On Thursday, July 9th, 2020, Sony announced it had invested $250 million dollars in Epic Games and has acquired a small minority stake in the company. This would give Sony a little more than 1% of Epic Games.
According to both parties, this will allow the companies to “broaden their collaboration across Sony’s leading portfolio of entertainment assets and technology, and Epic’s social entertainment platform and digital ecosystem to create unique experiences for consumers and creators,” according to the press release.
It’s no secret that Sony and Epic Games already had a close relationship, one that started back during the PlayStation 3. I’m sure you’ve seen Epic Games CEO, Tim Sweeny, talking about how excited he is regarding the PlayStation 5 and its tech, specifically the SSD.
What this does is benefit the PlayStation and brand going forth and will broaden collaboration between the two companies. Not just for gaming, but for everything that Sony does. Epic’s Unreal tech has been used in more than gaming and was used to bring Disney’s Star Wars: The Mandalorian to life.
It’s important to note that Sony did not buy out Epic Games, and instead have invested in them. As such, Epic will continue to publish games for other platforms and license it’s Unreal Engine to all platforms as well. Nothing will change, so you won’t have to worry Epic about longer publishing titles for your favorite platform. Some have speculated this may help to bring more PlayStation branded games to the PC, though I’m not completely sure that’s going to be a thing. But we’ll have to wait and see.
Sony isn’t the first company to invest in Epic Games, as the Chinese gaming giant, Tencent, had invested $330 million in the company during 2012. This gave them a 40% stock in the studio.
As for Unreal Engine 5, we’ll see the fruits of the game engine on not just the PlayStation 5, but also the Xbox Series X, PC, and the Nintendo Switch once it is made available for developers in 2021.
