Microsoft has Minecraft, Epic Games has Fortnite, and Sony now has Destiny

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Microsoft has Minecraft, Epic Games has Fortnite, and Sony now has Destiny. In a $ 3.6 billion deal, Sony is acquiring Bungie, the game studio famous for creating the Halo and Destiny universes. It’s a big deal, in a month that’s already full of big business. It’s also backed by some equally big promises from Bungie about its independence, Destiny’s future, and commitment to cross-platform gaming.

In addition to Destiny, this deal reveals Sony’s ambition to compete with games like Fortnite, along with the steps taken to bring the PlayStation brand to multiple platforms.

The deal itself is unusual. Bungie will maintain creative independence within Sony, independently publishing its future games despite being 100% owned by Sony. Destiny 2 will remain cross-platform, so it won’t disappear from Xbox and transform into a PlayStation exclusive. Bungie has even made a commitment to keep the game unchanged “no matter where you choose to play”. This likely means that we won’t see Destiny-exclusive attacks or weapons on PlayStation, as we’ve seen in the past thanks to an Activision and Sony deal.

Future Bungie games will also not be exclusive to PlayStation. “We want the worlds we’re creating to extend to all the places people play,” reads a vision blog post by Joe Blackburn and Bungie’s Justin Truman. So what exactly is Sony paying $ 3.6 billion for?

So what is Sony paying $ 3.6 billion for?

You just have to look at the top ten PS5 games played by Sony to see how important Destiny is to PlayStation. Destiny 2 is number six on the list, based on hours of play. It’s a list that includes Fortnite in first place and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in second place along with the usual annual FIFA and NBA releases. Destiny 2 is still incredibly popular on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation, even as the game is about to enter its fifth year.

While many Destiny killers promise to compete (RIP Anthem), there is still nothing quite like Destiny on the market. It has a unique blend of looter and MMO shooter and a PvP crucible mode that lets you show off the weapons and armor you’ve acquired in hours of grinding. While it’s technically free, it also has a unique revenue model. You can purchase cosmetics via microtransactions, purchase a Season Pass to get more unique rewards and weapons, and even purchase DLCs to access additional campaign content and activities such as dungeons or raids.

Destiny 2: The Witch Queen will arrive on February 22nd. Image: Bungie

The revenue from live service games is attractive to Sony. Watch Fortnite – it’s big enough to impact game content and service revenue for both Sony and Microsoft. We saw its impact on Xbox revenue in 2018, and court records revealed last year that Fortnite’s real cash cow is PlayStation. Sony also made a $ 250 million investment in Fortnite owner Epic Games in 2020, followed by another $ 200 million last year. It’s just a couple of percentage odds in all, but it demonstrates the clear value Sony sees in Fortnite.

Destiny isn’t perfect, but it has always had the potential to compete with Fortnite for attention and social space that has turned Fortnite into something of a metaverse for kids and adults alike. Bungie’s great ambition with the original version of Destiny was for players to interact freely in giant worlds, form fire teams in dedicated social spaces, and then team up to take on enemies in attacks, raids and other activities. But instead of an ever-changing world like Fortnite, Destiny has become an ever-growing world that has often taken different directions.

Destiny 2: Forsaken represented the best of Destiny, with a weekly changing Dreaming City world full of secrets to uncover. Nothing in Destiny has since cast the same magic and it often feels like the game has so much untapped potential. A strange gaming exploit demonstrated this best, allowing players to have a lot of fun with 12-person raids instead of the usual restriction to just six people. It was a short but fun bug that demonstrated the potential for a game to further exploit the social aspects that unite millions of Destiny players.

Many Destiny players dream of being able to stand alongside dozens of fellow Guardians, repelling mini screams or the countless other types of enemies designed to wipe you out. At the moment, many activities are limited to teams of three players, but raids are expanding to six players. These limitations create a strange mix where you have to split up groups of friends when new content comes out and you are never truly experiencing an ever-changing world of Destiny with everyone else.

Destiny has a lot of untapped social potential.

Bungie experimented with improving these live aspects and demonstrated its ambitions of hosting Fortnite-style live events a couple of years ago. Both seasonal live events in 2020 were a good start, but they were rather slow and disappointing. Despite its shortcomings, Destiny’s uniqueness and smooth shoot-outs keep many players hooked (I’ve played for more than 5,000 hours personally) and the franchise has a loyal fan base that returns regularly for great content like the upcoming Witch expansion. Queen on February 22nd. Sony’s acquisition won’t disrupt this flow, and Bungie says its plans for Destiny 2 content remain unchanged. “Our plans for the Light and Dark saga are unchanged, until The Final Shape in 2024.”

Only in Destiny, Sony gets instant access to a game that is fighting for the attention of players who might otherwise be playing Fortnite, Call of Duty, or many other free-to-play shooters. It also offers Sony a great cross-platform game, just as the company decided to release its exclusive PlayStation games on PC.

“We’re starting to go cross-platform, you’ve seen it,” says Jim Ryan, PlayStation CEO, in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz. “We have an aggressive road map with real-time services. And the opportunity to work with, and especially to learn from, Bungie’s brilliant and talented people … that will greatly accelerate the journey we are on. “

Destiny is a big acquisition for Sony, allowing the company to promote elements of the live service, but what could really be worth it for Sony is Bungie’s next game. It just so happens that Bungie has a new franchise coming soon. Codenamed Matter, the job postings initially described the new IP as a “multiplayer action game” with “character-based” gameplay. This has led many to make comparisons with Valorant or Overwatch, but Bungie has proven with Halo and Destiny that it never produces anything that is exactly like what exists today. Bungie hasn’t officially commented other than last year’s promise “to bring at least one new IP to market before 2025”.

Sony’s PlayStation CEO says they have an aggressive road map for live services. Photo by Alex Wong / Getty Images

Matter, or what it’s called, will be a key part of why Sony acquired Bungie. Destiny will live on for many years to come and could see Sony tap into TV shows for the franchise, or help bring to life Bungie’s promise of “an expansion of the Universe of Destiny in more media.” If Bungie’s early job announcements are accurate, then Matter could be the next big live service game that puts further pressure on Fortnite’s dominance. It’s also easy to imagine a Bungie game with crossover to Sony’s IP range and the potential to deliver on Destiny’s original promises.

However, what Sony’s acquisition of Bungie isn’t about is exclusivity. Games like Destiny thrive because they are available on multiple platforms and can connect different groups of friends in a virtual world. Fortnite, Call of Duty and Destiny are not very popular because they are locked on a single platform; they are available everywhere and this drives their success. Sony may have rejected crossplay and cross-platforming in the past, but it’s clear that the PlayStation maker is now embracing its potential and has bigger plans for live service games.

“Philosophically, it’s not about bringing things into the PlayStation world,” says Ryan. “It’s about building huge and wonderful new worlds together.”

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