Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Jim Ryan spoke about PlayStation acquisitions during a Q&A session following yesterday’s Business Segment Briefings. As transcribed by VideoGamesChronicle, Ryan said the PlayStation division is not at all finished with growing the roster of first-party development studios.
In terms of future M&A activity, the answer to that is we are not at all finished with our strategy of trying to grow PlayStation Studios inorganically.
As we transition from our historic game development strategy to a much broader and much wider market reach than we enjoy today, it is very likely that inorganic stimulus will be required to help us to realise these dreams.
And to the extent that potential targets fit with our strategy, to the extent that potential targets allow us to accelerate the way in which we are able to deliver on our strategy, we will certainly consider further M&A activity to add to our business portfolio.
Recent rumors suggested that Sony could acquire long-time partner Square Enix (which recently sold its Western studios to Embracer Group).
Earlier in the Business Segment Briefing, Jim Ryan provided an overview of the rationale behind the recent PlayStation acquisitions.
We’ve been extremely active in the area of M&A and investment. Deals to fully acquire five developers have closed, with talks going with Bungie and Haven Studios. Strategic investments have been made in Discord, Devolver Digital, and AccelByte. It should also be noted that this does not include the further investments made into Epic Games by Sony Group Corporation.
The purpose of these investments is to increase our core strength at PlayStation Studios, but also to acquire expertise in areas of game development where historically we have not had a significant presence. The planned Bungie partnership is a great example of the latter.
Bungie is one of the leading developers and publishers of live service games in the world today, and we’re incredibly excited at the thought of applying their expertise and lessons learned as we build out our plans in the area of live services. Correspondingly, we believe that many of SIE assets and expertise will allow us to help Bungie to fulfill its dream to be one of the world’s leading entertainment companies.
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