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SIE President and CEO Jim Ryan has confirmed that the company has more game studio acquisitions planned.
The news comes courtesy of the latest edition of the official PlayStation podcast (opens in new tab), and follows several high-profile acquisitions, including Destiny creator Bungie (opens in new tab), Bluepoint Games (opens in new tab), Housemarque (opens in new tab), and most recently, Haven (opens in new tab). The company now has 18 first-party development studios in its portfolio.
“We’re in a really good place with PlayStation Studios and have been for the past few years,” Ryan said in the podcast, as transcribed by VGC (opens in new tab). “The critical success and the commercial success of the games that they’ve been making… that has given us permission to invest heavily in content creation.
“We’re growing our studios organically and we’re growing through acquisition,” Ryan added. “We acquired five studios during the course of 2021, we’re in discussions with Bungie and we have more planned. This is getting us into a virtuous cycle where success begets success.”
Ryan also spoke a little more about why Sony has decided not to include its first-party games in with its new subscription service, PS Plus, despite it being one of Xbox Game Pass’ biggest draws.
“The games that we make are getting bigger; they’re getting better, they’re getting more beautiful, they’re getting richer, the narrative is getting stronger… this is really great and gamers tell us this is what they really want from PlayStation,” he said.
“Now, I have to say, putting these games into a subscription service immediately upon their release would break this virtuous circle, and we wouldn’t be able to invest in the way that we’re currently able to. So we’re not doing it. We’re going to stick to the approach that we have and has served us well under many years now.”
Earlier this week, PlayStation revealed its new subscription service set to act as a rival to Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass and it’s a new PS Plus, offering three tiers and more than 700 games (opens in new tab).
Sony said that the system – which combines PS Now and PS Plus within a three-tier offering – will include 400 PS4 and PS5 games, as well as titles from the PS1, PS2, PS3, and PSP. The three tiers – dubbed PS Plus Essentials, PS Plus Extra, and PS Plus Premium – will be available from $60 per year for PS Plus Essentials to $120 per year for PS Plus Premium, with monthly and three-month subscriptions also available. The new PS Plus will launch in June, but will be a “phased” launch.
Interestingly, Ryan doesn’t think gaming subscriptions will ever “go to the levels we see with Spotify and Netflix” (opens in new tab), though.
Looking to catch up on all things PlayStation? Find out what you can look forward to this year with our upcoming PS5 games (opens in new tab) list.
