PC Gamer recently had a discussion with Game Director Ion Hazzikostas about the early access feature coming with the Epic Edition of The War Within. Ion put emphasis on the restrictions coming with early access, stating their goal is to not provide any long-term advantage. PC Gamer Interview Here's a quick summary of the PC Gamer Interview:
Does Sony have a long-term software strategy? | Opinion
03.11.2023 - 11:09 / gamesindustry.biz / Sony
In all the furore over Microsoft's record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard, it's almost been possible to forget that Sony recently had a major acquisition of its own – a far cry from the scale of the Activision deal, certainly, and not even a match for the price tag of Microsoft's earlier Zenimax acquisition, but Sony's $3.6 billion buyout of Bungie was a big step for the company nonetheless.
The acquisition strategy that has built up Sony's studio system had been a relatively cautious process of accretion for the most part. Studios like Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and Guerrilla Games were bought out after years of working increasingly closely with Sony, effectively functioning as Sony "second-party" developers for a while before being brought in-house as first-party studios.
The Bungie deal was a departure from that strategy. While PlayStation was a major platform for Destiny and Destiny 2, Bungie acts as a multi-platform publisher of its own games, a status that was promised to continue even after the expensive acquisition was completed.
At the time of the deal, back at the start of 2022, this looked like a fairly major evolution of Sony's software strategy – which had also recently begun to embrace non-PlayStation platforms, with well-received PC releases of major first-party titles. Bungie would bring that a step further, while also bringing live service expertise that would develop this side of the business for Sony as a whole.
Meanwhile, from Bungie's side of things, the focus was on independence and growth; the studio's autonomy would survive the acquisition, while the resulting injection of capital would enable it to grow and achieve its plans much more rapidly.
Nearly two years on, a round of layoffs at Bungie – accompanied by some delays to projects in the pipeline – have brought this deal back into focus, and raised some significant questions about what Sony's strategy actually is here.
Exact numbers haven't been disclosed, but about 100 of the company's roughly 1,200 staff have reportedly been laid off. The next major Destiny 2 expansion has been pushed back a few months to June 2024, while new title Marathon has been pushed to 2025. This all comes on the back of Destiny 2 missing its revenue targets by some 45%, a major dip which suggests that the venerable game (originally released in mid-2017) is sunsetting far more quickly than the company had hoped for.
It's also worth mentioning that layoffs have been happening at Sony-owned Media Molecule and Visual Arts earlier this month as well.
Largely uncommented-upon when Sony's Bungie purchase went through was what a risky investment this was. $3.6 billion is a fair chunk of cash for a company of Sony's size, and
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