Sony recently confirmed that it intends to spend a substantial portion of the amount spent on the acquisition of Bungie in the loyalty of the software house. Specifically, the Japanese company said it is ready to pay one-third of its proposed purchase of $ 3.6 billion, or 1.2 billion, to fund a long-term incentive plan that will reward Bungie employees who they will decide to stay with the company.
Sony and Bungie: did the acquisition cost too much?
According to the company, Sony will pay the rest 2.4 billion dollars for the direct acquisition of the private shares of Bungie. The bonus is intended to keep Bungie’s current staff intact after the acquisition, a factor that apparently is very dear to the Japanese company, probably because it is very interested in the talents who work in the software house.
In the meantime, however, there are already those who claim that Sony has paid too much for the Destiny studio, in particular the analyst Micheal Patcher was particularly harsh on the subject:
“Just to compare them, EA acquired Respawn three or four years ago for $ 700 million with 400 developers. These guys generate 700 million in revenue a year. Bungie makes around 200 million annually. That’s why I think Sony has paid too much for them. I think this was a move to claim that they won’t allow Microsoft to overtake them, so they did something out of desperation. It’s not an agreement that makes a lot of sense ”.
A consequential acquisition, therefore, aimed more than anything else at reasserting its position on the market with respect to Microsoft, which has just bought Activision Blizzard bringing a large amount of software house to Xbox Studios. The question can actually be framed also from this point of view, even if probably the variables that have played on the final price are many more.