It looks like Sony is preparing to buy more third-party game studios, as the tech giant is now looking for a director to spearhead PlayStation's future investment and acquisition plans.
In a new job posting spotted by business analyst Roberto Serrano (via VGC), Sony announces a director of business development to identify "inorganic growth opportunities through acquisitions, investments or joint ventures."
"The team sources, evaluates and executes transactions that are aligned with SIE's strategic priorities and generate significant long-term value for the company," the announcement continues.
"The core job of the team is to develop market intelligence through strong internal and external relationships to identify attractive M&A and investment opportunities.
This lines up with comments from Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO and President Jim Ryan earlier this year. Ryan suggested that the company had more third-party studios in the offing and thought that acquisitions and mergers were a useful way to expand its market reach.
"We're in a very good position with PlayStation Studios right now and have been for a few years," Ryan said.
"The critical success and commercial success of the games they created gave us permission to invest heavily in content creation.
continue the trend
The year was a crazy time for studio acquisitions. Take-Two opened 2022 by buying Zynga, before Microsoft shocked everyone by announcing its plan to acquire Activision Blizzard for a staggering €69 billion. Sony hasn't been far behind, revealing plans to buy Destiny developer Bungie.
But acquisitions aren't a phenomenon in 2022. In 2021, Sony acquired five game studios, including Returnal developer Housemarque, Demon's Souls operator Bluepoint, Valkyrie Entertainment, Firespirt, and Nixxes.
In light of this list of acquisitions, it's no surprise that Sony is looking for a dedicated manager to lead future mergers and acquisitions. This is yet another indication of the progressive monopolization of the gaming industry, as major players try to consolidate their game catalogs before moving to subscription-based sales models.
Sony introduced its revamped PS Plus service a few months ago, which will serve as a competitor to Xbox Games Pass. He'll be willing to do whatever he can to make the service more attractive than Microsoft's, like securing a list of third-party PlayStation-exclusive titles.
This is doubly important in the case of Sony. The publisher has already announced that its first-party versions won't be added to PS Plus on the same day as they launch, meaning subscribers won't be able to access Sony's latest triple-A titles. However, Microsoft has had great success adding first-party titles like Halo Infinite to Xbox Game Pass on launch day. If Sony doesn't come up with something new to entice gamers, they'll miss out.