Sony Group Corp. is purchasing Bungie Inc., the U.S. video game developer behind the popular Destiny and Halo franchises, for $3.6 billion (¥414.4 billion) to bolster its stable of game-making studios.
The deal announced on Monday by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) is the third significant video-game acquisition this month, following Microsoft Corp.’s purchase of Activision Blizzard for $69 billion two weeks ago and Take Two Interactive Corp. snagging mobile game leader Zynga Inc. on Jan. 10. Buying Bungie will give Sony one of the most popular first-person shooter games to compete with the massive Call of Duty series, which Sony’s main rival now owns through Activision.
Microsoft is committed to releasing at least the next three Call of Duty games on Sony’s PlayStation, Bloomberg News has reported. But eventually Microsoft could decide to take the series exclusively to its Xbox console and Windows computers. Sony, meanwhile, made clear that Destiny 2 and other titles won’t go solely to PlayStation platforms.
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