Sony Investing in Live-Service with Bungie Acquisition

Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan says the prospect of a flourishing live-service game played a significant part in his company's decision to spend a reported $3.6 billion acquiring Bungie.

Ryan told GamesIndustry.biz he saw Sony and Bungie as "two pieces of jigsaw that can slot together."

"They make massive, immersive games that have no end. Whereas PlayStation's strength, as you know, is in the single-player, narrative-rich, stories.

"I've been on record talking about increasing the size of the PlayStation community, and expanding beyond our historic console heartland," he continued. "This can take many forms. And definitely one of the main ones is the ability for the wonderful games that we've been making over the past 25 years to be enjoyed in different placed and played in different ways."

Ryan went on to say Sony had an "aggressive road map with live services."

"I would back us to do [live-service games] ourselves, but when you have the potential to have a partner like Bungie who has been there, done it all before, learned the lessons and have got this wonderful, brilliant team who is there and has the potential to help us... we think we can take something that would have taken a certain number of years, and significantly decrease the time it will take to get it right."

Sony has also said it plans to make further acquisitions in the near future as it races against Microsoft to claim the lion's share of gaming.