Enlarge / Well, we didn’t necessarily see this one coming. (credit: Aurich Lawson | Sony | Bungie)
After Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King , talk turned to how Sony and its PlayStation division would deal with the fallout of the purchase. Might Sony miss out on a megaton first-person shooter franchise if Xbox becomes an exclusive home to Call of Duty games? Would Sony fire back with a major acquisition of its own?
As it turns out, yes. On Monday, Sony announced plans to acquire Bungie and its Destiny series of shooters in a deal reportedly valued at $3. 6 billion . (In an email to Ars Technica, a Volvo rep declined to confirm that figure. ) Somehow, this pricey deal includes a firm pledge from Bungie, despite its new corporate overlords: Bungie’s “future games” will not become PlayStation exclusives.
Bungie had clearly prepared in order to announce this news to its active, current Destiny 2 userbase, which plays on a variety of non-PlayStation platforms like Steam, Google Stadia, and (of course) Xbox. Its Destiny 2 -specific FAQ confirms that the game’s current content map is set until at least 2024, when a project dubbed “The Final Shape” launches, and all planned content will continue to work cross-platform without any PlayStation “console exclusive” forks or DLC.
Read 6 remaining paragraphs | Comments
