With the rate it's going, every third parties will be first parties and the indies are going to be the third parties... almost like what Nintendo is now: all first-parties, and their 3rd is practically the indies.

Of course it does...through the lens of a video game enthusiast commenting on websites.

Initially we had people saying the Bethesda deal was a reaction to Sony 'buying up exclusive content'. Not a strategic move by MS to position content for their streaming service. No a $7.5 billion dollar knee jerk reaction. They certainly time their news to impact the markets, make no mistake about that, but this notion that Sony and MS exist in a vacuum- watching what each other are doing and just reacting is absurd. They aren't even the only players in this game- Sony and MS are watching Tencent, EA, Embracer, Amazon and Google. Basically all of big tech.

Now, this is a 'freak out' acquisition. Nothing to do with the fact Sony have been shopping around for a Gaas/multiplayer developer for over 2 years now. They bid $1 billion for Leyou in 2020 (Warframe developer) and were outbid by Tencent. The market doesn't even have many independents in that genre left (Bungie was the last big one), and we know Sony have multiple exclusive Gaas games now in development. 

Read their press release- they literally tell you they have an aggressive live service road map and why this purchase makes sense, it's part of a much bigger strategy that sees them trying to reach 100's of millions of players.

But no, the more likely scenario is everyone as Sony HQ went crazy, ran around the room like headless chickens, and pulled out a $3.6 billion dollar cheque.

Lastly I will say one thing though, couple the fact that the tech sharks are circling, massive inflation, and Sony with $14 billion on hand they essentially need to spend over the next year on investments, their likelyhood to pull the trigger on a major gaming acquisition under the current climate has never been higher. I would expect we will see them spend in the range of another few billion dollars on gaming acquisitions before the year is out. In fact there may already be another big deal in place.

100% this, liquid assets now vs additional revenue and profit in the future is a no brainer ( more so when there is no need to have mandatory ratios like financial institutions need to have )

I wouldn't say Destiny isn't as big as it used to be, last year Bungie made Similar revenue compared to companies like Zenimax, with one IP only.

But it seems Sony is following the multiplayer and GaaS route, which they lack in.

Source for their revenue please? Not saying you are wrong, but it varies wildly on the Internets. Some sites have Zenimax making as little as 110 million and others half a billion.

Also isn’t it fact by now that Destiny isn’t as big as it used to be? Even with their announcement of one million expansion preorders, that’s a Destiny 2 record, not a Destiny record.

I might be wrong, but since Zenimax and Bungie were both not publicly offered, you'll find just estimates of their finances. So that'd explain the variation.

Destiny 2 seems fine but we can only speculate how much money it is making compared to Bethesda and so.

I find it unlikely Sony would acquire Bungie without having the ability to leverage content for their platform/services. The idea that Sony will fund the project, let Bungie use SIE tech/tools, do all the marketing, even having Sony Pictures/Playstation Productions at their disposal to expand Destiny into other mediums, but have no control for their future IP's? That's hard to believe lol. I'm sure Sony would want some reassurances themselves, especially with Bungie's history of leaving partnerships, but they may give them more creative freedom than most of their other studios as a compromise.

I think Bungie will operate independently for the next couple of years, as they continue supporting Destiny 2, but will slowly be integrated into Playstation Studios. With their new IP slated for 2025+, the idea of Bungie staying "multiplatform" could simply mean PS5/PC day and date, which still is a major shift in how SIE does business.

I think what they mean is that they will operate on multiple projects at a time. Some managed by Sony and some by bungie themselves. The Sony funded ones will be ps5 and maybe pc exclusive. While whatever bungie funds will go to xbox if they choose.

I thinking for that is that they said they are now prioritising expanding and increazing personal. They have like 900 devs now. They can definetly work on 2 projects at once while maintaining destiny. After expanding they could sure work on their on project and a sony project at full scale full time. 

Yeah, a lot of games are developed by multiple studios collaborating nowadays. I would say we will be seeing Bungie's name popup in the opening credits for any Sony multiplayer game.

I see a lot of people mentioning that Bungie staying multi-plat only means PS5 & PC. I dont believe this. They wouldn't have as clear and unequivocal about this if it was some type of exclusivity. I jave no doubt this is a minecraft type of situation.

Regarding the Bungie purchase, while it is no doubt a way for Sony to add an FPS MP game to their roster, it is also to allow Bungie to provide their expertise to other Sony devs who might be working on MP games. Other than the Naughty Dogs Factions game, I am aware of two other rumoured multiplayer games Sony devs (Guerilla and Sony Liverpooll are working on and I assune this is to provide them with assistance. I also assume that given Bungie's pedigree, and now with Sony's resources, we will see the studio split up into multiple teams to work on various different projects.