PlayStation boss Jim Ryan has confirmed that Sony has more acquisitions planned, beyond its recent buyouts of Bungie and Haven.
Sony announced the acquisitionof Monreal, Canada-basedHavenlast month, which takesPlayStation’s internal studios to more than 18 developers.
The move follows the company’s recent acquisitions ofDestinycreatorBungie,Demon’s SoulsstudioBluepoint Games,Returnal developer Housemarque,PCport specialistNixxes Software,and Firesprite, a UK-based developer established by former members of SIE Studio Liverpool.
And speaking on the latestPlayStation podcast, SIE president Ryan confirmed that the platform holder is working on further deals to buy developers.
“We’re in a really good place with PlayStation Studios and have been for the past few years. The critical success and the commercial success of the games that they’ve been making… that has given us permission to invest heavily in content creation.”
He added: “We’re growing our studios organically and we’re growing through acquisition. We acquired five studios during the course of 2021, we’re in discussions withBungieand we have more planned. This is getting us into a virtuous cycle where success begets success.”
The exec went on toreiteratewhySonyhas decided not to include day one releases in its new subscription offering, likeXboxGame Pass does, claiming that such a setup would damage the quality of its games.
“The games that we make are getting bigger; they’re getting better, they’re getting more beautiful, they’re getting richer, the narrative is getting stronger… this is really great and gamers tell us this is what they really want from PlayStation.
“Now, I have to say, putting these games into a subscription service immediately upon their release would break this virtuous circle, and we wouldn’t be able to invest in the way that we’re currently able to. So we’re not doing it. We’re going to stick to the approach that we have and has served us well under many years now.”
Further reading
M&A activity in the games industry hit a record $85 billion in 2021 and has beenforecastto reach $150 billion this year, with huge deals such asMicrosoft’s acquisition of Activision BlizzardandTake-Two’s buyout of Zyngahaving already been announced in 2022’s opening months.
Outside of studio acquisitions, Sony has been investing inPS5exclusives through partnerships with several promising independent studios.
It hassigned an original multiplayer projectfrom Firewalk, a new studio founded by Bungie veterans, and willpublish the debut title from Deviation Games, a studio headed up by former Call of Duty veterans Dave Anthony and Jason Blundell.
