Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cnbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 263 posts

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

#221

Post by redisman »

015a wrote: post #142
w4rh4wk5 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these companies have far more demonstrable ability to produce triple-A content I am not so sure. At least not for Bungie. I haven't enjoyed Destiny at all. Where on the other side, Arkane's Dishonored and Prey are quite good. So are id Software's Doom, Doom Eternal, and Wolfenstein. Fallout 4 was okay as well.

Sure; and the unfortunate reality is, Fallout 4 was released nearly 8 years ago. Dishonored: 10. Dishonored 2: 6. id definitely puts out super solid stuff, consistently. Arkane is also in that bucket (Deathloop is the better example to judge recent efficacy of the team, not Dishonored/Prey. And its great). But, that is counterbalanced by... Fallout 76? Warcraft 3 Reforged? The state of WoW, Overwatch, and Heroes? Xbo…

Warcraft and Diablo are still great IPs. Some of the best. If D4 will be good that can have staying power for a decade easily. Same with whatever RPG comes from the Warcraft universe next

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

#222

Post by awill »

kungito wrote: post #161
awill wrote: 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.

Well Sony was always the one aggressive with exclusives, not Microsoft. I only got PS5 to finally catch up on 5-10 exclusives I've wanted to play for the last few years. If it was only up to the specs everyone would go with Xbox Series X

>>Well Sony was always the one aggressive with exclusives, not Microsoft.

I don't know what you're talking about. All consoles have exclusives. It's just that Microsoft's exclusives were not that good. Sure they had couple, but it's nothing compared to the number of hits from Sony or Nintendo.

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

#223

Post by redisman »

rodgerd wrote: post #151
HWR_14 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bungir became a household name while MS owned them and they launched an iconic franchise. How was that bad?

Prior to their Microsoft deal they produced a variety of games with different settings (the Marathon universe which linked to their earlier games and forward to Halo, Myth I/II which were RTS with rich lore, and Oni which was a close-combat game that functioned as a precursor to the likes of Yakuza and Sleeping Dogs in terms of the mechanics). With Halo, the single-player and lore began to tail off to focus on the mu…

That’s life for game studios though. It’s hard to survive. Making #2 or #3 of a hit is a lot more likely to make the studio survive another 5 years

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

#224

Post by colinmhayes »

grogenaut wrote: post #204
moogleii wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Microsoft's play was to further strengthen Game Pass to the point that Sony can't deny it on their platform anymore (or at least make it hurt more to continue doing so). It makes sense that MS won't remove games from Sony's access, but it does give them more levers to play with. "Hey this game is 'free' on Game Pass (PC + XBox). You can still buy it for PlayStation, though." And Sony's move is simply a defens…

I have PC Game Pass ultimate. The only thing I've used it for is Halo. The games that I got for "free" on it I actually bought elsewhere and added up to less than I spent on ultimate, even new games like DeathLoop. I've spent about 80 on the games I could play from game pass, it's like $180/year (I paid less through friends at MS). Took me a 2 months to finish death loop, cost me $30 on steam sale, that's break even.…

> So far while game pass seems cool it's not really panning out monetarily for me.

Which is why microsoft spent $100 billion on studios this year. Zenimax and AB consistently put out hugely popular games, and I expect microsoft will continue buying.

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

#225

Post by mardifoufs »

Macha wrote: post #170
sensitivefrost wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Sony panicked and bought a company that has one franchise (Destiny)." If you think Sony turned around and bought Bungie in the 2 weeks since the Acti-Blizz acquisition was announced, I dunno what to tell you.

On the flip side, it's highly unlikely that Sony didn't know talks were ongoing for ActiBlizz, and may even have been offered a chance at the same.

I don't think Sony could afford Activision. Its own market cap is 133b$ USD, which is a lot, but it would still have ended up being a very high-risk buy/merger. I'd be surprised if they ever had any acquisition talks. Activision is so big that only titans like MSFT could afford to buy them outright.

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

#226

Post by colinmhayes »

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

From software?

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

#227

Post by scarface74 »

sk0g wrote: post #203
scarface74 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re forgetting about how profitable (and disgusting) Activision’s mobile play to win games are. Besides, MS needs content for its subscription gaming service. It’s not like consoles themselves are profitable. They are just a means to deliver games to users.

Not sure what's wrong with games being "pay to win", isn't that the point of them? Unless you meant pay to win, or the newer and weirder version, play to earn.

Pay to win mobile games with in app purchases like Candy Crush with in app purchases

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

#228

Post by aurelius12 »

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

Nexon, Netmarble, Bandai-Namco are all comparable to or bigger than Ubisoft in terms of revenue I believe.

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

#229

Post by grogenaut »

colinmhayes wrote: post #224
grogenaut wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have PC Game Pass ultimate. The only thing I've used it for is Halo. The games that I got for "free" on it I actually bought elsewhere and added up to less than I spent on ultimate, even new games like DeathLoop. I've spent about 80 on the games I could play from game pass, it's like $180/year (I paid less through friends at MS). Took me a 2 months to finish death loop, cost me $30 on steam sale, that's break even.…

> So far while game pass seems cool it's not really panning out monetarily for me. Which is why microsoft spent $100 billion on studios this year. Zenimax and AB consistently put out hugely popular games, and I expect microsoft will continue buying.

May work in general, for me specifically no.

I've played 1 game from Zenni in the last 10 years for more than a few minutes (deathloop), (tried their others no interest, hate stealth, hate super long games). One from blizzard (overwatch this one got me, like 900 hours), one from activision (warzone for like 3 days). So that stable of games wouldn't have me specifically retaining game pass, I'd just buy them. Also Halo wants to double dip you with the game and the battle pass even if you have ultimate.

I think Zenni was a much better acquisition than AB. Blizzard has some great IP, they don't have the talent to make it go anymore. Activision has what, COD and a ton of old IP they weren't doing anything with? Really Microsoft will need to take one of their solid studios that is bad at IP and good at execution give them something like Starcraft, but I don't even know how deep their stable of developers without projects is right now.

But also I realized a while ago, I have way less time than games to play. I have an unlimited 2k entitlement for instance and barely play those games (didn't like civ, not into sports games). And I do hate subscriptions that remind me constantly what I'm paying for them that I know I'm not using.

Anyway, my $0.02.

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

#230

Post by ethbr0 »

willis936 wrote: post #157
habeebtc wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To actually finish all the content in each D2 expansion you have to invest full time job kind of time in it. Destiny doesn't just feel like a job, in some sense it IS a job. I thought they did a good job rehabilitating the first game from the sorry shape it shipped in (see: the economics of the loot cave). It is a mountain which can be climbed, and it is fun to do so. (There is also a literal mountain to climb)

The child in me always kneejerk reacts "not my Bungie!". How much of the Destiny trainwreck was publisher fingering? Could the Bungie of 10 years ago have put out a game that is fun, like they had consistently for the previous decade? Of course, it was just those pesky publishers. Well, now the Bungie of yore is thoroughly dead. All of the faces from the Halo Vid Docs have moved on. What's left is a husk. Sony bought…

> "not my Bungie!"

Pathways into Darkness and Marathon forever.

I hear they started making non-Macintosh games recently?

Post reply on HN