Sony to buy video game studio Bungie for $3.6 billion

Sony announced it will buy the video game studio Bungie, the Halo and Destiny franchises developer, for $3.6 billion.

Sony said the acquisition will help take Play Station, its video gaming platform, "beyond the console," in a blog post. 

"This is a strategic step towards continuing to evolve the gaming experiences that we build," said Jim Ryan, Sony Interactive Entertainment's CEO. "Bungie's expertise in delivering a world-class service approach and long-term community engagement is extremely compelling and will support the development of several future live services titles from PlayStation Studios."

In a statement, Bungie said that despite the acquisition, the company will remain in charge of its vision and will continue publishing and developing games independently. 

“Bungie has limitless potential to unite friends around the world. We have found a partner in PlayStation that shares our dream and is committed to accelerating our creative vision of building generation-spanning entertainment. Our journey begins today,” the developer tweeted. 

“Bungie has created and continues to evolve some of the world’s most beloved video game franchises and, by aligning its values with people’s desire to share gameplay experiences, they bring together millions of people around the world,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, Sony Group Corp.’s chairman, president and CEO, in a statement.

The acquisition comes after Microsoft announced its intentions to buy Activision Blizzard, the developer of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and Candy Crush, for $68.7 billion earlier this month.