Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan has reiterated yet again that he’s not done with PlayStation acquisitions just yet. Making a rare appearance on the latest episode of the official PlayStation podcast, Ryan told host Sid Shuman that Sony is aggressively expanding its development capabilities, both through acquisitions as well as organic growth. He said that PlayStation Studios are now in a “virtuous cycle” where “success begets success.”
PlayStation acquisitions are all about content creation
Sony doesn’t seem to be interested in expanding its portfolio of games by acquiring publishing houses with libraries full of long-running franchises. Instead, the company seeks out talent that it can utilize to build games that its audience demands. Throughout the course of 2021, Sony has added five developers to PlayStation Studios. “We’re in a real good place with PlayStation Studios right now – we have been for the past few years,” Ryan gushed. “The critical success and the commercial success of the games they’ve been making – that has given us permission to invest heavily in content creation. We’re growing our studios organically and we’re growing through acquisition.” Ryan then went on to add that Sony has more acquisitions planned.
Curiously, Ryan mentioned that Sony’s “in discussions with Bungie,” without elaborating what he means. The podcast was recorded long after Sony announced its acquisition of the Halo and Destiny studio so it’s unclear what type of “discussions” the companies are involved in beyond what we already know. Sony previously said that it acquired Bungie because of its live service expertise and doesn’t plan to make any of its games platform exclusive, now or going forward.
In other news, U.S. lawmakers are pressuring regulators to review Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and DICE has said that the next Battlefield 2042 update will come with a few hundred much-needed changes.
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