Sony acquired Bungie, the creators of Destiny and Halo, for $3.6 billion

Sony has revealed plans to acquire Bungie, the creators of the popular game franchises Destiny and Halo, in yet another significant gaming partnership. Bungie will join the PlayStation family in a $3.6 billion agreement, according to The Verge, while continuing to develop and distribute its own games independently.

Sony revealed the decision in a new blog post on the PlayStation blog and on the Sony Interactive Entertainment site. Bungie has also revealed its thoughts on the acquisition on its website. The one thing that everyone agrees on is that Bungie will continue to exist across platforms, and there are no intentions for it to become a PlayStation exclusive in the future.

Rather of adding to Sony's exclusive list of PlayStation games, the concept of acquiring Bungie for Sony Interactive Entertainment stems from the company's desire to increase its gamer base. In a blog post, Hermen Hulst, the Head of PlayStation Studios, wrote, "Bungie joining the PlayStation family will increase the capabilities of PlayStation Studios, and of Bungie, and achieve our vision of expanding PlayStation to hundreds of millions of gamers."

Sony Interactive Entertainment's president and CEO, Jim Ryan, elaborated on the development, calling it a "strategic move" in evolving the game experiences that Sony is creating with PlayStation. Bungie's competence in, according to Ryan, "world-class service approach and long-term community engagement" will help with the development of "several future live service titles from PlayStation Studios."

So, how would this benefit Bungie?

The PlayStation Studios' talents and resources, according to Ryan, will benefit Bungie's "current and future IP portfolio." This will undoubtedly be through PlayStation's massive gamer base, but more crucially, Bungie will receive help in the form of new talent within the firm.

Bungie CEO Pete Parsons writes in a blog post that the biggest obvious change following SIE's acquisition will be "an acceleration in hiring talent throughout the whole studio," in accordance with the company's strategy for its in-development and future game releases, including Destiny 2.

Most crucially, the 30-year-old game studio has stated that future games would not be restricted to the PlayStation. "No. We want the worlds we are creating to extend to anywhere people play games. We will continue to be self-published, creatively independent, and we will continue to drive one, unified Bungie community."