Sony is buying Insomniac Games, the Japanese company announced Monday, making Insomniac the 14th internal studio under the Sony Interactive Entertainment banner.
The companies did not disclose financial terms of the acquisition, which has not yet closed.
“Insomniac Games is one of the most highly-acclaimed development studios in the industry and their legacy of best-in class storytelling and gameplay is unparalleled,” said Shawn Layden, chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, in a news release. ”We have enjoyed a strong collaborative partnership with the studio for many years, and are thrilled to officially welcome them to the Worldwide Studios family. The addition of Insomniac Games to SIE WWS reiterates our commitment to developing world class gaming experiences that can only be found on the PlayStation platform.”
”Joining the WWS family gives Insomniac even greater opportunities to achieve our studio vision of making positive and lasting impressions on people’s lives,” said Ted Price, Insomniac Games founder and CEO. “We’ve enjoyed a special relationship with PlayStation practically since our inception. Our partnership amplifies our potential, and Marvel’s Spider-Man was a testament to this. We’re excited to take the next step in our growth alongside our longtime WWS partners. Most of all, we look forward to delivering fresh, new experiences for our fans.”
Insomniac was founded in 1994 as Xtreme Software by Price, who is still the company’s CEO today. The studio has been independent until now, although it is best known as the creator of franchises that debuted exclusively on PlayStation platforms, like Ratchet & Clank, Spyro the Dragon, and Resistance. Non-PlayStation titles from Insomniac include 2016’s Edge of Nowhere and the upcoming Stormland on Oculus Rift; the studio released Song of the Deep in 2016 on PS4, Windows PC, and Xbox One, and Fuse in 2013 on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Insomniac’s biggest project outside of Sony was the 2014 Xbox One exclusive Sunset Overdrive, which was later ported to PC.
The most recent title from Insomniac is the acclaimed action game Marvel’s Spider-Man, which launched in September 2018 on PlayStation 4. Sony has sold more than 13.2 million copies worldwide as of July 28, the company said in the news release.
Once the acquisition closes, Insomniac’s current management team will continue to run the studio, in conjunction with Sony’s internal studio in San Mateo, California. Insomniac’s headquarters is located in Burbank, California, and the company has another branch in Durham, North Carolina, that opened in 2009.
This is the first new PlayStation internal developer in a long time. Sony announced ForwardWorks, a studio working on smartphone games, in March 2016. The company’s last major studio acquisitions came at the start of the decade, with Dreams developer Media Molecule in 2010 and Ghost of Tsushima maker Sucker Punch Productions in 2011. In the meantime, Microsoft has been beefing up its development portfolio by buying up studios left and right, with seven acquisitions since E3 2018: Compulsion Games, Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs, InXile Entertainment, Obsidian Entertainment, and Double Fine Productions.
Comments
Long overdue.
By MilkyWhiteTooth on 08.19.19 3:17pm
Indeed. So many of the games that come to mind when you think of PlayStation as a brand are their work that it seems like one of those things that would’ve happened a long time ago.
By Tre L. on 08.19.19 3:25pm
Can we officially make Ratchet & Clank the PlayStation mascots now? They’re the only characters to have appeared exclusively on every single PlayStation platform.
By FORESEE on 08.19.19 7:06pm
Not the Playstation
By karocct on 08.19.19 7:33pm
Close enough lol
By FORESEE on 08.20.19 2:35am
For me it’s Insomniac AND Naughty Dog that always come to mind.
By JakeFromStateMarf on 08.20.19 3:19am
I came here to say this.
By Remy Wayne on 08.19.19 3:26pm
Honestly I was a bit surprised that this hadn’t already happened.
By BillClam on 08.19.19 4:22pm
I’m happy for Insomniac, they have always produced great games and I’m sure with Sony behind them they’ll have even more resources to create killer content. Kudos to their success.
And damn, Sony’s 1st party offerings are relentless. Excited to see what comes next.
By tko013## on 08.19.19 3:20pm
So… Sunset Overdrive 2 on PS5, then?
By Tre L. on 08.19.19 3:27pm
I’d take it, though I’d prefer a return to Resistance.
By atrimus on 08.19.19 7:04pm
Not much of a shooter person here, but I really liked that series. Even played the handheld ones.
But I also would really like Sunset Overdrive 2.
So both, I say.
By Lopogyn on 08.20.19 2:23am
I’m pretty sure MS owns Sunset Overdrive as an IP.
By NdigoBoy on 08.20.19 12:26pm
I’m pretty sure they don’t, because as far as I remember, it has been pointed out on several occasions that the Sunset Overdrive IP is owned by Insomniac themselves and MS only published that one game.
By Lopogyn on 08.20.19 4:25pm
Nope. Microsoft only owns publishing rights for the first game. Insomniac owned the IP, meaning, now, Sony does.
By Dominic Snyder on 08.23.19 12:15pm
Resistance 3 was amazing, easely one of the best story shooters of the PS3 era.
By Menage on 08.20.19 3:41am
I wonder how much of this was due to Sony wanting to finally get around to something that should have been done years ago, and how much was due to them being concerned about Microsoft sniffing around.
Either way, very happy for Insomniac, they deserve all the success in the world.
By JStymie on 08.19.19 3:28pm
happy that insomniac gets to have proper financial backing from Sony after so long, disappointed that this means no sequel to sunset overdrive and no way for that awesome webslinging engine coming to xbox.
By Bigburito on 08.19.19 3:28pm
We’ll have to wait and see on the depths of exclusivity in the future. We’re starting to see microsoft, sony, and nintendo collaborating a bit. The day of "first party exclusives" may be coming to an end. It’s very possible that next gen may see first party titles being a 1 year exclusive or something similar with maybe a few of the "big" titles staying exclusive.
By nos.is.lame on 08.19.19 3:39pm
MS and Nintendo are starting to get cozy and it’s great!
By Ry L on 08.19.19 4:26pm
They’ve always kind of been cozy since they’re a block away from each other. They’re just even more cozy now.
By Dr. Panda on 08.19.19 5:02pm
we’re seeing Microsoft and Nintendo collaborate, Sony is basically going with cross-platform play because the industry forced their hand and the same goes for buying Azure server space from microsoft. Sony knows it doesn’t have the capital to create the server farm they need to properly run everything themselves (and by this I mean Sony as a whole isn’t doing great, Sony’s game and film divisions are doing great but almost every other division has been downhill for years now. in fact the only reason they didn’t hit bankruptcy a few years ago was that the PS4 became the runaway hit of this console generation) but they know Stadia is around the corner and they need something to compete with it.
on the other hand Nintendo and Microsoft are acting like BFFs right now with cross promotions, microsoft published titles hitting the switch, special minecraft edition 2DS systems, joint commercials, etc. I’m honestly surprised we haven’t seen Nintendo put SOMETHING on the xbox one, even if it was something low risk like a mario&sonic olympic game.
By Bigburito on 08.19.19 4:27pm
Also Microsoft needs to buy Bluray stuff from Sony.
By Fatmayor on 08.19.19 7:21pm
You mean the BDA. Which is a consortium of nine companies, which just happens to include Sony.
By SwiftFrost on 08.19.19 11:28pm
Nearly all of Sony divisions are doing great, the only division not making money is their phone division.
By redeo on 08.30.19 10:24pm