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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

#112
post #78

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.

Supposedly it's been in talks for over five months, so unless someone at Sony also knew about the Microsoft deal (which is, of course, possible) it doesn't appear to be directly in response to it.

It could be in response to the Bethesda/Zenimax deal, not the Activision-Blizzard one

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

#113

Halo on Playstation?? Cross Platform Halo?? It feels like I suddenly have butterflies in my stomach. <3

No Halo. Destiny 3 will probably be exclusive to Playstation though.

It's not looking like Destiny 3 is ever going to happen. There was even an interview from March of last year where a director said that they think Destiny 3 would be a mistake.

And on top of that, they've laid out Destiny 2's roadmap until roughly 2024, and say that that's not the end then either.

We'll see!

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

#114
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Bungie was an independent studio back in the 90's, then MS acquired them for Halo. Bungie split from MS in 2007; the Halo IP remained behind under 343. They were under Activision during the Destiny era until 2019. So if they stayed, they would've ended up back at MS. The M&A merry-go-round continues.

Hm, surely it must have been later than 2007 that they split? Wasn't Reach made by Bungie?

When they announced the split in 2007, there was some deal that required Bungie to make two more Halo games after 3. Bungie released ODST in 2009 and Reach in 2010.

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

#115
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare was acquired in 2002 and their list of games since doesn't look like shovelware to me [1]. Yeah, there's some misses, but there's also some great games in there. The worst ones are the ones tied to Kinect and MS has abandoned that venture. Also, MS acquisitions from the last 5 years have released standout games: Psychonauts 2 and Forza Horizon 5 are two that I played and loved and are certainly not "shovelware"…

>>Rare was acquired in 2002 and their list of games since doesn't look like shovelware to me I don't know.... Honestly Rare was just as good if not better than Nintendo themselves. And that's a nearly impossible feat. The n64 did as well as it did because of Rare. GoldenEye, Perfect Dark, Banjo, Diddy Kong, Donkey Kong, Jet Force Gemini etc.. post-acquisition, Rare didn't made the same sort of games. So maybe they fo…

There was a run of excellence on the N64 (Goldeneye, Banjo Kazooie, Diddy Kong Racing, Jet Force Gemini, Perfect Dark) but Banjo Tooie and Donkey Kong 64, in retrospect, are very bloated games. As a kid, I loved them because there was more content for my money, but I can't imagine replaying them now.

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

#116

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…

Maybe free to play games that make money through micro transactions, without pay to win mechanism (like buying skins or hats!) are the way to sustainably produce games? Kinda like a SAAS subscription instead of a purchase software outright deal.

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

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rare did go down after acquisition, but what others are you talking about? Their biggest (Zenimax) one will start releasing new Xbox and PC exclusive games from this year onwards, so it's still early to call that one a failure. Mojang, is doing Mojang thing i.e. Minecraft and while they haven't had a great success after that, they're still doing fine. Playground games is doing Forza which is actually pretty popular a…

Ensemble, FASA, Lionhead Studios, Access, Digital Anvil See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisitio...

I don't know if I would classify 15-25 years ago as "recent years"...

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

#118
post #116

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…

Maybe free to play games that make money through micro transactions, without pay to win mechanism (like buying skins or hats!) are the way to sustainably produce games? Kinda like a SAAS subscription instead of a purchase software outright deal.

This is the current business model of Destiny 2: there's free to play, with expansions you can buy for a one-time cost to give you more content, or microtransactions for cosmetics.

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

#119

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

Microsoft has said that they don't see Sony and Nintendo as competition and the acquisitions are not about Sony. (but about Google, Amazon, Apple etc) Phil Spencer also said he hopes Sony and Nintendo will preserve the gaming ecosystem unlike those others.

> Microsoft has said that they don't see Sony and Nintendo as competition

They all say this and … that’s just marketing/bs. How in the world aren’t they competing ? They are all battling for a limited ressource which is your video game budget.

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