Sony is buying Bungie in the latest mega deal for video gaming

Sony Interactive Entertainment is acquiring Bungie, the video game maker behind the Destiny series, for $3.6 billion, the companies announced Monday.

It’s the latest big acquisition in the world of video gaming, after Take-Two Interactive’s $12.7 billion deal to buy mobile game maker Zynga and Microsoft’s $68.7 billion planned purchase of Activision Blizzard, both announced this month.

The companies said that Destiny 2 and other games in the works from Bungie would remain available for multiple platforms, not just Sony’s PlayStation consoles.

“We will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community,” Bungie CEO Pete Parsons said in a blog post. “Our games will continue to be where our community is, wherever they choose to play.?”

Bungie itself was owned by Microsoft between 2000 and 2007. Microsoft held on to the rights to Halo, the popular science fiction combat game series created by Bungie.

Like Activision Blizzard and other companies in the video game industry, Bungie has faced accusations of racism and sexism in the workplace and vowed to take steps to improve its corporate culture, as well as hiring and promotion practices.

After the acquisition, “Bungie will be an independent subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment and run by its Board of Directors, chaired by Pete Parsons and Bungie’s current management team,” according to Sony.

The recent video game acquisitions come as console game makers face continued competition from mobile games, the rise of subscription services like Microsoft’s popular Xbox Game Pass, and growing industry investment in virtual reality and metaverse technology.