Los games as a service They have become an important piece for the future of PlayStation despite their recent failures with Concord. When Sony bought Bungie, many players automatically thought that the company wanted to get recurring income in this type of games, which thanks to microtransactionsexpansions or even subscriptions provide a lot of money. Bungie, with its Destiny experience, represents an important asset for the company to expand in this field.
In this sense, what has happened in the last few hours is that Bungie has begun to integrate your creative team within PlayStation Studios. Bridget O’Neil, the leader of Bungie Creative Studios, has confirmed through LinkedIn that his team will move to the ranks of Sony, that he will also focus on games as a service and that will continue working on Destiny 2 and Marathon, a title that should be released sometime in 2025.
“The games as a service market it’s hard and comes with a set of unique challenges, so with PlayStation and Bungie working together “We will be able to give a big push to the development of new games when they enter this super-competitive market,” he says. This move was already known to happen when 220 Bungie employees were laid off and a restructuring began within the studio. .
For this reason, they will be 155 Bungie employees will join SIEsomething with which PlayStation guarantees its ability to develop and manage new service titles. The departments that have been affected according to The Game Post They are marketing, human resources, art and production. Other Bungie creatives who have made the jump to SIE are Adam GlogoweDirector of Bungie Rewards, and Joseph Biwaldartistic director of marketing, who will work in both studios.
What does this merger between Sony and Bungie mean?
Yes ok Bungie will continue to operate as an independent entitySony will exercise a more active controland you can see this with the transfer of creatives and employees to PlayStation Studios and SIE. Many of them will continue to collaborate with both Bungie and Sony as a kind of dual role, but in short, this move means that from now on “all games will be supported as a PlayStation service,” according to O’ Neil. In practice it could mean that it will be possible to help other PlayStation studios with its upcoming games as a service.
“This opportunity to share our experience working on Bungie titles with other studios that are developing live service games is very exciting.” The collaboration between both companies seems destined to address the challenges that face this type of games, either by maintaining the servers as creating engaging content that retains and attracts new players. A new era begins within Sony, which will not leave aside single-player games and will continue in this market.
Bungie’s integration into PlayStation Studios could represent a turning point in Sony’s strategy, although it is really too early to draw conclusions. By combining Bungie’s experience with the resources that PlayStation can offer, everything indicates that Sony’s plan in this market is positioning itself in a very competitive market where proposals such as Fortnite, Genshin Impact, Warzone and many others reign. At the moment, we know that the next Destiny game will be released on mobile, although it is not ruled out that come to PC if there is enough support.
Various information suggests that Marathon could cost 40 euros at launch.
The Destiny saga is taking shape, Marathon is simmering with external testing indicating that the FPS is now playable, but what about Sony’s other games as a service? It has been known for more than a year that PlayStation was planning 12 games as a service, but some of them have not ended well, such as ConcordThe Last of Us Online, the Deviation Games IP or the London Studios fantasy game.
Although there are surely some projects as a service not presented, it is known that Guerrilla Games’ next game is the Horizon MMO and we also know that Haven Studios is working on a game as a service for PS5 called Fairgame$. It is a open world PvP shooter directed by Jade Raymond, creator of Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs, which is progressing as planned according to the latest information.
In short, the Bungie integration into PlayStation Studios supposes a strategic step for both companies in the games-as-a-service sector. While Bungie maintains its operational independence, numerous creatives and developers will help drive this area where Sony has only succeeded with a Helldivers 2 that has sold 12 million copies. If time proves PlayStation right, then it will have further consolidated its market position.
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