Today, it was discovered that Sony Interactive Entertainment is now seeking an employee for the position of Director, Corporate Development. Within the application, the core piece of the job description is to “work with Corporate Strategy, senior executives, and other internal partners to continuously refine the major strategic themes that guide SIE’s [Mergers & Acquisitions] strategy.” This move by Sony towards more acquisitions and purchasing of studios comes week after Microsoft announced a similar move, a Microsoft job listing for a Manager of Gaming Strategy and Development. Given that Microsoft has acquired Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, the recent news of Embrace Group acquiring three video game studios today, and now Sony looking to acquire more studios, it seems the acquisition wars have commenced.
In Microsoft’s job description, Microsoft specifically highlights the purchase of Bethesda in 2020 and this year’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Publicly, Microsoft has been ambiguous about whether future Bethesda video games will become Xbox exclusives, but in reality, Bethesda Game Studios’ first video game since the acquisition, Starfall (2022), is listed solely for Xbox Series X/S and Microsoft Windows. Additionally, the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, has stated that while some Activision games will remain multi-platform due to contractual reasons; however, some Activision Blizzard titles will become Xbox exclusives.
Similarly, Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion and Haven Studios this year, with plans for more studio acquisitions in the future. With Playstation being known for their console exclusives, it is likely that future Bungie titles will become Playstation exclusives despite Destiny 2 still being multi-platform. If Sony continues this trend, and it appears with the new job listing the company intends to do so, the acquisitions for more console exclusive companies will become even more heightened. All in all, Microsoft and Sony are forming another exclusive-content war through their numerous acquisitions in the past few months that will most likely continue into the future.