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Sony: buying other studios to help them, not contests

Shulou Source: shulou.com Published: 2023-11-24 11:00:44 10月26日 Update

CTOnews.com October 6 news, in January this year, Microsoft Xbox announced the acquisition of game giant Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion (about 438.306 billion yuan).

Spencer, head of Microsoft's Xbox business, promised that even if the company's deal to buy well-known game developer Activision Blizzard was approved, the call of Duty series would still be available on Sony's PlayStation console for "several years" (beyond Sony's existing contract with Activision), and that the future three "call of Duty" games would still be launched on the PS platform. Phil Spencer added, "We value our relationship with Sony."

But in fact, Sony SIE has been worried about the Microsoft acquisition, mainly because of future release plans for the call of Duty series and whether it will be removed from their platform. CTOnews.com learned that the call of Duty series is usually PlayStation's best seller of the year.

CTOnews.com reported that SIE CEO Jim Ryan flew to the European Union last month to express his concerns about Microsoft Xbox's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

At the end of January, after Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Sony announced that it would buy Destiny developer Bungie-- for $3.6 billion, equivalent to 5 per cent of Microsoft's acquisition. The deal was completed on July 15 this year, and Bungie became a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment with a high degree of autonomy.

Then, in April, Sonny invested $1 billion in Epic Games to further develop meta-universe. In addition, Sony has made a series of small moves, buying Housemarque, Nixxes Software, Bluepoint, Valkyrie, Firesprite, Haven, Savage Game Studios and other studios, as well as news that it is trying to acquire Square Enix Tokyo.

Hermen Hulst, head of PlayStation Studios, said in an interview that Sony has been working with teams with a strong creative vision, which are also well suited to PlayStation Studios culture, and that the acquisition of studios is to help them develop better, not to engage in an "arms race."

In addition, he praised Haven Studios, which Hulst believes will help it grow, improve development efficiency and standards, rather than squeeze them out of the market.