Destiny 2: Sony Explains Why They’re Buying Bungie – Wonderful Aggressive Plans

In an interview, Sony explained why they decided to take over the developer of Destiny 2, Bungie to buy. The main reason is that they want to go more towards “live service” games in the future. Translated, this probably means: Sony is planning to release more MMOs for the PlayStation 5. One speaks of aggressive and wonderful plans.

This is the situation:

• We surprisingly learned last night that Sony bought Bungie for $3.6 billion. Both sides emphasize that Bungie should continue to work independently, with maximum freedom and that they should continue to develop games for all platforms.
• The stock market was apparently rather positive about the purchase, with Sony shares rising by around 4.7% yesterday. However, the stock was already rising before the purchase was announced. However, the purchase was not as well received by gamers as it was by shareholders. Many gamers asked what Sony was thinking. You can then read that Bungie is “too expensive”, they have nothing to offer except Destiny and that is a “dying brand”.
• In an interview with Gamesindustry Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Jim Ryan now explains why the deal was planned.

It’s not about Destiny – it’s about new games

This is the main statement: The key takeaway from the interview is that they didn’t buy Bungie to just grab Destiny 2 to somehow respond to the Activision-Blizzard deal, but that they bought Bungie for their technical prowess and experience, a live to develop service game. Bungie aims to help develop and create new games:

Philosophically, it’s not about pulling things into the PlayStation world. It’s about developing big and wonderful worlds together.

Jim Ryan

Ryan says he’s had a lot of chats with Bungie’s boss, Pete Parsons, and has found that they share many views and that Sony and Bungie complement each other perfectly. Both companies would fit together like pieces of a puzzle:

They make massive, immersive games that have no end. While PlayStation’s strengths, as you know, lie in single-player games with rich stories. Our studios make these games and they are some of the best games you can find anywhere.

Jim Ryan

Apparently, Sony wants to turn their biggest games into MMOs for PS5

Bungie is now said to be helping Sony go beyond the “motherland of consoles”.

Sony says:

We’re starting to go on more platforms as you can see. We have an aggressive roadmap of live service games. And the opportunity to work with and most importantly learn from the brilliant and talented people at Bungie… it will greatly accelerate our journey.

Jim Ryan

What exactly is Sony planning? They won’t tell. But it all sounds like Sony is planning to turn existing game series into “multiplayer live service” games. That’s what Destiny itself is, and what can be considered a kind of modern form of MMO.

The plan is apparently to use Destiny as a template for new PS5 games based on the great Sony games of the past 25 years.

The way people play has changed a lot over the past few years. We’ve built amazing things over the last 25 years with characters that people love and that resonate around the world. Giving people the opportunity to have these experiences in a whole new way now is really exciting for us. I can’t go into the details right now, but we have a really great roadmap of how we’re going to do this.

Jim Ryan

Ryan also makes it clear that the deal is not a reaction to Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard. The deal is what “feels right for PlayStation”:

It had nothing to do with the industry consolidating. It’s all about a common version and how we can make things better together.

Jim Ryan

People could expect more deals in the future. We are by no means finished, we still have a long way to go.

Just a few weeks ago there was the last big deal in gaming:

Microsoft announces they want to buy Activision Blizzard