Sony buys $250 million stake in Fortnite creator Epic Games
- by Nick Cohen
- in Industry
- — Jul 13, 2020
This brings Epic's total investment capital to $1.58 billion. Meanwhile, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called the partnership an opportunity to "build an even more open and accessible digital ecosystem for all consumers and content creators alike". The new box retails the translucent blue plastic construction but it looks like the black logo on white background header is what Sony thinks is enough to make it immediately obvious whether you have picked up a PS4 or PS5 game. The companies have started to work towards a collective goal of improving technology.
While the investment doesn't mean that Epic Games will exclusively be making games for Sony's next-gen consoles, it could mean that games made on the Unreal Engine could be more optimized for the PlayStation 5. Sony also seeks to use Epic's know-how to help bolster its flagging Sony Pictures entertainment business.
With the deal, Epic Games has now attained a valuation of US$17.86 billion after raising US$1.83 billion in new funding. In a press release published on 9 Julywe learned that Sony has integrated the capital of the editor Fortnite by putting 250 million dollars on the table. Epic's portfolio now centers on three core pillars - Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, and Unreal Engine 5.
Epic will still have the ability to release on other platforms and it provides Sony an ally in the upcoming next- generation. "There's no better example of this than the revolutionary entertainment experience, Fortnite", reads a statement issued by Oresident and CEO of Sony Corporation Kenichiro Yoshida.
Most offers are exclusive or limited, encouraging players to covet and splurge. This strategic investment gives Sony a minority stake in Epic, although the percentage wasn't divulged. It might seem like ambitious science fiction, but for some perspective on just how big Epic Games has grown, when Tencent invested $330 million into the company back in 2012, that was for a 40% share.
While other game engines do exist (Think the underrated Unity, EA's Frostbite engine or the wonderful Decima engine), nothing comes close to Epic's architecture which can be used to seemingly make any game.
