Sony Just Spent $250 Million On Epic Games
For most gamers, the big Sony news of the year is that we will finally be seeing the release of the PlayStation 5 this holiday season. However, the company is still making some impressive moves within the industry. This can clearly be seen in a joint announcement from Sony and Epic Games that reveals a new partnership between the two companies.
Today, Epic Games and Sony have revealed that Sony has purchased a minority stake in the company. This is no small investment, however. In fact, Sony has put a staggering $250 million into its continuing partnership with Epic Games. Considering that wild amount of money is being considered a "minority stake," it should give you an idea of just how insanely profitable Epic Games has become.
According to the announcement, this is a "strategic investment" on Sony's part, which will ensure "further collaboration" with Epic. It makes sense that Sony would want to join forces with Epic Games, especially since the company was valued at around $15 billion last year. Epic is continuing to push boundaries and bring in tons of money. The mobile version of Fortnite alone has made over a billion dollars within the last few years, so any company that can afford purchase a stake in the company would seem to be making the right move by doing so.
In the announcement, Sony Corporation CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said, "Epic's powerful technology in areas such as graphics places them at the forefront of game engine development with Unreal Engine and other innovations ... Through our investment, we will explore opportunities for further collaboration with Epic to delight and bring value to consumers and the industry at large, not only in games, but also across the rapidly evolving digital entertainment landscape."
This excitement was echoed by Epic Games Founder and CEO Tim Sweeney, who said, "Sony and Epic have both built businesses at the intersection of creativity and technology, and we share a vision of real-time 3D social experiences leading to a convergence of gaming, film, and music. Together we strive to build an even more open and accessible digital ecosystem for all consumers and content creators alike."
Sony and Epic have been working together rather publicly this year. A few months ago, Epic revealed its new Unreal Engine 5 by playing a tech demo through a PlayStation 5 dev kit. That demo presentation was called Lumen in the Land of Nanite and it displayed the advancement Epic has made toward photorealistic graphics and lighting. This demo also accomplished the one-two punch of showing off what Unreal Engine 5 brings to the table, as well as giving gamers a taste of what the PlayStation 5 is capable of processing. The results were nothing short of awe-inspiring.
At the time, Tim Sweeney told reporters, "The Unreal Engine 5 demo on PlayStation 5 was the culmination of years of discussions between Sony and Epic on future graphics and storage architectures."
It should be noted that there have been similar indications that Sony is looking to expand how it approaches creating content. There have been rumors in recent months that Sony is developing a new Silent Hill title for Konami. Yes, that seems a little backwards, but it seems like Sony may be approaching the next console generation with some outside-the-box thinking.
It remains to be seen what kinds of collaborations will come from this partnership between Epic Games and Sony, but it's certainly exciting to consider the possibilities. Perhaps we'll see some previous PlayStation exclusives going to the Epic Games Store? Sony has already tested the PC port waters by bringing former PS4 exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn to PC. Not only that, but a Death Stranding PC port is on its way and there have been rumors that Days Gone will be following suit. This could have been a trial run for Sony's plans with Epic Games.
Maybe the PlayStation Store will get more exclusive skins and incentives for Fortnite players? That could help ensure that Fortnite diehards go with the PlayStation 5 when they're ready to make the leap to a next-gen console.
Honestly, with the news of the partnership, all we can do is speculate at this point. Still, that's kind of the exciting part of an announcement like this. Until Sony and Epic Games announce the true purpose of the new collaboration, it's fun to consider all of the possibilities. We've already seen what Epic can bring to life on the PS5. It seems like the sky is the limit.