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Sony invests $250 million in Epic Games

ManaByte

ManaByte

Member
venturebeat.com

Sony invests $250 million in Fortnite maker Epic Games

Sony has invested $250 million for a minority stake in Fortnite maker Epic Games, the companies announced today. Epic's games will stay cross-platform.
venturebeat.com venturebeat.com

Sony has invested $250 million for a minority stake in Fortnite maker Epic Games, the companies announced today. With the new money, Epic Games has raised $1.83 billion to date.

The companies said the deal cements an already close relationship between the two companies and reinforces the shared goal to advance the state of the art in technology, entertainment, and socially connected online services. This close relationship was underscored in May when Epic first showed the upcoming Unreal Engine 5 graphics running on a PlayStation 5. As the company itself has disclosed, Epic Games raised $1.58 billion to date in three previous funding rounds. In 2012, the company received a $330 million investment from Tencent for a 40% ownership stake.
Click to expand...

Under the deal, the investment enables Sony and Epic to broaden their collaboration, with Sony’s portfolio of entertainment assets and technology and Epic’s social entertainment platform and digital ecosystem (think Fortnite’s increasing use as a social space or the Epic Games Store), to create unique experiences for consumers and creators. The closing of the investment is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

Epic confirmed it will still be able to publish to other platforms. As noted, Sony is acquiring only a minority part of Epic Games, and it is not acquiring a controlling stake in the company.
Click to expand...
 
AV

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Now then.
 
martino

martino

Member
giphy.gif
 
vaibhavpisal

vaibhavpisal

Member
Similar thing happened with square enix. When they released that final fantasy movie and it bombed.

Dunno why epic needs to sell stakes. Its printing money or so I thought. Maybe giving away free games has drained a lot of it?
 
I

Infamy v1

Member
vaibhavpisal said:
Similar thing happened with square enix. When they released that final fantasy movie and it bombed.

Dunno why epic needs to sell stakes. Its printing money or so I thought. Maybe giving away free games has drained a lot of it?
Click to expand...

Epic is worth over 17billion. This is nothing really comparable to SE back then.

This is just Sony spending money for security and more free marketing/association, which is odd because Xbox exclusives use UE5 way more than Sony does.
 
Evangelion Unit-01

Evangelion Unit-01

Master Chief
Wow, I wonder what % that minority stake is. I also wonder how/if this will have an impact on future Epic releases.

I've suggested that it would make sense for Microsoft to adopt more broad in studio usage and standardize of some of their proprietary engine technology like EA with frostbite-only not making the mistake of limiting yourself to only one engine but rather a small selection. I wonder if this will make them consider moving away from their reliance on unreal?
 
tryDEATH

tryDEATH

Member
Epic and Tim Sweeney are unbiased. LOL

He has been a PS cheerleader for 3 generations now and it finally paid off, you got to respect that long game hustle. Smart move by Sony though, they will need these strategic partnerships for next generation and having an engine optimized for your hardware could pay great dividend down the line.

Wish MS would have bought out Crytek so that it could have advanced that engine as they sort of fell off and UE just took over.
 
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N

nosseman

Member
Tencent already owns 40% of Epic Games.

Tencent and Sony made big joint investment in gaming and music together before this.



www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

Sony and Tencent’s ‘East meets West’ label, Liquid State, ramps up A&R with R3HAB signing, new projects - Music Business Worldwide

‘Liquid State is committed to making R3HAB not only one of the biggest artists in China, but also across the whole Asia continent.’…
www.musicbusinessworldwide.com www.musicbusinessworldwide.com

I wonder how much Tencent stake in Sony is?

With this recent investment Tencent (Chinese government) is probably the majority owner instead of Tim Sweeny.
 
Spukc

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill
Haha let see all those fuck-boys that cried about whaaa epic. Getting a ps5 now 😂😂😂😂
 
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Gavin Stevens

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
I’m going to keep my gob shut. But you know what I’m thinking. It’s the same as you. Why do I need to defrost things in the microwave before I can cook them.

But also...

I do hope this means UE5 isn’t feature gimped for Xbox support. Would be utterly stupid, due to pc also using DX, but still, anything is possible once money changes hands.

250mil sounds a tad low though to me, how much are epic worth? Surely they make more bank than that on a weekend playing crazy golf?
 
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