SAN MATEO (BLOOMBERG) – Sony Group stated it’s shopping for Montreal-based online game growth studio Haven Leisure Studios, led by trade veteran Jade Raymond. Phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed in a press release on Monday (March 21).
Based a yr in the past with an preliminary funding from Sony Interactive Leisure, Haven consists of sport creators with greater than a decade of expertise engaged on among the trade’s hottest video games.
Ms Raymond, who beforehand based Ubisoft Leisure’s Toronto studio and led Google’s Stadia sport growth efforts, is likely one of the inventive forces behind the Murderer’s Creed franchise. She began her profession in gaming with Sony again in 1998.
Sony shares have been up as a lot as 1.6 per cent in Tokyo on Tuesday.
Haven Studios is already engaged on its first challenge for Sony’s PlayStation, a multiplayer sport that Sony described as a stay expertise “constructed upon a systemic and evolving world targeted on delivering freedom, thrill, and playfulness”. Bringing the inventive staff in-house extends Sony’s technique of buying unique content material for its platform.
“With Haven, Sony is making one more guess on live-service video games – one in every of PlayStation’s Achilles heels till only in the near past,” stated Dr Serkan Toto, an analyst in Tokyo. “With Ms Raymond, Sony can be securing one of many, sadly, nonetheless comparatively uncommon feminine celebrity creators within the trade.”
The online game sector has been present process a wave of consolidation this yr. In January, Sony purchased the developer Bungie, america online game developer behind the favored Future and Halo franchises, for US$3.6 billion (S$4.9 billion). Microsoft is scooping up Activision Blizzard for US$69 billion in its biggest-ever acquisition, and Take-Two Interactive Software program has agreed to accumulate cellular sport maker Zynga for US$11 billion.
“Becoming a member of PlayStation Studios gives Haven with the inventive freedom and unparalleled help to give attention to constructing the very best high quality video games,” Ms Raymond stated within the announcement. “We intend to completely embrace the unimaginable capabilities of the PS5 to create new worlds that encourage gamers and permit them to attach in new methods.”
With a staff of greater than 60 workers, Haven Studios would be the 18th studio to affix the PlayStation Studios household, in keeping with Sony. The studio operations will proceed to be run by the administration staff at Haven in shut collaboration with PlayStation Studios’ management staff.
