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Forums - Sony Discussion - Sony acquires Bungie for $3.6 billion - staying multiplatform

EricHiggin on 01 February 2022

While a rumor for now, Bungie was willing to sell to MS/XB for only $2B in 2020, and MS turned it down because:

A) It was too much money for MS at the time?
or
B) MS didn't want Bungie being independent so they could share their games with PS or players anywhere else?
or
C) Both?

Boy... what happened to MS can just buy everything, then share it with the rest of the gaming world because 'it's the right thing to do'?



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Xxain on 01 February 2022
yvanjean said:

This deal make perfect sense since Destiny can stay multiplatform but join whatever PlayStation Spartacus subscription service. Just like Call of Duty can stay multiplatform but will be on Xbox Game Pass. It will be interesting to see if this a closed deal like Minecraft where that franchise had to stay multiplatform.

It's pretty obvious that Sony is also going to be making their own FPS IPs or bring back old IP like Killzone.

I don't know if he is the first person to say this, but this exactly why SONY bought bungie. They know that at any time MS could have a change of heart of CoD and they need to immediately have a competitor. 

Would be some damn good Irony; CoD has remained the top FPS for years because neither SONY or MS felt the need to challenge it as they both benefit from it. Could the buyout of CoD be very moment that real competitor for it is born?  



chakkra on 01 February 2022
GoOnKid said:
PotentHerbs said:

I think its inevitable Sony will purchase a publisher. We even got Shinobi hinting at Sony buying Capcom lol.

In the Variety interview, the CEO of Sony stated they were buyers not sellers, and will be shopping for IP. There's no other entertainment sector where they can get IP outside of gaming. The real question is, who has a large back catalog of IP that can be adapted into film or television, that also have popular live service titles? I think Capcom and Ubisoft fit the bill.

No! This would be a terrible nightmare. Stop repeating this, don't give them stupid ideas. Also no Square Enix, no Sega and no Ubisoft, either. Also no Platinum Games to Nintendo, either. One-trick ponys like Bungie are fine in my eyes, but big names in the industry that diversify and enrich the gaming landscape are not okay and should stay independent forever.

For the record, I'm not okay with MS buing Acti/Blizzard, either.

Okay, that sounds really poetic when you say it like that, now, could you please tell me what was that diversity that Activision has been putting out in the last few years? And also, what is that one genre that Microsoft is going to force them to do now?



GoOnKid on 02 February 2022
chakkra said:
GoOnKid said:

No! This would be a terrible nightmare. Stop repeating this, don't give them stupid ideas. Also no Square Enix, no Sega and no Ubisoft, either. Also no Platinum Games to Nintendo, either. One-trick ponys like Bungie are fine in my eyes, but big names in the industry that diversify and enrich the gaming landscape are not okay and should stay independent forever.

For the record, I'm not okay with MS buing Acti/Blizzard, either.

Okay, that sounds really poetic when you say it like that, now, could you please tell me what was that diversity that Activision has been putting out in the last few years? And also, what is that one genre that Microsoft is going to force them to do now?

I think you're jumping the gun here. My point was not that they will be forced to make just one genre for the rest of time. My point is rather that I see these concentration moves as more harmful than beneficial for the entire industry. With fewer agents in the field there will be less incentives to innovate and diversify from each other, and sooner or later the games will become stale and samey. Reversely, a healthy competion leads to better products and prices for the customers.

I understand the appeal of the acquisitions of Zenimax and Activision Blizzard as well as the strategic value for MS. But I find the massive imbalance that the deals created to be very concerning. I fear that Sony will be forced to make a similar move in the future. This bungie deal here doesn't count, this is a completely different story and has a completely different purpose in mind.



LudicrousSpeed on 02 February 2022

Sony supposedly wants to launch 10 live service games within the next four years. This is why they spent such a premium for Bungie. Though I am not sure why, ND MTX’d the shit out of Last of Us, so they have at least one studio who knows how to do it.

I still think this is for Bungie’s GaaS technology. Which makes it a smart buy for Sony if they’re going all in. They’ll recoup that money easily with ten live service games.

edit, guess I was right about MS passing based on price. They didn’t even want to pay two billion.

Last edited by LudicrousSpeed - on 02 February 2022

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LudicrousSpeed on 02 February 2022
twintail said:
LudicrousSpeed said:

Sony supposedly wants to launch 10 live service games within the next four years. This is why they spent such a premium for Bungie. Though I am not sure why, ND MTX’d the shit out of Last of Us, so they have at least one studio who knows how to do it.

I still think this is for Bungie’s GaaS technology. Which makes it a smart buy for Sony if they’re going all in. They’ll recoup that money easily with ten live service games.

edit, guess I was right about MS passing based on price. They didn’t even want to pay two billion.

TLOU 1 MP was most definitely not a live service game. 

Nope but it was chock full of the same type of MTX that games like Destiny are (though ND went worse with pay to win nonsense). 

ND can clearly make a live service game. In fact I’d count on their Factions stand-alone game being very GaaS. And I don’t want to come across as hating GaaS. If done right, they’re the best way for games to be done. Lots do them right, lots don’t. Destiny is one that doesn’t imho. Neither does Halo Infinite. 



EricHiggin on 02 February 2022
the-pi-guy said:

Sony mentioned this to investors:
Bungie is a private company, the majority of whose shares are owned by its employees. So the payment of the consideration is structured to incentivize the shareholders and other creative talent to continue working at Bungie after the acquisition closes. Approximately one-third of the $3.6 billion consideration for acquisition consists primarily of deferred payment to employee shareholders, conditional upon their continued employment and other retention incentives.

These amounts will be paid over the course of several years after the acquisition closes, and will be recorded as expenses for accounting purposes. We expect about two-thirds of these deferred payments and other retention incentives to be expensed in the first two years after the acquisition closes.

So ~$2.4 billion for the actual buyout, $1.2 billion largely goes to employees over several years.  

Based on Bungie's past, this is a smart way of doing things. Just in case.



DonFerrari on 03 February 2022
800_LilTwin said:

So now we got certain people want to convince you Bungie games will remain multiplatform when just a a few days ago they so quickly to dismiss Phil's claim of "we want to keep call of duty on playstation".....how quickly does the narrative change depending on who the company is making the big purchase.

on plus side Sony now has a "live service" cash cow game on top of the big profits from everything on PS plus and playstation as whole, should help them financially with bigger and more acquisition going forward.

Phil says he wants to keep. Playstation and Bungie ensured all Bungie games will stay multiplatform. Huge difference.

Phil can latter say that despise his best efforts it wasn't possible to keep in on Playstation and even fault Sony with any silly argument like they didn't allow GP or XBL on playstation and that was needed to bring the game they envision.



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."

eva01beserk on 03 February 2022
the-pi-guy said:
twintail said:

Thanks for breaking this down. So essentially the acquisition price is less than we thought. $1.2 is like employees incentive for them to not leave? 

Effectively the up front cost was much lower than we thought. 

An article was posted about the breakdown:

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/84365/sony-offers-bungie-employees-1-2-billion-retention-incentive-plan/index.html

They still overpaid. Specially since it sounds like bungie have zero comitment to Sony. 



It takes genuine talent to see greatness in yourself despite your absence of genuine talent.

DonFerrari on 03 February 2022
The Fury said:

"an independent subsidiary"

I think in Bungie there is one great businessman, someone who was able to buy themselves out of Microsoft, then buy the Destiny IP and now secure fook loads of money while being essentially a studio doing what they want.

On topic, I'm getting a little sad with all these purchased because all these companies are out billions and yet we, as consumers, have not got a single new game or studio from it. They could have opened and funded untold amount of new studios with budgets in the hundreds of millions to make whatever they wanted. But nope.

Same here. I would rather they put those billions in opening dozen studios.



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."