Earlier today, in what is a major move, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced that the company will be acquiring Insomniac Games. This now unites the two major companies after a long and storied history of working together on games such as the original Spyro the Dragon games, the Ratchet and Clank series, the Resistance franchise, and Marvel’s Spider-Man.
The acquisition of Insomniac Games comes a little over a month after SIE President and CEO Jim Ryan stated that the company was looking into acquiring new studios. With the addition of Insomniac Games, Sony’s first party lineup now consists of fourteen studios across the globe. Chairman of Sony’s Worldwide Studios Shawn Layden stated, “We have enjoyed a strong collaborative partnership with the studio for many years, and are thrilled to officially welcome them to the Worldwide Studios family. The addition of Insomniac Games to SIE WWS reiterates our commitment to developing world class gaming experiences that can only be found on the PlayStation platform.”
Along with the announcement of the acquisition of Insomniac, came the news that the studio’s most recent game, Marvel’s Spider-Man, has sold over an astounding 13.2 million copies worldwide as of July 28, 2019. Studio CEO Ted Price stated that the acquisition will provide “greater opportunities to achieve our studio vision of making positive and lasting impressions on people’s lives.” In a post on the official Insomniac Games website, Price considers the move almost like a homecoming, and assured fans that the “structure and approach will remain intact” despite the acquisition.
It will be interesting to see what’s next for Insomniac. With the success of Marvel’s Spider-Man, it would be no surprise if the studio is already hard at work on a sequel. The studio also released a remake of the first Ratchet and Clank game back in 2016, so there’s a possibility the series could see a revival. Insomniac also worked on a plethora of VR titles for the Oculus family of devices, so the studio could work on new PlayStation VR titles as well.