After Sony completes its purchase of Bungie, the Destiny franchise will remain a multiplatform series and will not become a PlayStation exclusive. Earlier this week, Microsoft announced its intent to purchase Activision Blizzard, which is slated to close in 2023. Xbox, which recently added a number of notable exclusives to its lineup, has been putting pressure on Sony to make similar purchases in the last few years, leading the latter to make its own acquisitions.
However, Sony saw its stock price collapse in the wake of the Activision Blizzard acquisition, which was so detrimental to the company that it drew attention away from the ZeniMax Media agreement. Sony was anticipated to make acquisitions of its own in response to Xbox’s acquisitions of popular properties like Call of Duty and Overwatch. According to Video Games Chronicle, Sony has agreed to pay $3.6 billion to acquire Bungie, the company behind the popular video game Destiny.
Destiny and other Bungie franchises will not become PlayStation exclusives in the future, since both Sony and Bungie (in a statement on the official Bungie website) have stated that their existing and future IPs will stay multiplatform in the future. A substantial fanbase on Google Stadia, PC and Xbox platforms already mean that Destiny 2 content will continue to be released on various platforms. When new Destiny 2 expansions are still being sold, a move to PlayStation would be an easy way to alienate this group and for no reward.
Despite Microsoft’s recent acquisition of Activision, Sony’s decision to allow Bungie games to be released on various platforms is strange. Sony is also embracing the PC platform for its older PlayStation exclusives at this time. They did emphasise that the company would maintain its independence, so we’ll have to wait and see if it holds true. Sony paid a lot of money to acquire Bungie, and they’ll be looking for titles that would bring new customers to the PlayStation brand. Future Destiny titles could be PlayStation-exclusive if Microsoft makes Call of Duty an Xbox/PC exclusive franchise like it is with Call of Duty.