Sony Buys Destiny Studio Bungie For $3.6 Billion

Sony Interactive Entertainment has acquired the studio behind the hit sci-fi MMO Destiny, Bungie in a deal worth $3.6 billion on Monday.

Bungie will join the Sony Interactive Entertainment family which includes Insomniac Games, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla Games, Sucker Punch Productions, Bluepoint Games and a handful of other prominent studios.

Bungie CEO, Pete Parsons said that the new acquisition will enable the company to focus on global multimedia entertainment not just PlayStation as it retains creative control over its franchises and serve as the beginning of a new era for the company.

"We remain in charge of our destiny. We will continue to independently publish and creatively develop our games,"

“We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community. Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.​"

These deals give the acquired studios financial stability, production support and wide-reaching marketing plans, though they'll have to operate within a corporate ecosystem and potentially tie their games to specific platforms. Bungie, it seems, has plans to publish outside of Sony's PlayStation universe, though time will tell what that looks like in practice.

Presently, the video games industry faces a consolidation era with Sony's biggest rival Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard and Sony acquiring Bungie (the original home of the Halo franchise), which is a pivotal series for Xbox consoles, and Bungie was its arbiter for nearly a decade under Microsoft.