Sony's Bungie Buyout to Be Investigated by the FTC

This is why it makes me laugh when Xbox fans say "Microsoft should buy this publisher/dev or that publisher/dev" next. They can't just throw their money around as they like without attracting legal scrutiny, and this proves it, even though they said 'but Sony is allowed to do it'.

Every deal gets reviewed and I doubt Microsoft will be allowed to buy a massive publisher after Activation so soon if at all, because their purchases so large would end up triggering anti-competitive legislation since the other two major platform holders can't match them.

Either way, I don't care this is happening to Sony. Their buyout literally affects no one because Bungie are remaining multiplat/independant' yet it still gets reviewed.

Makes sense to do this since it's such a big scale purchase. Gotta go through all of the legal hurdles and whatnot.

@GADG3Tx87 Yeah i doubt MS could buy someone like EA or Ubi now, devs sure but i think Activision and Bethesda like deals are over.

@get2sammyb
Exactly. And with Microsoft wanting a foothold in Japan this also proves a Japanese buyout is far, far less likely for them. If they get hit this hard over western deals a buyout in Japan would go far less smoothly for a foreign acquisition.

So the FTC is concerned about future Bungie Games becoming exclusive to Playstation but didnt care about all those many, many Zenimax IPs being Microsoft only from now on? Lmao

This is quite a small-scale acquisition so it shouldn't make much difference.
I have no particular love for Bungie.
It made my soul cry when they put out a statement condemning a Supreme Court ruling. I wish gaming companies would just appreciate that they have customers on both sides of the argument who hold their views solemnly.

@IonMagi I've read that a leadership change at the FTC has prompted the organisation to be more aggressive in looking into these deals. The new person wants to look at them more, and they weren't in place when the Bethesda deal closed.

https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1522317808050356225

If this doesn't get approved and Microsofts Bethesda/Activision does then that just proves they are only interested in bolstering American companies

Also do you think Sony's other recent acquisitions got investigated? As no news was reported so

I'll be honest and say I wouldn't be too upset if the buyout doesn't go through, that's 3.6 billion back in Sony's pockets to spend on something a little more interesting than live service multiplats.

I really think Sony was forced to say Bungie's game won't be exclusive cuz they are gonna lobby to try to block the Activision deal

@get2sammyb All of these big deals always take like a year or longer. I have Tracfone, Verizon announced it was buying them in Sept 2020. It wasn't finalized until Nov 2021. And that was over 6 months ago and I've still never been contacted by either company that Tracfone is now owned by Verizon, and I have Verizon for my internet.

Lots of hemming and hawwing, deals will be made, things signed, but they seem to almost always go thru. Probably need time for bribes, kickbacks, under the table deals, etc to go through. Joking not joking.

@get2sammyb Microsofts was definitely lip service they worded their statements in a way that could mean multiple things, just wait until the next crash bandicoot, diablo 6 and overwatch 3 are xbox exclusive.

@UltimateOtaku91 They were (except Bluepoint) all European Studis and tiny so the FTC wouldnt be responsible for them or even care

Also would the FTC get involved in a japanese acquisition? So whilst the investigation into bungie is ongoing, Sony could acquire square enix without any hassle

The FTC would be doing Sony a favour by stopping this insanely overpriced buyout.

This is expected since the price of the buyout is so high. The head of the FTC is also new so who knows what can happen when it comes to regulation etc.

Frankly, the acquisition of Microsoft Activision was even more impressive.

😂 that's hilarious, Bungie is a tiny one game company in comparison to blizzard Activision and Bethesda zenimax, sounds like total garbage, Sony should take them chumps to court for wasting time.

Legal scrutiny is good though.

And these buyout investigations don't happen because of game exclusivity, they happen because of competition. If one company bought up all the competition and kept the games multiplatform, your only choice of video game provider would still be that one company.

@Rural-Bandit if you think all the new IP MS bought is still going on all platforms it ain't, comparing bungie with zenimax and Activision/blizzard is hilarious.

@Perturbator best comment I’ve seen here. You ain’t wrong.

Its just Protocol and even IF the FTC has any 'concerns' about mergers, all they can do is recommend that the Merger doesn't go through. Its then up to the Companies to decide if they think its a valid reason and accept their recommendation - or they Could take it to a Legal Court.

Its worth watching Hoegs Law on youtube - a Lawyer who knows the Law and the way things work. Also picks apart all the sensationalism of Journalistic Headlines written for 'Clicks' that 'distort' the truth - the latest about NYC 'suing' A/B when its just some NY Pension company that wants to access A/B's financial books and records. That Headline makes it seem that the entire State of New York is Suing A/B for 'everything' when its just trying to get some 'documents' released...

In terms of Mergers, its not as IF Sony or MS are 2 of only 3 or 4 Publishers and in buying up A/B or Bungie (who has Publishing Rights too) they are severely limiting the Competition and/or giving themselves well over 50% of the Market - enough to be able to essentially control it so that the 'other' can no longer compete. That's why the FTC recommended that nVidia should not buy Arm and 'nVidia' accepted that (which they didn't have to but also didn't think it was worth fighting in court). That's because nVidia (say has 40% of the Market) would gain Arm (say has 20% of the Market) giving them a massive advantage over AMD - enough that they could seriously undermine AMD by offering 'better' hardware at much cheaper prices so AMD cannot compete and lose their 40% market to nVidia/Arm - until they disappear completely and then nVidia has a Monopoly to charge whatever they want.

If MS acquire A/B and Sony acquire Bungie - both Publishers are still competing with each other AND TenCent, Embracer, EA, Ubisoft, Square Enix, Sega, Capcom, Bandai Namco, Take Two, Nintendo, Steam etc. So you can't play a 'specific' game on a Specific Platform, but there is nothing stopping any of those other Publishers from making a 'similar' game and releasing on that Platform. Uncharted is really Sonys 'Tomb Raider' - its not as if Xbox can't make a Tomb Raider style game if they wanted - they made their own answer to Gran Turismo. If there were just '3' Publishers left each competing with and having a 'similar' market share - meaning any 'independent' Studio has 'limited' choice on who they can go to to get their Games out and the Public having a 'choice' of what Publishers games they can play and where. Then if one tries to buy the other (thus suddenly having the 'Majority' of games whilst the remaining one has much less) so that the Public choice is more limited (the one with so many more games and cheaper or the one with far fewer options and cost more) also can offer 'independent' devs a better deal and much larger user base - that instantly kills the one remainder and that's what the FTC is meant to protect against

Hopefully it won't go through and Sony comes to their senses and uses all that money for actual good things/companies.

@Rural-Bandit
In regard to CoD though it is know to be one of the biggest franchises if the industry and it is believed for fair competition Microsoft have no choice to retain third party publishing, it would have likely stopped the deal from going through, I highly doubt they're doing it out of the goodness of their hearts.

If they could keep them exclusive they would as it would attract people to GP en-mass. Keeping Zenimax games exclusive indicates they'd do the same to any other if they could.

Of course it will go through, there is no doubt, but being (afaik) the biggest deal in gaming ever I doubt they'll be allowed any more acquisitions until a couple more years. I'm certain it would be seen as anti-competitive because they're too big too fast. And neither Nintendo nor Sony can match that spending power.

In addition, Microsoft now have more studios than Sony and Nintendo. (Not combined afaik). They may be behind in game sales, and due to GP that won't change but in sheer size they are now bigger.

@IonMagi lol I was getting ready to comment the same thing but you beat me to it. Its like Bungie has one ip to their name right now while Bethesda and Activision have tons that will no longer be on PlayStation but that’s cool apparently

To be expected but I'm sure it will go through.

If Sony and Microsoft buy companies out, and games continue to remain multiplatform, then it's good for the majority of gamers.

Sony and Microsoft are at least keeping them away from the likes of Tencent, Amazon, Google and Meta.

Good! Hopefully they block that overpriced dumba@# purchase.

I get sony want to be better at live service but bungie is one of the worst examples , I think square Enix would be a better fit, ff14 is amazing compared to destiny

3.6 billions for bungie and 300 million for square Enix with most great ips..

We'll give Bungie back if Microsoft returns Bethesda 😎 only fair

I honestly doubt the FTC cares about the exclusivity of games. Hell, even on the Activision deal the only opposition we have seen is about the acquisition potentially weakening the standing of already vulnerable and abused employees, and potentially help Bobby Koticik avoid accountability.

I think the only issue here is the price tag, when so much money is involved, they will run audits to see what’s going on, and make sure no laws are being broken.

bro , it’s BUNGIE . what do they have besides destiny ? 😂

@johnny30 FF14 is the only example of good service games from SE. like, everything they touch in the live service sector seems to be garbage. What you seem to want is for Sony to hire Yoshi P.

@Apfelschteiner but if the company as a collective feels a way, they shouldn't express their opinion or thoughts? You could always just ignore the reports.

@Tharsman true last few games haven't been great but I'm looking forward to star ocean, ff16 and ff7R part 2. Hopefully SE see the light that blockchain is bad news

@LiamCroft Is the deal closed i dont think so yet they can stop it. And Bungie Still develops multiplatform even with the deal.

However, @GADG3Tx87, even after the Activision buyout, Sony will still have the be bringing in the most revenue of all gaming companies, and that's before the buyout of Bungie is complete. Ultimately, MicroSofts purchase of Xbox is all about attempting to put both Sony and Xbox on a more equal footing. Sony's buyout of Bungie, is about attempting to retain that market dominance.

I think it also fair to say that if Xbox had decided to keep CoD exclusive, that Destiny would not have been allowed to remain multiplatform, and if (when) Xbox decided that it is safe for them to claim exclusivity of CoD, Destiny will quickly become exclusive to the PlayStation.

The ones to really watch out for are Tencent and Embracer. They may not be paying out huge money to acquire studios, but they are buying an awful lot of smaller companies, and their sum total puts them very, very high in the revenue stakes...

@SplooshDmg @UltimateOtaku91 Plus, what arm is doing the buying? Is it Sony Group Corp directly, or, SME, SPE, or SIE? Or SoA as an intermediary? Depending on which arm is executing the transaction, it's also an American company for business purposes (subsidiary of SGC or not.)

@IonMagi they are probably all xbox fanboys 😆

@LiamCroft convenient time for a change in leadership.

@johnny30 none of them are service games, though. Unless they planning to turn them into service games, and that would be bad news...

Still a pretty awful purchase, paid way to much for it, like by an insane amount, 1.0-1.5 Billion would be fine but this is absurd

@Flaming_Kaiser No deal is "closed" until the regulatory bodies give their final approval. Unlikely that they will in this case, unless there is some weird stuff going on somewhere with private investors or who knows what.

It is custom for these deals to come with compensation for the target company if the deal falls through, though. So it would not be good news for Sony 2x.

Hope it doesn't get through tbh lol

Hope Bungie and AB are both cancelled.

20 studios vs almost 20 studios sounds a better future for the industry.

Only single independent studios should be bought.

@Cutmastavictory It's up to Bungie as a business, but it's not a great business decision to alienate half the country. It's also incredibly damaging to come out against the constitution.
It really annoys me that there is no diversity in the gaming industry and the industry is worse off for it. Just look at how the guy making the Last Night was persecuted because he had slightly right of centre views, but straight-up communists can make Disco Elysium and no-one bats an eye.

@Cutmastavictory Basically it is very toxic to start moralizing on an issue that has people on both side who have good intentions. I'd rather have politics in games than in the discussion about games. The other thing to consider is that leftists have privilege in gaming and there is a chilling effect on people who have contary views as they do not feel able to express themselves. Basically this whole situation just makes a really toxic environment.

Does this mean that Bungie can never make an exclusive game for PlayStation?

@Rural-Bandit If MS sticks to that the next Crash Bandicoot game will be exclusive same goes for the single player Elder Scrolls. Thank god I have a gaming PC and a PS5 at lest u won't misd out on those games.

I don't mind the scrutiny when it comes to buy outs of companies but to see that Bethesda got bought out without scrutiny is a kick in the nuts, they made games that were due to be multiplatform, exclusive and no scrutiny took place. To me that deal was the one time where scrutiny should have happened to see if they were taking games away from players but nothing, it went through no issue and they're now just about to host a microsoft/Bethesda event that will no doubt show the games that were meant to be on all platforms. As you can tell I liked Bethesda games and yes I'm still salty that I have to buy an Xbox if I want to play some of my favourite franchises.

@Tharsman Or it could be great and they could spend that money elsewhere. If Bethesda comes through and not this one that would be madness.

@Apfelschteiner "leftists have privilege in gaming ".... but previously you said someone was right of center. You really don't see the issue. This has nothing to so with bungie, but based on your word choices, you're not nearly as logical as you want us to believe

@Apfelschteiner but you're only speculating they were bowing down. I've seen no video game companies bowing down, but maybe I'm not paying attention. Seems like companies are expressing opinions that their employees and fans share.

No Halo Infinite on ps5 anytime soon then lmfao. No but seriously the idiots who thought this acquisition meant Halo on PS5, Bungie don't even own Halo. Microsoft Game Studios do. Give your head a shake.

@Flaming_Kaiser the penalty fee buyers commit to pay when the deals fall through tends to be significant. I would not be shocked if it was half a billion on a purchase this size.

I don’t see any obvious reason for it to be stopped, at least not anticompetitive ones, and as far as I know Bungie is private, making it harder to make a case about the deal not looking for the interest of stockholders, but not impossible. Even private companies might still have investors and share holders, sometimes employees are compensated with such. The FTC could be looking precisely at those edge cases to make sure the deal is not breaking any laws or regulations. That’s the only thing I could think of the top of my head that might be an issue for this deal.

@Cutmastavictory I don't think I said that. I'm sure that the majority of the people at Bungie are pro-abortion, so it's probably an honest opinion. In no way do the views of the company reflect the views of the fans. For sure a lot of them will agree, but a lot of them will not. My point is that it is inappropriate for Bungie to express their opinion on an issue that is so polarized. It's almost as bad as them coming out in favour a political candidate.
It is a very ill-informed opinion to express because the Supreme Court Judiciaries are duty-bound to follow the Constitution, so correcting a poor interpretation of the Constitution is not a political act, therefore a political response is not appropriate.
The problem is that these companies are playing a very dangerous game. Are people who strongly disagree with their views going to boycott their games? The reason I find it so upsetting is that it is yet another example of how society is becoming more polarized. They can't just put the genie back in the bottle. It is incredibly damaging to think that we can't work and play together if we don't agree on every political issue. We used to accept that our political opponents held their views sincerely.

If I run into issues around games distribution, I will just buy a XBox to set beside my PlayStation 5! My PC has about 10 steam games on it now. Why do some people think PlayStation is laying down not trying to compete. We just came off one of the best generations ever with PS4!! The start of the PS5 generation has also been fantastic. Lack of chip supply to keep up with demand has been the only issue.

@themightyant Sony still the second largers company in gaming by revenue, still is the market leander on the console market.
In the gaming Industrie Sony is closer to a monopoly than Microsoft Will be after the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard.

Microsoft have the money to become a monopoly in the future, but Sony still closer to one in the present.

PS: Every purchase over 100M must be reported to the FTC and they can investigate any of them that may cause a reduction in competitiveness, the new leadership of the body wants to be more restricted, an investigation was obvious in my view.

@Deadlyblack will they do this when someone buys something like twitter too? just asking for a friend...

This just seems such a bad deal anyway imo. I mean $3.7b for bungie? Makes the square western dev sell off seem like a bargain at $300m.

I hope they oppose it and Sony gets the money back to buy something else.
I mean this purchase is nowhere near the level of the Bethesda and Activision purchases. It's laughable they even need to investigate.

So what is the reasoning for investigating microsoft/Bethesda? If they are worried Bungie games will go exclusive when Sony has said they wont. Are they not worried that Bethesda games wilo go exclusive when MS has said they will?

@Flaming_Kaiser thank you! I totally agree why in the world would anyone want to oppress others

@3MonthBeef yeah. Long time reader but first time commenter. I had to say something sometimes you have to speak up. That guy is ridiculous

All of Microsoft's acquisitions need investigating/stopping. Nothing good will come of them controlling so much of the market.