Sony Strikes Back In Gaming Wars With Acquisition Of Former Microsoft Game Developer Bungie

Sony Group Corp SONY subsidiary Sony Interactive Entertainment on Monday announced plans to acquire independent video game developer Bungie for $3.6 billion.

What To Know: Sony aims to gain access to Bungie’s approach to live game services and technology expertise via the acquisition. Acquiring Bungie will help Sony to execute on its "strategy to expand the reach of PlayStation to a much wider audience," according to Sony. 

Following the closing of the transaction, Bungie will continue to operate independently, maintaining the ability to self-publish. 

The Bungie team is focused on the long-term development of its most popular games, as well as the creation of entirely new worlds in future IP.

"As part of our purpose to ‘fill the world with emotion, through the power of creativity and technology,' we will utilize the Sony Group’s diverse array of entertainment and technology assets to support further evolution of Bungie and its ability to create iconic worlds across multiple platforms and media," said Kenichiro Yoshida, president and CEO of Sony Group.

Why It Matters: The deal comes in the wake of Microsoft Corp's MSFT planned $68.7-billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard Inc ATVI, as technology companies continue to lean into gaming in anticipation of metaverse expansion. 

Bungie was previously owned by Microsoft before being spun off in 2007. The independent video game developer is responsible for the creation of some of the industry’s most popular game franchises, including "Halo" and "Destiny."

Bungie played a big role in launching Microsoft's first Xbox console as "Halo: Combat Evolved" was featured as one of the launch games when the Xbox was released in 2001. 

Microsoft's planned acquisition of Activision raised questions about whether or not Microsoft would make some of Activision's most popular game franchises exclusive to the Xbox platform. Those questions were put to rest when executives from Microsoft, Activision and Sony highlighted existing agreements between the companies.

Related Link: Existing Agreements Between Microsoft, Activision, Sony Point To 'Call Of Duty' Remaining Multiplatform (For Now)

Bungie has already made it clear that its current and future games will not become PlayStation exclusives. The company responded "no" to exclusivity questions listed in the frequently asked questions section of a recent blog post.

"We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games," Bungie said. "We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community."

SONY Price Action: Sony has traded as low as $91.74 and as high as $133.75 over a 52-week period.

The stock was up 4.7% at $111.84 Monday afternoon.

Photo: Ian Dick from Flickr.