Sony Just Bought Bungie

Sony, makers of fine and unavailable Playstation products, announced this morning they are purchasing game studio Bungie for $3.6 billion. It’s a move that would otherwise have been completely unexpected if rival Microsoft hadn’t been loudly throwing its cash around lately.

What IS unexpected here is Bungie’s overall journey through the years. They started developing games for the Mac until Microsoft noticed an impressive little game they were working on named Halo and bought them just to get their hands on it. It turned out to be one of the smartest buys in gaming history, as it gave their new XBox brand some value in the eyes of gamers prone to skepticism. Bungie remained an XBox second party for a few years, but eventually the studio was cut loose (MS kept Halo) and snapped up by Activision.

If Bungie had stayed an Activision studio, they would now be owned by Microsoft AGAIN. But they eventually escaped from Kotick’s evil clutches and became independent once more…for a few months. Now Sony owns them, and they will be directly competing with the console they put on the map 20 years ago. Wild!

Bungie’s biggest product at the moment is Destiny 2, which will remain a multiplatform game. Bungie will also retain the power to self-publish its own games if it chooses to do so. According to Sony they “will remain independent and multi-platform, will enjoy creative freedom, and their track record in developing massively successful franchises in the sci-fi shooter genre will be highly complementary to SIE’s own IP portfolio.” That last part probably means Sony’s getting SOME kind of exclusive.