Sony recently acquired Bungie for a whopping $3.6 billion. While many were speculating, the company did so to have a backup for the Call of Duty series in the form of Destiny, it seems that deal involves a lot more. During an investor call today, Sony revealed its plan to launch over 10 new live service games by March 2026.
This is a hugely ambitious plan and goes beyond Sony’s traditional route of releasing console exclusives.
“The strategic significance of this acquisition lies not only in obtaining the highly successful Destiny franchise, as well as major new IP Bungie is currently developing, but also incorporating into the Sony group the expertise and technologies Bungie has developed in the live game services space,” says Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki. “Through close collaboration between Bungie and PlayStation Studios, we aim to launch more than 10 live service games by the fiscal year ending March 2026.”
Bungie’s next IP is codenamed Matter and is rumoured to be a multiplayer action game with character-based gameplay. The game is supposed to launch before 2025. However, that is only one game out of the 10. Naughty Dog is also said to be developing a multiplayer game for years and Guerrilla has hired people for roles related to online games. PlayStation’s London Studio is also working on a new PS5 online game.
Sony has always lacked its own live service games, but with Bungie, the company seems to be pushing very aggressively to take on Microsoft (Minecraft, Sea of Thieves) and Epic Games (Fortnite).
Apart from a push in the live service games, Bungie will also help Sony in developing exclusives for PlayStation and also help the company in setting up its Game Pass competitor.
Take note, Bungie even after the acquisition is complete will continue to function independently as a subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company will continue to be helmed by its current Chief Executive Officer Pete Parsons.
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