Sony Is Looking To Change Investment Strategy Amid Microsoft Competition

If anyone is familiar with the history of gaming consoles, they will also know about the console wars that raged through the late 90s and early 2000s with Sony’s PlayStation and Microsoft’s Xbox leading the way. Somehow Xbox was overtaken by PlayStation by the late 2000s.

But now Microsoft is looking to give serious competition to Sony with the release of the next-gen consoles like Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, and Xbox Game Pass. But what gave Sony real nightmares was Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $69 billion.

MAJOR TAKEAWAYS

• Sony is changing its market strategy.
• They are now looking to expand into the Mobile and PC gaming market.
• They are concerned about being overtaken by Microsoft, after the announcement of the Microsoft-Activision deal.

The fear of losing its place at the helm has made Sony look to expand into PC and Mobile gaming markets. Talking to Reuters, the head of PlayStation Studios, Herman Hulst said,

Further investments in areas that will strengthen the expansion on to PC, on to mobile and into live services, that’s definitely a possibility for us.”

Indicating a change in approach from just single-player PlayStation exclusives, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony’s gaming division, Jim Ryan said 

more PC and mobile titles will be on offer in addition to live service games, which provide continuous updated play. The initiatives to broaden our audience… will have a fundamental effect on the shape of our game portfolio.”

Sony is also looking to acquire studios. They have acquired the Destiny game series developer, Bungie, for $3.6billion and have bought a minority stake in Elden Ring developer, FromSoftware.

Talking about the FromSoftware investment, in cryptic words, Hulst said,

You should think of collaborations on the game development side first and foremost, but it’s also not unthinkable with our PlayStation Productions efforts that we explore opportunities.”

They also bought a Germany-based mobile game developer, Savage Game Studios whose co-founders had worked on mobile games like Clash of Clans and Angry Birds, in 2019. Sony intends to “expand and diversify” its games “beyond consoles” to gain more consumers and to provide “incredible new games” based on existing PlayStation IPs.

Sony is also looking to derail the Microsoft-Activision Blizzard deal which it says seriously hurts the market competition. Recently Jim Ryan even traveled to Brussels to talk to the EU regulators regarding the $69billion deal.

Whether Sony’s efforts to diversify investments bear fruit or not only time will tell. But it’s imperative that they are taking Microsoft’s current expansion very seriously.

Is Sony’s current strategy to counter Microsoft’s expansion wise or is Song overreacting? Discuss in the comments below.