Sony To ‘Aggressively Invest In Development Capabilities,’ More Acquisitions Likely On The Way

Sony has had a strong financial year so far in 2021. The acquisitions of Returnal developer Housemarque, Nixxes Software (known for its first-party PC ports), Star Citizen’s Firesprite, and remaster heavyweight Bluepoint Games contributed to a 20% increase in Sony’s total workforce.

According to VGC, this employee surge also led to record revenue numbers, as noted in the conglomerate’s second-quarter financial results. With this unprecedented level of success, Sony plans to “aggressively invest in development capabilities,” which likely means that more developer acquisitions are on the way.

Hiroki Totoki, Sony’s executive deputy president and chief financial officer, recently spoke about monetary success and the next steps. Totoki said that new studios in the SIE umbrella have been praised for their polished titles. Nixxes Software is a particular company that will eventually bring PlayStation games to other devices.

“Going forward,” Totoki began, “We plan to leverage these studios to increase the development capability of PlayStation Studios and to use the expertise necessary to deploy games to PC and mobile devices.”

Totoki would follow that up by emphasizing SIE’s desire to invest in its gaming arm. In fact, this branch has emerged as Sony’s most successful division in recent years. 

“As a result of the acquisitions announced since the beginning of this fiscal year, the number of PlayStation studios will increase by four to 16, and the number of developers will increase by almost 20%. We plan to continue to aggressively invest in our development capability going forward.”

With Phil Spencer announcing Xbox’s ongoing mission to expand its brand with more studios as well as software-focused increases last week, it’s interesting (and expected) to see Sony follow suit. 

[Source: Video Games Chronicle]

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