IT House February 3 news, in Sony's third quarter 2021 earnings call, executive vice president and chief financial officer Hiroki Totoki briefly mentioned that the recently launched "God of War 4" PC version has achieved important success, extending PlayStation IP to a wider audience.
The deployment of gaming IP on multiple platforms is Sony's major growth opportunity, as evidenced by the success of the PC version of God of War 4 and other first-party games.
After the god of war 4 PC was released in early January, it has been the best-selling game on Steam for several weeks. Steam Spy is estimated to sell more than a million copies and has a 97% positive rating.
IT House learned that Totoki also talked about the acquisition of Bungie. He explained that the $3.6 billion deal to buy Bungie actually included money to retain employees.
Bungie is a private company and the majority of its shares are owned by its employees. Therefore, the purpose of the consideration paid is to incentivize shareholders and other creative talent to continue working at Bungie after the acquisition is complete.
About a third of the $3.6 billion consideration for the acquisition consisted primarily of deferred payments to employee shareholders, provided they remained employed and other retention incentives.
These amounts will be paid within a few years after the completion of the acquisition and will be recorded as expenses for accounting purposes. We expect that approximately two-thirds of these deferred payments and other retention incentives will be spent within the first two years of completion of the acquisition.
In addition, Sony acknowledges that part of the reason for acquiring Bungie is that its existing in-house team can learn a lot, such as the long-term services involved in games such as Destiny and Halo, which are expected to become a major component of Sony's game offerings in the coming years. Bungie, on the other hand, also hopes to learn from Sony's cross-media expertise.