I find it odd bungie left Microsoft for creative freedom to do what they want IE destiny, then they sell out to Activision only to break out of that partnership for “creative freedom” and now they’re back to have yet another overlord above them lol. I personally won’t be surprised if bungie tries to get out of this in a few years, especially when Sony says something like “we’ll let them self publish if they wish”. Like......who buys a company to let them do what they want when they were already doing that as individuals. Sony has a plan with bungie so I doubt this statement they made.
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I thought the same thing, when I first heard it....but now that I've had time to think about this....Sony may have pulled off a stroke of GENIUS. But to understand what might be going on here, you need to stop seeign this as a "video game deal"....pull back, and take the 30,000 ft view of the situation. 1. These companies aren't just video game makers. They are MASSIVE companies with LOTS of different things they do to make money. 2. MS only entertainment wing is the production and selling of games and gaming hardware. So seeing their acquistion of all these companies from a gaming perspective makes sense. 3. SONY, on the other hand is primarily a consumer products and ENTERTAINMENT company...of which gaming is only a small part of their overall profile. 4. If you look at Sony buying Bungie as a video game acquisition....NONE of this deal makes much sense. Bungie is back under someone else's ownership after fighting for years to get away from it. Sony just ponied up $3.6 billion for a video game company that it isn't interested in making its games platform exclusive....and that they are letting operate INDEPENDANTLY (Bungie retains control) within Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE). But when you pull back and climb to 30,000 ft and remember who SONY IS....all this starts to make sense. 1. Bungie has been saying they want to not just be a gaming company. They want to be a MULTI-MEDIA company. Books. Movies. Comics. TV shows. They've dabbled in this. But they don't have the knowledge or experienece to do this on a large scale....and trying to learn it by trial and error is expensive, and risky. 2. The Elephant in the Living Room is DISNEY and its massive success with the Marvel and Star Wars Cinematic Universes. Sony has had a front-row seat workign with them on the Spider-man movies, and seeing how it gets done. THEY JUST NEVER HAVE HAD CONTROL OF A PROPERTY THAT THEY COULD USE TO DO THIS ON THEIR OWN. 3. BUYING BUNGIE OUTRIGHT LIKE THIS GIVES SONY OWNERSHIP OF THE IP RIGHTS TO DESTINY....and therefore the media rights to anything done with it. Unlike Spider-man where Sony has to pay Disney, and are limited in what they can do with it BY Disney. We may being seeing the birth of a Destiny-oriented multi-media Universe. With SONY at the helm. Where there is a divsiion of labor. Sony looks at Bungie and says, [i]"Hey, you go do what you want with the video games. We'll even write checks to make sure that is as successful as possible....THEN YOU LEAVE THE MULTI-MEDIA WORK TO US. OUR RESOURCES. OUR CONTACTS. OUR EXPERIENCE AND EXPERTISE. We've got this." [/i] Now what's in it for Bungie. 1. Bungie gets to see its multi-media goals realized. 2. $3.6 Billion....not-necessarily in cash. What most of the public doesn't know is that when you get these big corporate acquisitions taking place, these deals are SO huge that you can't just run down to a commercial bank....withdraw $3.6 billion in cash....or write a check for that amount. These deals have to be "structured"...and this is what Investment Banks used to do before they became publicly-owned hedge funds. What Sony may have done is not pay for Bungie in cash....but instead gave the partners in Bungie $3.6 billion (or some fraction of that) in SONY stock and or stock options. Not only does this give Pete Parsons and others a VERY NICE payday i-blam!- to the sale, but if the deal was structured in this way it also gives them EXTRA reason to agree to the sale becasue they now have an ownership stake in the value that a Destiny (or any other Bungie IP) -based multi-media universe creates for Sony. Something they never had with Microsoft....or with Activision. All of a sudden, "creative freedom" starts to look a LOT less attractive as a principled stand. In business....every one's "principles" comes with a price tag. If you MEET that price tag, people will conveniently forget or overlook their principles. I think Sony MET Bungie's price. Big time.