Sony to Support Bungie TV and Movie Efforts

Sony plans to help Bungie expand its intellectual property into TV and film following its $3.6 billion acquisition.

For Sony, the benefits of buying Bungie were clear: a foothold in live-service games, with one of the best development studios in the space to help it continue to expand. When a Sony investor asked CFO Hiroki Totoki Wednesday what benefits Bungie saw in the acquisition, Totoki emphasized his company's ability to turn Bungie IP into multimedia franchises.

"[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," he said. "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." (H/T IGN)

Bungie has previously expressed interest in such an expansion, and last year was hiring for a development role that would push Destiny into TV, films, books, comics and audio formats. Sony's place in the movie and music landscape is firmly established, and it has been working on expanding its games IP into movies. A movie based on the Uncharted series, for instance, opens in theaters later this month.

Sony will also support Bungie in hiring and retention, with $1.2 billion to be spent over the next several years to keep Bungie staff at the studio. The company also expects to continue acquiring companies in 2022.