Sony confirms it will acquire more game studios

Sony just announced this week that a new version of the PlayStation Plus tiered subscription service, code-named Spartacus, 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. Since 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.

Recently, PlayStation President and CEO Jim Ryan once again touched on the topic of acquisitions in an interview with the official PlayStation podcast, saying:

The critical success and the commercial success of the first-party games that we’ve been making has given us permission to invest heavily into content creation. We’re growing our studios organically and we’re growing through acquisition. We acquired five studios during the course of 2021. We’re in discussions with Bungie. And we have more plans.

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.