Of course Sony could do anything technically speaking. Sony could quit the gaming business altogether, and start making sombreros instead if they really wanted to.
Yes.
Context matters, and you're ignoring a lot of it to make your argument.
Yes. The context is that a company bought 100% of other company, which means has total control over it.
These things are not public, and you are "guessing them". Unless you care to post a copy of the share purchase agreement in your reply, don't even bother arguing this point. No goalposts will be moved, no sidestepping will be allowed. Provide a copy of the share purchase agreement, or you're wrong. It really is that simple.
Bullshit. I'm not guessing them, they are public: my source is the info is from the
press release and
interview where they announced the acquisition, plus from the
Bungie blog where they explain their strategy (for the acquisition they did an update and specific
Q&A after the acquisition) and Sony and SIE strategy is mentioned publicly in their
IR page in multiple presentations and reports for investors, and interviews like the one Jim Ryan made for UK before the acquisition where he stated that wanted to appeal players who are outside PlayStation.
It's good that you point this out, and place such emphasis on it. It really does a good job of highlighting the hypocrisy you display here on a regular basis. It's important to note that in this deal, Sony is going to great lengths, and much expense in order to retain the talent at Bungie. Again, you're missing the context completely. In your example, if the workers at Bungie didn't do what Ryan told them, they'd simply be fired. Of course you didn't mention how that scenario plays out beyond that. Once fired those employees would immediately be pursued by any and every game developer that had an opening. How long those fired employees remained unemployed would most likely depend entirely on how long a vacation they wanted to take before going to work at some other studio. Meanwhile Sony would be stuck having none of the talent that they just paid billions to obtain. The IP that they acquired in Destiny would immediately begin to die on the vine, as that's how live service games work.
Bullshit. It isn't hypocrisy, it's common sense and how companies work: if you are told to do something by your boss and ignore it doing something that goes against the interests of the company you would get fired. We saw that after the acquisition they didn't change their plans, Sony and Bungie continue with the same ones they had before the acquisition.
It's obvious that -as they mentioned in the sources I mentioned, basically the interview and announcement posts on their respective blogs- they saw each other plans and saw that they liked it and were complementary and there were different synergies possible in the acquisition, so they decided to make the acquisition. SIE is ok with them being full multiplatform and expanding to make movies or tv shows and to continue working in the projects they have (Destiny 2 and the new IPs).
There is absolutely nothing that points out to think Bungie could sign exclusivities with MS and Nintendo, when in fact they agreed with Sony to continue full multiplatform and to don't give exclusivity even to PS. If something, Bungie could make a game exclusive to mobile phones (let's call it Destiny Mobile), something is ok for SIE since it matches their plans to bring their PS IPs to mobile.
Regarding firing people or people leaving the studio, often when a gaming studio gets acquired (I did work in one that was acquired twice) key staff of the acquired studo signs in the acquisition deal that will remain there for at least a certain amount of time (typically between 2 and 5 years). But well, they can also get fired. They are also get some retention/seniority salary bonuses for keeping in the company for X amount of years. In this particular case they announced that 1.2B of the 3.6B are for these purposes.
The context here also is that Bungie employees were also the majority shareholders before the acquisition (now SIE owns 100% of the shares), meaning that if they sold to Sony is because they looked forward to the shared plans for the fuure. And well, in a personal Bungie worker level, if they want to get the totality of this payment they have to fulfill the retention bonus conditions.
Big companies also often require you to sign in your personal contract a clause that if you leave the company, during X years (tyipically a couple) you can't work for direct competition and if you do it you must pay them a big fine. But often people goes to sign with direct competition and never happens, or this time is spent on setting up a new game studio or taking some long vacations, so basically never is a big issue.
This is your take as to the reasons for the acquisition, and in my opinion... a good one.
Most people tend to be biased one way or another, and at times it can be hard not to wander into fanboy territory. Of course there's a lot of toxicity that resides in that territory, which can ultimately negatively affect a forum such as this one. I imagine it takes a monumental effort by the mods here to allow open discussion, while also trying to minimize the amount of toxicity that often comes along with it. Due to the sheer amount of posts and users, it's almost impossible to keep track of every bad faith actor. I point this out not to personally offend or insult you, but because at this point... I feel it's obvious that you are one of those bad faith actors.
I say this because I see you posting completely opposing narratives from thread to thread. You go to great lengths in multiple posts to explain just how illegal it would be if MS didn't make not just the contractually obligated future titles, but ALL future CoD titles available on all platforms, especially Playstation. Due to what MS stated was their intentions. Of course you're also in this thread speaking with such certainty that none of those same "laws" apply to Sony. Simply explaining that Sony owns Bungie so Sony can do whatever they want.
You take hypocrisy to a whole different level my guy.
Regarding Activision and MS, I often shown their related public statements available: in their SEC filing (which is a legal document for regulators and investors, we don't have a similar one from Sony & Bungie), what the MS president says on a tv interview, what Phil Spencer said in Twitter. Same goes what Sony and Bungie, I highlighted what they said. I often even post direct links and quotes on both Activision and Bungie case. It isn't a different narrative, I just explain/quote what these companies said and did.
You call me "bad faith actor", "fanboy", "hipocrite", "toxic" for highlighting public facts/quotes while not being able to prove me wrong with any fact/quote/source in the points I mentioned and isn't a "point this out not to personally offend or insult you"? Are you sure I'm the toxic one here?
If you don't like what they say or for some reason butthurts you it's your issue, not mine.
With the whole “Sony owns 100% of Bungie” thing, yea I get that but I’m pretty sure it’s in writing & both parties agreed that Bungie would remain an independent studio & would keep it’s self-publishing status after the acquisition. That’s the only thing Sony can’t do with them despite fully owning them, they both agreed to it.
Yes, it's true that SIE owns 100% of the Bungie stocks. It's also a fact that they agreed that Bungie will remain as a different publishing, separated from PS Studios but inside/under SIE. And it's also a fact that they agreed and that both Bungie and Jim Ryan said that current and future Bungie games will continue being multiplatform including rival consoles.
It's also a fact that before the acquisition, Bungie already had that full multiplatform strategy, and that Phil Ryan said that they wanted to expand to reach players who are outside PlayStation. Before the acquisitions we thought he only was talking about the late PC ports, the bringing their PlayStation IPs to mobile or movies, or via bringing their cloud gaming and remote play to PC or mobile, but with Bungie we saw he also meant to buy 3rd party multiplatform publishers and to keep them multiplatform -including rival consoles- under SIE (something MS seems also doing).
Who knows if Jim Ryan may change his mind in the future, which is possible depending on how the market evolves. But as for now, I'd bet that minimum this generation all current and future Bungie games and gameplay DLCs will continue full multiplatform. I think that if they make some exclusive, would be to give only Sony the inclusion of Bungie games on console bundles, game subscriptions or making some PS exclusive beta or demo.
blog.playstation.com
www.bungie.net
www.polygon.com
www.windowscentral.com
