen games with UE instead the PR went in another direction. It’s fair game if you spend $250 million, so really I can’t complain beyond expressing my annoyance. 

I thought it was weird too at first but apparently Day's Gone used Unreal Engine, and since they wow'd Sony so much with the PS5 Demo (and now that Sony has some shares with them) that we might see Sony to start encouraging their devs to start using UE5.  What this shows is that Sony now cares about this engine more than ever. 

In a business sense I'm curious as to why Sony and MS hasn't invested into Epic earlier.  So many games uses Unreal Engine and each of those games pay royalty to Epic, so by owning a part of Epic you too will get a slice of each of those games to some degree.  I wonder if now by owning a piece that Sony may strike some deal that they dont need to pay royalty to use UE5 for their own games.  Imagine Sony never needing their devs to create their own engine when Epic will do that for them, free of charge.

And as someone mentioned earlier that Epic has great technology for making movies so that could benefit Sony in their movie department as well.

All this leads me to believe that owning a piece of Epic can only be beneficial for Sony moving forward. 

....But I could be seriously wrong and overthinking all of this, and if anybody can tell me the negative for Sony owning a piece of Epic I'm all ears for discussion.

I don't see many negatives to be honest; I mean, unless this paves the way to having Sony games ported to EGS, which I'm sure many Sony fans would perceive as a negative thing.

When it comes to MS, well, this shouldn't affect them much unless Epic decides to over-optimize the engine for the PS5 architecture, in which case MS would be forced to find a different engine for their games, but that would affect Epic's profits directly so I don't think they would go that far.

In that meantime, Sweeney tweeting every week to do PR for PS5 hasn't done Xbox any good, that's for sure.



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sales2099 on 10 July 2020
V-r0cK said:
sales2099 said:

As I said, it’s weird they are partnering when Sony has little interest in actually using the engine. The demo highlights how it takes advantage of PS5s tech...this only makes sense if they have games in development that use UE5. Which they don’t. Otherwise if the games are multi plat development goes to the common denominator (PCs without SSD). Again, why partner up of one partner couldn’t care less about the engine? 

Which leads me to believe it’s a short term PR boost and someone else long term like Epic Store exclusivity. That demo should have got Xbox gamers excited due to the actual studios that are making next gen games with UE instead the PR went in another direction. It’s fair game if you spend $250 million, so really I can’t complain beyond expressing my annoyance. 

I thought it was weird too at first but apparently Day's Gone used Unreal Engine, and since they wow'd Sony so much with the PS5 Demo (and now that Sony has some shares with them) that we might see Sony to start encouraging their devs to start using UE5.  What this shows is that Sony now cares about this engine more than ever. 

In a business sense I'm curious as to why Sony and MS hasn't invested into Epic earlier.  So many games uses Unreal Engine and each of those games pay royalty to Epic, so by owning a part of Epic you too will get a slice of each of those games to some degree.  I wonder if now by owning a piece that Sony may strike some deal that they dont need to pay royalty to use UE5 for their own games.  Imagine Sony never needing their devs to create their own engine when Epic will do that for them, free of charge.

And as someone mentioned earlier that Epic has great technology for making movies so that could benefit Sony in their movie department as well.

All this leads me to believe that owning a piece of Epic can only be beneficial for Sony moving forward. 

....But I could be seriously wrong and overthinking all of this, and if anybody can tell me the negative for Sony owning a piece of Epic I'm all ears for discussion.

Well said. Days Gone however wasn’t a graphical powerhouse. If I see Naughty Dog, Santa Monica, Guerilla, Sucker Punch and Insomniac announce their next game will use UE5 then all this makes more sense and I have no reason to be annoyed or confused. Any combination of those heavy hitter studios, he’ll even one of those studios using it would shut me up. Otherwise it makes little sense to me if Sony is indifferent towards using it. 

Unless the immediate benefit is a steady stream of positive PR for PlayStation. In which case I think 250 million is a steal to keep the mindshare of gamers. 

Last edited by sales2099 - on 10 July 2020

Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

sales2099 on 10 July 2020
twintail said:
sales2099 said:

As I said, it’s weird they are partnering when Sony has little interest in actually using the engine. The demo highlights how it takes advantage of PS5s tech...this only makes sense if they have games in development that use UE5. Which they don’t. Otherwise if the games are multi plat development goes to the common denominator (PCs without SSD). Again, why partner up of one partner couldn’t care less about the engine? 

Which leads me to believe it’s a short term PR boost and someone else long term like Epic Store exclusivity. That demo should have got Xbox gamers excited due to the actual studios that are making next gen games with UE instead the PR went in another direction. It’s fair game if you spend $250 million, so really I can’t complain beyond expressing my annoyance. 

Sony have published, and developed, a few UE4 games this gen from 2016 - 2019. And no one knows what Sony is going to do with UE5. We can definitely expect Sony Bend, and even Pixel Opus, to utilize UE for their next games. There's even expectations that Studio Japan might look to move way from their own engines for something more fully formed, like UE5.

And Tim Sweeney has already remarked that Sony's financial interest in Epic came after the demoing of their UE5 demo. These are the facts we have. There's no need to vilify Sony unless you have some concrete info to share with us?

And let's not forget, this is a Sony move not a Sony PlayStation move. This minority stake is going to help all entertainment facets of Sony, including Sony Music Sony Pictures and TV. If anything, those groups might have more in stake in this deal than the PS division does. 

you're thinking too small if you think this is only about the PS5. It's not. 

I know deals like this take months before going public. It lines up with the demo. I’ll leave it at that. Well until we see the benefits it’s still weird until we know of a AAA game using it or something else concrete. 

Personally the one sided PR boost alone is worth the $250 million assuming this PS PR is a steady stream for several years.



Xbox: Best hardware, Game Pass best value, best BC, more 1st party genres and multiplayer titles. 

 

DonFerrari on 10 July 2020

Well that would match the praises they are getting, PS4 exclusives going to PC first on Epic Store and all... perhaps that is Sony trying to expand to PC



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

chakkra on 10 July 2020
chakkra said:
V-r0cK said:

I thought it was weird too at first but apparently Day's Gone used Unreal Engine, and since they wow'd Sony so much with the PS5 Demo (and now that Sony has some shares with them) that we might see Sony to start encouraging their devs to start using UE5.  What this shows is that Sony now cares about this engine more than ever. 

In a business sense I'm curious as to why Sony and MS hasn't invested into Epic earlier.  So many games uses Unreal Engine and each of those games pay royalty to Epic, so by owning a part of Epic you too will get a slice of each of those games to some degree.  I wonder if now by owning a piece that Sony may strike some deal that they dont need to pay royalty to use UE5 for their own games.  Imagine Sony never needing their devs to create their own engine when Epic will do that for them, free of charge.

And as someone mentioned earlier that Epic has great technology for making movies so that could benefit Sony in their movie department as well.

All this leads me to believe that owning a piece of Epic can only be beneficial for Sony moving forward. 

....But I could be seriously wrong and overthinking all of this, and if anybody can tell me the negative for Sony owning a piece of Epic I'm all ears for discussion.

I don't see many negatives to be honest; I mean, unless this paves the way to having Sony games ported to EGS, which I'm sure many Sony fans would perceive as a negative thing.

When it comes to MS, well, this shouldn't affect them much unless Epic decides to over-optimize the engine for the PS5 architecture, in which case MS would be forced to find a different engine for their games, but that would affect Epic's profits directly so I don't think they would go that far.

In that meantime, Sweeney tweeting every week to do PR for PS5 hasn't done Xbox any good, that's for sure.

Then again, seeing how much Sony's exclusives outsold MS's exclusives this gen, I wouldn't be surprised if Sweeney concluded that it would be worth losing MS as a customer if that meant getting Sony to use the engine for their games.



DonFerrari on 10 July 2020
hunter_alien said:
PotentHerbs said:

Sony bought a 1.4% stake lol. 

Yupp... Sony buys a 1.4% stake in Epic the world goes crazy. MS buys 11 studios, but it is fair play That's how things work, it would seem.

Don't forget MS buys 11 studio fair play, rumour of Sony buying one studio is the doom for console gaming and MS will counter buying another 15 studios to keep things even.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."