Sony Invests a Further $1 Billion into Fortnite Maker Epic Games

This probably is to further highlight their games, movies & music acts inside Fortnite...as the virtual space opens up

What is Sony getting out of this though? They could’ve acquired ember labs remedy games and maybe another studio

do sony still have to pay 5% royalties for using unreal engine like everyone else does?

@DnBSkillz This investment is unrelated to studio acquisitions. Sony doing this doesn't stop them from purchasing someone else. It's Sony Group Corporation, not SIE.

Metaverse being mentioned again is it? 🙄

All those V-Bucks.

After The Matrix demo a few months back, I am very eager to see a fully fledged Triple AAA game using it to full effect.

I look forward to that day

I don't understand WTF Metaverse is. Isn't that Facebook's new craptacular platform? 🤔

@LiamCroft yes i know but Sony could of given that money to PlayStation for further investments

Sony really isn’t going in the direction I’d like them to. Guess they are following the money though, so as long as that lets them continue to make money to invest in stuff I like (such as VR) then I’m good. Would prefer them to actually buy companies so they can guarantee games don’t get locked up by MS though.

What the heck are they doing? That money should go towards in purchasing other studios or towards new projects and ips within PlayStation themselves.

Metaverse 🤢 hate to see it lol

People saying this money should of been spent on other studios need to understand this isn't solely for playstation brand, Sony is more than just the PlayStation department, they do other technology, anime, music, films, TV shows and now dabbling in cars. So basically you're saying any money sony invest should only be for the benefit of the PlayStation side?

@PlayStationGamer3919 This is a Sony group investment, not Playstation. But it will ultimately help playstation if the parent company has a strong relationship with Epic games. Without knowing any details, i assume that - for instance - it could help Sony better integrate Unreal 5 into their platform, leading to better performing titles/help to make playstation the lead platform for 3rd party development (all guesswork) - but also as a major shareholder in Epic, they should make a lot of money out of their annual profits.

Also this metaverse thing...eurgh... will likely be important in Sony's other divisions, like smartphones, TV's etc in the future

That money should go to ember lab. Or get remedy.kojima production.about getting vanilla ware and level 5.word up son

Theres only one metaverse I want to be involved in but unfortunately ive completed persona 5 twice so no more for me

A good move in my view.
This one isn't about games. I would speculate that it's purely for advertising.
Multiple Sony divisions work with Epic, and Fortnite is becoming a serious advertising platform with a hell of a lot of reach.
I wouldn't be surprised to see characters from anime shows published by Sony popping up in there before too long.

"in the metaverse field"

You are producing your own VR headset so this could be smart.

At the same time everything to do with the metaverse has been just terrible from having to shop for groceries much slower in the metaverse to virtual basketball coaches who will give you tips for $10 a month.

@Shepherd_Tallon Morbius has to pop up somewhere b/c his time in the theater seems short lived.

It makes sense with Metaverse- which it’ll be hit or miss. However, investing in the makers of UE 5 is certainly smart, especially after SE announced that Kingdom hearts 4 is moving from UE 4 to UE 5.

A few examples of uneducated/uninformed people making classic comments here.

SGC and SIE are different. Calm yourselves.

A very smart investment in an ever growing company. A lot of people don't realize that an investment doesn't always have to be an acquisition or something of the sort.

I can’t believe ‘Second Life but worse’ is being made out to be some revolutionary thing. Talk about cringe.

metaverse is nothing. it wants to be ready player one but our technology isnt there lol, im so glad Sony still develop games for us offline single campaign gamers.
i try and tell my nephew's get off this fortnight and v bucks con.

What's metaverse? That rubbish that Facebook is trying to pedal?

@Uncharted2007 if I’m thinking correctly, it’s their attempt at the Oasis. It’s not going the way they thought though. I saw a report of a mom who logged on, and her avatar was cyber molested by three other players within 45 seconds of appearing.

@placekicker oasis would be cool, the latter though 🤣

@trev666 We know from the Apple versus Epic lawsuit that Sony has a company license for unreal. That license is different from the contract of adhesion. We don’t know what the terms of that agreement are but we do know that epic considers it favourable to Sony.

@trev666 from what Unreal Engine 5 is showing in performance and graphical features, i would say it’s well worth it. Sony only has 2 games listed for UE5 , one being Haven’s game, Xbox has I think 6 or 7, but i watched a few video’s with publisher’s showing UE5 and it’s simply amazing. I’m very excited for UE5!

@SolarSailor Sony and Microsoft make these types of deals a lot and i agree they are still important, even tho they are on the scale of a buyout acquisition. Good point and it’s a good move.

@Rob_230 Microsoft has around 7 games in development for UE5 sony has 2, so i agree they need to catch up some there and get the word out for UE5 on PS5. But the tools in which UE gets from MS for PC and Xbox are hard for Sony to compete with it, seeing as they aren’t a software company that makes big decisions on how PC’s run and handle code.

@DnBSkillz I think it's called money.

@thefourfoldroot It just seems like a bad move to invest 1 billion in Epic now when they were obviously interested before at a much lower share price.

Another element that adds to my suspicions that Sony is making a big 'Playstation Home'-like project. We will see.

It’s a good move. UE is leveraged for movies a ton these days. The investment is for Sony as a whole, not just the PlayStation division.

Important to to remember that the 'Metaverse' is not a singular game or product. Not yet, anyway. People's understanding of the concept needs to be a little more fluid until it actually exists. But it is coming and like it not, it's going to be a hot topic in the coming years.

It might not be as exciting for us as a studio acquisition, but Sony's investment is a smart one considering the vast portfolio of tools and experience that Epic has in its portfolio.

@Rural-Bandit

UE5 is great, but don’t discount Sony’s first party engines.

ND Engine, Decima, Insomiac Tools, SP Engine. All really good engines that rival Unreal in both visual output and performance.

Sony doesn’t have to rely on external engines as much as Microsoft does. As of now, the only internal Microsoft engines is Slipspace at 343, and Turn10’s custom engine for the Forza games. They do have access to ID Tech 7 now, though.

That’s an engine I’d love to see more developers leverage. That engine is a work of art. It’s the one Series X and PS5 compatible engine that allows for locked 120fps. Doom Eternal at 120hz is shockingly locked in at that framerate for such high visual quality with really impressive TAA.

@OrtadragoonX I don’t discount any engine as they all produce fun games, but if Hellblade 2 and some of the demo’s are anything to go off of UE5 is looking like a monster. One thing I have always said about Sony is they live and die by using lots of proprietary tech, again for better or worse in some cases. Excited to see UE5 really kick off the next gen power as it’s being labeled to do. Actually I’m just really excited to see next Gen take off as a whole as it’s still very early and neither the PS5 or Series X has been pushed anywhere close to it’s full power and thats a good thing seeing as there are already some great looking and playing games on them. 😀

@Rural-Bandit

I don’t think we are going to see what these consoles are really capable of until 2025. Even the next gen exclusive games on both platforms for 2023 are leveraging last gen engine versions and assets.

By late 2024 and into 2025 all of the big titles with next gen only engine features will be hitting at a good clip.

It was that way with the PS4. We didn’t really get to see what Cerny’s box was really capable of until Horizon Zero Dawn released. We had glimpses of it in other games. But as a complete package Zero Dawn was the first game that really showed off what it’s architecture could do.

@OrtadragoonX it will be late 2023 and 2024 for me to see where its trending, maybe not its full final potential as that takes so long to reach and even then they find a way to squeeze more out of the box, but a good overall outlook i think is late 2023 and 2024 to start seeing what it’s shaping into. I do think this Year God of War and Starfield will be the two that show us some power. Cant wait to play both. Good time to be a gamer, there is some great tech out there about to take off in the next few years. Who i am kidding tho in 2023 I’ll be playing Breathe of the Wild 2 for 3-6 months. Not going to be a graphical beast but it will be another killer Zelda title that takes my time away from my PS & Xbox haha

Nice one, Sony. Pouring your very limited funds reserved for the PlayStation division into a metaverse, service based, microtransaction filled pile of crap, for what exactly?

Money that could've been better spent on.. oh I dunno, games for the PlayStation platforms?

The customers know the funds for PlayStation are limited and you waste it on this? Well, I hope something comes of that 'investment' because your customers want games.

All this talk of Ready Player One, and that's set about 20 years in the future. You should all be more worried that the time in which Sword Art Online is set is closer to the present day. 😳

@GADG3Tx87

Are we not getting games? We are still getting Ragnarok this year and there’s a ton of third party games coming out. I lived through the N64. And in those days we were lucky to get two games released per month.

While I dislike metaverse concepts, I get why Sony is investing more into Epic games. It makes sense from a financial standpoint. Epic is on top of the gaming world in terms of revenue and UE5 seems poised to take over third party development and even take over film.

@OrtadragoonX
I didn't say we're not getting games I said their limited funds are better invested in making games rather than funding a service f2p game that doesn't do much for PlayStation.

And I also lived through the N64 generation and grew up with the NES, SNES, and remember vividly the PS1 launch. Games were not exactly few and far between but they took you much longer to complete back then so they lasted longer. Finding secrets and working for months on unlocks as opposed to paying for 'unlocks' in the form of DLC these days.

Clearly Sony doesn't know how to a run a multi billion dollar business, they should be coming to random gaming sites to learn how to run their business.

Waste of an investment imo, better off buying a venerable gaming company at that price point, and using them to help build Sony's own metaverse and increasing market share especially when Playstation dominates the VR market and PS VR 2 should do fantastic

@Milktastrophe Yes they should, their arrogance almost led them straight to bankruptcy the last time, and I'm sure many of their sectors are still hemoraging money

Sony be interested in the studios that put 360 on the map.

@playstation1995 who says they are not trying to get the stray devs, slocap, ember, kojima and the deviation? They have more money.

@OrtadragoonX uncharted 4 looks better than hzd.

Infamous second son was a bigger jump than ratchet rift apart.

Expect less because of diminishing returns.

The next ND game won't be THAT much better looking than hfw.

@Rural-Bandit ue5 is great, but the most talented devs make their own engines.

You already said only haven is using it.
I think Sony Bend would use it too since they used ue4 but they could use the decima engine too. I know ff7 remake used ue4 but you rarely see it being used by the top of the cream.

@RevGaming

The environmental assets in Uncharted 4 are better, but Horizon’s scale and careful LOD use impressed me far more.

For character models, both are of equal quality but Uncharted’s facial animation was leagues better than Zero Dawn.

Both are amazing looking games and still hold up to this day. Which is proof of how good ND Engine and Decima are.

Hell, even KZ: Shadow Fall holds up to todays standards. All it needs is a 4K upgrade and TAA and it would look like a brand new game.

@RevGaming you don’t see it being used much by Japanese studios much for sure. Sony don’t use it much cause again they live and die with proprietary tech, UE5 is shaping up to be a monster engine tho, if thats what HellBlade 2 is looking like this early on, i think we are in for some great looking games. I know Gears 6 will crush it, i was most impressed by the facial animations. Thought that was really next level stuff, have to wait and see how it plays out tho. I’m sure on a top end PC it will be a big leap forward. Here hoping anyways. I’m ready to see the PS5 and Series X real power under the hood. But I’ve enjoyed what we’ve gotten so far.

Maybe we might get a decent game from epic games on ps plus next month instead of the glorified demo we got from them a few months ago & the tiny Tina dlc

@UltimateOtaku91 epic games don't do much outside of games though & that's what they've invested this money into

I think is part of Sony $18B+ Strategic investments that was announced last year.

@RevGaming. All those are good choices.and sony did say they are buying new studios.so thats good news.word up son

@OrtadragoonX and facial animations are much better on u4.

Uncharted 4 looked better. Even my brother who plays only on xbox always mentions u4 as the best looking game of last gen.

@playstation1995 Well. Whatever they buy, they will probably only release one game this gen if it's a big blockbuster game. Which is fine, but they can't do much atm. There aren't many good options left. That makes sense at least.

@Rural-Bandit Wasn't impressed with the coalition thing. The character looked cool but everything around him eh.

Hellblade 2 looks phenomenal, but I don't think is the best looking game.

Sound investment. Might even bring benefits to the games division in time.
If there is going to be a fuctioning metaverse like in snowcrash, then there are only so many corps capable of building it, and epic is a good bet, with lego being a good brand to have on board to help market. Interesting stuff...

@SegaBlueSky Just like Virtual Reality has been just around the corner for 20 years, right? As far as the mainstream is concerned, it's still on the way.

So yeah, something resembling "the metaverse" is coming, but I guarantee you it won't look anything like...well, anything you see before 2030. There will be at least one or two generations of building it and throwing it out before anybody makes something useful - and it won't be relevant until the hardware to make it use is ubiquitous and affordable. Which means, not soon.

But there's a lot of money to be made convincing venture capitalists they'll miss the next great revolution if they don't invest NOW.

@RevGaming

Eh, I think that crown has to go to the Last of Us Part II.

It has a ton of flaws as a game, but no one can deride just how beautiful it is.

It took the ND Engine version from UC4 and took it to the next level.

Horizon’s strength was how carefully GG managed the LOD at different ranges. The game looked absolutely stunning at long range, something that couldn’t be said of other open world games at that time.

@Rural-Bandit

Historically speaking Unreal Engine combined with Japanese developers equals disaster. FF7 Remake is one of the few Japanese developed games on UE4 that actually runs well.

UE is a good engine, but it has some severe issues. Mainly related to performance. It’s a difficult engine to work with when your goal is the highest performance possible. You have to carefully manage frame timing in the game if you cap the framerate; if you don’t you end up with the patented “UE stutter” effect. It’ll run at a smooth framerate but the frame pacing will be all over the place.

It’s the exact opposite of ID Tech 7. ID Tech7 is optimized for high refresh rates while still maintaining visual quality.

It’s just a shame that developers aren’t using it. Doom Eternal is a masterpiece not with how it looks, but how it performs while still looking good. No matter what platform it’s on, the game runs like smooth butter.

@OrtadragoonX I agree. tlou2 looks better. I just mentioned my brother still thinks it's u4.

The flaws tlou 2 has is in its story and pacing. Everything else should be the bar for anything.

Yeah. HZD would be in my top 10 best looking games still.

@RevGaming i think the things around him were more about shadows then actually making something look cool, it was all about showing face details and light reflections. Thought it was amazing looking. Now I’m not staying up all night, so i am only giving you 2 hours to send me a link of a better looking game than HellBlade 2. Haha jokes aside that game made my jaw drop and not even saying that as a joke, i watched it with my mouth open and eyes wide open. 2 hours and your time starts ….. now!

@OrtadragoonX Japanese devs no offense, I don’t say this out of slight, but are behind the times to what western devs produce on a scale. Sure every now and again a Japan studio makes something noteworthy outside of Nintendo, whom make great games and thats why they lead in Japan by a wide margin. But Western devs are light years ahead in size, tech and market share.
Hence why Sony is turning PS into a western console and leaving behind many of its Japan studios and features from past PS consoles. Back to UE4 , it was a great engine, not without some issues of course, but everything you listed is in the unknown as we are getting UE5 and know very little of it yet, other than devs raving about it and a HellBlade 2 gameplay trailer that is insanely stunning. So i cant really go into a list of details on UE5 other than I’m excited for it and think it will push these next gen consoles and PC’s to new heights. As for ID tech, I couldn’t agree with you more they are master’s in their class and Doom feels great, i will take some backlash on this I’m sure, but i am no fanboy and play all consoles, i have 165 hours on Halo Infinite, with 140 plus in the multiplayer, and while i know the game is no graphical showcase. The slip space engine is wonderful and makes the movement in the game so rewarding and it rarely ever misses a beat. I do play it on a 65 inch LG C1 Oled with VRR, so i am getting the full 120FPS, but it is butter smooth and they will iron it out and polish it more and i think having ID in house to work alongside MS teams will only teach and show them things that ID knows how to do. Not trying to turn this into a MS topic, it’s just where i play all my shooters. PS and Nintendo are my exclusive machines. I don’t play much 3rd party there. Thats why i am using my references. But in closing i agree with you about doom and certainly ID. When MS acquired them in the Bethesda deal i said that alone was worth half of the 7 Billion. Just their knowledge alone is worth a Billion dollars, not to mention what they bring out next.

@Rural-Bandit It didn't impress me in general. What was impressing was that it came from xbox.

I think HFW and Demon Souls Remake looks better.

I just think what they showed didn't have a lot of things in the environment. I would have to see like a huge detailed camp to really tell.

@RevGaming Demon Soul’s to me isn’t even as impressive as ratchet and Clank Rift apart. Ratchet looked stunning on the Oled.
I said wow like 300 times no lie. HellBlade 2 while we only got a glimpse of one scene, looks insanely good. I don’t want this to turn into a console war debate cause both have great graphics and games coming. But I’ve seen nothing like HellBlade 2 yet. If i was asked the best looking game i can buy and play today I’m going ratchet and Clank. That was a Pixar level game in a lot of areas.

@RevGaming if you have near $10k to play Red Dead 2 in 8K on PC that is the best looking game. I have never got to see it in person, but even the 4K rendering videos I’ve watched made me think it was almost a movie. The sky’s and backgrounds are stupid insane for an open world game. One day if i quit bass fishing or come into more money that I don’t have a house project for i may build a $5-6K PC. But currently i have so much money into my TV, Surround sound and Consoles that my wife would kill me, as in dead if i build the PC of my dreams. Plus outside of work i use Apple so I couldn’t even tell her it was for anything else other than gaming HAHA.

Hopefully this investment will give Sony some influence in getting key features of Unreal 5 implemented in VR. Epic have been largely dismissive thus far.

No surprise. They keep investing in promising stuff. Nothing to do with PlayStation funds.
Haters will hate whatever they do. 🙄

I remember when haters said Tim Sweeney was saying good things about the PS5 because Sony invested in them a few millions. They even called him and Lisa Su liars Haha
🙃

@playstation1995 You need to invest to make money and having a good collaboration with the people that own Unreal 5 wont be bad.

@Flaming_Kaiser. Unreal engine 5 is going to be incredible.sony will be buying more studios.so thats a good news.word up son

@Rural-Bandit Demon Souls looks better than Ratchet to me. Ratchet is a bit cartoony.

Nah. I'm not mentioning those games because of console war. They are legit the best looking games. I know re4 remake and the next rockstar game will be on that level too.

@Rural-Bandit Hahaha gotta stay quiet.

@RevGaming lots of games about to be on that level, the heavy hitters are all still to come, i tagged you in the Kingdom hearts 4 article on here talking about UE5. Seems i was spot on about lighting and details that’s what they were saying about it. I think this year God of War of Starfield will be the pretty titles that we all wow at. I still think 2018 God of war on my oled looks outstanding still. I’d love to play it on PC. I wish Sony games would hit PC 6-12 months after release like some rumors are saying Returnal and Ratchet are next up. That would be awesome to play with the control and specs i want. Not holding my breathe on that tho.

@Rural-Bandit I think you'll see Returnal on PC soon, but Spider-Man, Ghost and Tlou2 should be the next ones.

I wonder how many copies Spider-man sold. I would be very surprised if somehow they managed to get to 30m, but I think they rather add the games on ps plus or PC when they already sold enough on Playstation.

I don't think Gow and Starfield will look better than Horizon. Especially Starfield. I was looking at my ps4/ps5 screenshots and fallout 4 looked outdated during that time. I just think people are expecting too much from a studio that focuses more on lore, content rather than graphics.

@RevGaming Well seeing as Spider-man was bundled with Ps5 i would think it sold plenty to cover bringing it to PS + and at some point PC. Returnal on PC would be a safe bet, i too see that one happening, ratchet I’m not sure about cause it would probably require a SSD, but it didn’t sell that well and neither did Returnal, so some money come in from the PC crowd would certainly be welcomed i would think. Starfield from the little that was shown in the cockpit looked outstanding. We will have to wait and see more. But i am certain God of war will look great, at least in the character models. They always nail that really well. Hellblade 2 will smoke them both and easily HFW, seeing as it’s not a cross gen platform and using the full feature set of the console and engine. If Sony made GOW a PS5 exclusive and aim for late 2023 or early 2024 it would blow the doors off in graphical power I’m sure. Bethesda studios make great stories and lore i agree, but their games are to large to focus on sheer cutting Edge graphics and i expect Starfield to be crazy large, so while i think it will more than look great, cause again its on a newer engine and full power of next gen, I’m not sure it will be top in class seeing as it’s going to be so large in scale. Same can be said when Elder Scrolls 6 someday finally comes out for Xbox and PC. But as we all know graphics are only one side of a game, Breathe of the Wild 2 will easily be a game of the year contender on old hardware, but will have gameplay that is first in class. I’m still just a little sad that one got pushed back to early 2023, but almost all main story line Zelda games do receive one delay. So this is right on cue.

Elden Ring in no way shape or form looks better than HFW and smashed it’s teeth in in sales. Rumor has it Sony isn’t in love with the recent sale numbers for HFW, so a good chance that one hits alongside the first on PC and Sony will have GG take a break from the series. Not that it helped the first went up against Zelda and the second against Elden Ring. Only GTA could take on a Zelda or Elden Ring in the same week. Not even sure why that would ever happen, but just to make a point.

@LiamCroft (and others along the way) that's a good point - its Sony Group Corp... which means it's a more strategic investment.

@Rural-Bandit I think zelda did not affect that much since it's a switch exclusive, but elden ring def did.

They haven't released sales numbers that often lately. Neither for gt7.

Ratchet sold well. 1.1m early on was good for the amount of ps5 were out there at that time. That's normal. Ratchet 2016 is not on pc so I doubt it.

Returnal sold well according to sony. That game's budget was on the low low for AAA, but I still think PC is coming.

Not so sure about smoking. For me hfw looks better.

Starfield won't look as good as Hellblade 2. Not even close. Their games have never been on the top tier on graphics. Looking at f76 and f4.

HellBlade 2 will be one of the best looking games of the year when it hits due to it being smaller in size. Starfield will be 8X the size or more. Starfield i agree with you will be about it’s lore, but i think it will look good, can’t compare old tech to a next gen and PC exclusive. Thats like saying Mario isn’t a graphical beast but somehow Mario 64 wouldn’t look better than super Mario World. Of course it will as will Starfield to fallout 4. Funny how sony can say a game sold well when it’s under 3 million but when another company does that it has to sell like spider-man or its a failure. Not saying returnal didnt have an audience, but it in no way or shape sold systems it was a product of a launch window. I disagree Zelda as a switch exclusive don’t matter, its Zelda and BOTW2 with that install base is at a stay away level. Switch is selling millions of copies of software in a week now with their releases. GT7 if I’m being honest from the limited hands on time I’ve had at my buddies is average. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad game or a ugly game, but Forza will crush it this November with their rumored release window. Forza has been so much better than the “king”. GT’s best days are 2 or 3 Gen’s in the past. Now not that i have much skin in the sim racing game, as it’s a title my money don’t support. So I’m more mouth than money, but GT don’t hold a candle to Turn 10’s output. People were making comparisons of GT7 vs a years old Forza game on a old console and engine.

This is great news, consider Epic Games is the creator of Unreal Engine 5.

@Flaming_Kaiser If can get a PS5 and back the "option" to backup my saves locally with good games then im good.