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Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

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Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#71

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

synthos wrote: post #20

Who's left (as large distinct publishers/studios)? - Sony - Microsoft - Electronic Arts - Capcom - Ubisoft - Nintendo - Konami - Square Enix - Tencent - Take Two - Warner Brother Games - Embracer Group IP license biz model (Disney, Sega, etc...) I'd include Valve, but they just don't make games anymore edit: Added Embracer

I'm not sure I'd classify Konami as "large distinct publishers/studios" anymore. Apart from the obligatory yearly installments of PES and BeatMania, they seem to mostly make gambling machines these days.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#72

Post by brokencode »

erulabs wrote: post #56
brokencode wrote: post #39

Let’s hope this goes better for Bungie than when Microsoft owned them. It’s kind of funny that they’d get out from under the thumb of one corporate overlord only to find a new corporate overlord 15 years later. I guess that points to how unbelievably hard it is for independent game developers to survive, and it makes me kind of sad. If it can happen to Bungie or Blizzard, it can happen to any game developer. Gamers a…

I hear that metric a lot - dollars per entertainment-hour. It's an interesting metric - but it's also important to remember the 1.5 hour Marvel film almost certainly took more human hours in the input side than virtually any video game. At least, my 10k hours in StarCraft took far far far fewer human hours to produce than my 1.5 hours watching the Avengers. Sort of a "labor theory of value" for entertainment pricing,…

The fact is that independent game developers struggle to survive, so that is what I’m using as my yardstick for whether they are making enough money.

Dollars per entertainment hour is just a way to try to convince gamers that it is reasonable to spend more on games, but perhaps the better argument to make is that we need to pay these companies more or they will go out of business or move to scummy pay to win business models.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#73

Post by johnchristopher »

erulabs wrote: post #56
brokencode wrote: post #39

Let’s hope this goes better for Bungie than when Microsoft owned them. It’s kind of funny that they’d get out from under the thumb of one corporate overlord only to find a new corporate overlord 15 years later. I guess that points to how unbelievably hard it is for independent game developers to survive, and it makes me kind of sad. If it can happen to Bungie or Blizzard, it can happen to any game developer. Gamers a…

I hear that metric a lot - dollars per entertainment-hour. It's an interesting metric - but it's also important to remember the 1.5 hour Marvel film almost certainly took more human hours in the input side than virtually any video game. At least, my 10k hours in StarCraft took far far far fewer human hours to produce than my 1.5 hours watching the Avengers. Sort of a "labor theory of value" for entertainment pricing,…

That only works out if 1 hour of video games has the same value as one hour of a movie.

It's apples to oranges anyway, even when comparing games to games.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#74

Post by tapoxi »

bladegash wrote: post #24

Interesting! I wonder how this bodes for Bungie's relatively recent cross-play and cross-save functionality in Destiny 2 (or future games). They executed on it extremely well and it has been great to play on PS4 and Steam without any huge issues.

They claim no changes and they intend to remain a cross-platform studio.

So I wonder if this ties into Sony's upcoming PS Now replacement gaming subscription service, you get Destiny content while your PS sub is active.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#75

Post by ace2358 »

bsimpson wrote: post #19

I still remember when Bungie was one of the only companies that made games for Macs. The Marathon trilogy was a memorable part of my childhood. Then Microsoft bought them for Halo, and spun them back out (sans Halo). Halo was first demoed by Steve Jobs - it was going to be a Mac game.

Just to be clear, it was a mac game. It still came out and Halo: Combat Involved ran beautifully on PPC and Intel (Rosetta 1 translation?).

Good memories of that game. I still haven’t played marathon :0

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#76

Post by dr_orpheus »

synthos wrote: post #22
supermatt wrote: post #21

Feels like sony + ms are just going to shoot each other in the foot. Gamers will end up with both consoles (sold as loss leaders) to get access to the exclusives and then spread their investment in games between the two. Lose/lose

They both win if players have and keep both subscriptions simultaneously

Yep, this feels to me like the direction this is going. Sony and Microsoft scooping up game developers to make their subscription worth it for the number of games relative to the cost/month. And I think they've probably both gotten there now. Plenty of people maintain Netflix+Hulu+...+..., so I don't think its a stretch for people to put up $20/month and get both of the subscriptions even after the initial cost of the console.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#77

Post by 015a »

Outside looking in, this feels like a far more valuable acquisition than Activision for $69B.

Call of Duty is valuable, but Microsoft has already said they don't intend to remove it from PlayStation. That could change, but so could CoD's importance to the video gaming industry as a whole: its popularity has dropped with essentially every release since BLOPS2.

Outside of CoD: AB is a shadow of its former self; IMO the second most valuable IP suite in the history of gaming (first: Nintendo), but years of failed projects, brain drain, and poor employee culture make acting on that IP difficult. Halo 4, 5, and Infinite have suggested that Xbox can keep dying IP on life support, but reclaiming the glory of Blizzard's past likely isn't in the cards, at least on the medium term.

In comparison: Sony paid 20x less for Bungie. What they lack in variety of products, they make up for in, in my view, Potential. Destiny is a great franchise, with lots of fans. The team brings rock solid FPS dev & netcode experience (something Sony's first party studios are at a deficit for).

This spectacularly echos previous acquisitions from both companies. Microsoft buys Halo, Gears, Bethesda, AB; all "glory day IP" acquisitions with demonstrated historical mega-success, but weaker more recent market success. Sony goes smaller; Bluepoint, Housemarque, and Bungie; but despite being smaller names, these companies have far more demonstrable ability to produce triple-A content, tomorrow. In other words; Microsoft is looking for name recognition to sell Game Pass; Sony is looking for talent, which the PlayStation name recognition and marketing machine can wring success out of.

Most recent tactile example: Returnal was a massive success despite being in a very niche genre, which directly led to Housemarque's acquisition. Its hard to imagine it seeing the same success on Xbox, especially since Xbox did have an exclusive, in a different genre, but with rather similar vibes, release around the same time (The Medium). It was, to my eyes, a market failure (but, of course, I have no insider info).

I don't like centralization. But it is interesting to see these two different strategies play out.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#78

Post by awill »

Sony didn't want to do this. Microsoft forced their hand.

I'm sure Sony is terrified of a world where MS keeps buying up hugely popular cross platform games and shutting them off.

Sony said they want to keep Bungie cross platform. Maybe they're doing this to barter for Call of Duty with MS.

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#79

Post by adolph »

brokencode wrote: post #39

Let’s hope this goes better for Bungie than when Microsoft owned them. It’s kind of funny that they’d get out from under the thumb of one corporate overlord only to find a new corporate overlord 15 years later. I guess that points to how unbelievably hard it is for independent game developers to survive, and it makes me kind of sad. If it can happen to Bungie or Blizzard, it can happen to any game developer. Gamers a…

They've done better the second time around:

The Wall Street Journal reports today that some analysts estimate Microsoft paid between $20 million and $40 million for Bungie in total.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/20/microsoft-acquires-b...

Re: Sony to buy video game maker Bungie in $3.6B deal

#80

Post by Unklejoe »

Ottolay wrote: post #61
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #29

I know bungie doesn't own the halo ip anymore, but wow . Bungie, halo, and microsoft will forever be linked in my mind. The fact that sony is going to buy them? I feel like hell has frozen over. What's next? MS buying naughty dog?

To me, Bungie is associated with Apple and the amazing Marathon game series for Mac back in the 90s.

I'll never forget the video of Steve Jobs himself introducing Halo (right before Microsoft bought it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lxdgo1rFcxU

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