Last week Sony announced the launch of a new version of the PlayStation Plus tiered subscription service, codenamed “Spartacus,” which will launch in June this year. Unlike rival Xbox Game Pass, first-party games won’t debut on the PlayStation Plus service.
Like Microsoft, Sony has acquired a large number of game developers or studios in the past period of time, forming an arms race to a certain extent. So far in 2021, Sony has acquired:
- Housemarque,
- Nixxes Software,
- Firesprite,
- Bluepoint Games,
- Valkyrie Entertainment,
- Bungie, and
- Haven Studios,
but it doesn’t seem to be over yet.
In an interview with the official PlayStation podcast recently, PlayStation President and CEO Jim Ryan once again touched on the topic of acquisitions, saying:
“The first-party games we make are very successful both word of mouth and commercial, allowing us to invest heavily in content creation. We will grow on the one hand and increase the number of game studios through acquisitions on the other hand. In 2021, we acquired five studios. We are in discussions with Bungie and have more planned.”
Jim Ryan’s remarks will inevitably lead to new speculation, many people believe that Sony may seek to acquire other game studios, such as Deviation Studios or Firewalk Studios, which are currently developing AAA-level multiplayer online service games.
Rumor has it that Sony’s next acquisition won’t take too long and will be a larger deal. Sony is said to be planning to spend about $10 billion in cash for acquisitions this year, and some Japanese game developers are considered potential acquisition targets, including CAPCOM, Square Enix, SEGA, and KONAMI, the results will be announced soon.
