Sony says that Bungie wants to turn its games into multimedia franchises – and the PlayStation creator says that it could help the developer make movies.
A lot has been made of how much Bungie will offer Sony, after a $3.6 billion acquisition was announced this week. However, speaking during an earnings call Q&A, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki was asked what benefits Bungie itself saw in being acquired by Sony.
Totoki's answer covered areas such as hiring and employee retention, but moved onto Sony's position as a multimedia company: "[It's] not just for [the] gaming area, but the multi-using of IP and merchandising of IP – like a game title maybe put into movies.
"Bungie want to nurture the IP they have in a multi-dimensional manner, and that's their hope. For that, we believe we can help that – we have [Sony] Pictures and [Sony] Music, and Bungie can leverage our platform so that their IP can flourish and grow big."
It's not the first time we've heard about Bungie's multimedia aspirations. Last year, the studio began hiring for a development role to "drive projects that extend the Destiny franchise into new categories including TV, films, books, comics, and audio formats."
With Sony's own movies and music divisions already well-established, it seems that that dream could be a lot easier to make reality now that Bungie is a part of the company. Having heard that this deal was months in the making, it could even be that Bungie began hiring for the role in the hope of making quicker moves in the space once it became a Sony division.
Sony itself has been looking for ways to turn its games into multimedia projects for years at this point. Back in 2020, we heard that the company had 7 TV shows and 3 movies based on PlayStation games in development – and with an Uncharted movie finally on the way this month it seems that process has just begun.
Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.