PlayStation Chief Jim Ryan claims that the Bungie acquisition by Sony Interactive Entertainment was the better choice and more valuable compared to Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard.
These comments by Ryan were recently revealed in a previously redacted Q&A with investors at American financial services multinational Fidelity, which happened sometime in 2022. This was part of the recently leaked Microsoft court documents. Various inquiries were made by the ones involved in the interview, but one stood out: his comment on the recent Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
“When you look at the $69 billion for Activision compared to $3.6 billion for Bungie, we believe that Bungie can give us way more than a $69 billion acquisition of Activision,” Ryan said. “And that’s before considering the relative value of that particular transaction.”
In another part of the interview, Ryan shared his thoughts on story-driven games. He claims that these titles will still remain the “bedrock” of its first-party publishing business.
“It would be naïve for us to assume that all 10 will be massive successes so that is not a necessary condition for us to double first party revenues,” he said. “That is certainly not what we’re assuming. Clearly, the distinction between a hit and not a hit is not a binary one. And don’t forget that as we do this, we will continue to publish the games that have served us so well over the years. These single player, graphically beautiful narrative rich games will continue to be the bedrock of our first party publishing business.”
It is not just Ryan that believes in this statement. PlayStation Studios Head Hermen Hulst also said that Sony’s studios will “always carry on making single-player narrative-based games.”