Sony Interactive Entertainment recently announced plans to acquire game developer Bungie for $3.6 Billion. While the acquisition news ruffled many feathers in the Xbox and Destiny 2 gaming communities and caused moderate panic over Bungie’s future developments, SIE has made it clear that they have no intention of making Bungie PlayStation Exclusive.
Famous for the Halo and Destiny franchises, Bungie was under the Microsoft banner from the year 2000. In 2007 however, the developer split from Microsoft, losing its intellectual property rights to Halo, which is now developed by another of Microsoft’s acquisitions, 343 Industries.
Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO, Jim Ryan, says that after the acquisition, Bungie will remain a multi-platform studio with full rights to self-publish their IP and reach players wherever they want to play. He goes further to say that Bungie and SIE have had a strong partnership since the birth of the Destiny franchise and that he is thrilled to welcome the studio into the PlayStation fold.
The official PlayStation blog posts also went out of their way to quell concerns, reinforcing that Bungie will sit alongside PlayStation Studios and that the two groups would collaborate on future titles and IP. Bungie clarified what the acquisition would mean for them in their own blog post. The developer called Sony Interactive Entertainment a partner who has supported them unconditionally and only hopes to bring Bungie’s vision of entertainment spanning multiple generations to fruition while allowing them to remain the creative, independent force they’ve always strived to be.
While Destiny 2 is being promoted heavily alongside PlayStation, offering exclusive bonuses to the platform’s players, it’s pertinent to remember how intertwined Bungie has always been with PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. There is no reason at this stage to worry about Bungie’s future offerings being exclusive to Sony’s gaming platform, and all parties involved have been transparent about wanting to preserve Bungie’s independence and supporting them in their quest.