Playstation manufacturer Sony counters with its own takeover plan.
(Photo: AP)
San Mateo The gaming console heavyweights’ shopping spree is picking up speed: After Microsoft went out to buy the makers of “Call of Duty”, Sony countered with its own takeover plan. The Playstation provider wants to swallow the Bungie studio, which developed games like “Halo” and “Destiny”. The deal is worth a total of 3.6 billion dollars (3.2 billion euros), as the companies announced on Monday.
Sony is spending significantly less money than Microsoft: The Xbox group wants the game company Activision Blizzard to spend a total of 68.7 billion dollars. In addition to “Call of Duty”, Activision Blizzard also comes with “World of Warcraft”, “Diablo” and the smartphone game “Candy Crush”.
In view of the planned takeover of Activision Blizzard, Sony had to adjust to the fact that over time Microsoft would only be able to offer the company’s popular titles exclusively for the Xbox or the in-house online subscription offer.
According to media reports, current agreements only guarantee that the game will be released for the Playstation for the next three editions of “Call of Duty”. The logical answer was to expand the range with the purchase of a game studio with similarly popular titles.
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It’s ironic that Bungie was once part of Microsoft, and Halo was one of the key games that helped Xbox emerge as a newcomer to its place alongside then-top dog Playstation. Microsoft retained the rights to “Halo” when it split in 2007, so that Sony could benefit primarily from the further development of “Destiny” with the purchase of Bungie.
Sony and Bungie assured that the current game “Destiny 2” will continue to be available for all platforms after the acquisition. Even later games that are still in development would not be offered exclusively for the Playstation, it said.
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