Sony has announced the acquisition of Insomniac Games a few hours ago and delivered more details on that thanks to a couple of interviews with Shawn Layden, the boss at SIE Worldwide Studios. One of the most exciting statements coming from those is that Layden is still interested in acquiring more studios.
According to the executive, who talked about the matter with The Hollywood Reporter, the most crucial thing about acquisitions is that they are a good fit for the strategy and philosophy at Sony, which is currently aiming for great single-player experiences à la Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Layden remarked that the company is entirely behind this process of making the first-party division bigger and bigger, as “we look at this from a Worldwide Studios perspective which has the encouragement and support of Sony Interactive Entertainment, my leadership, and Sony Corp. has been fully backing on this.”
“Looking at something like Insomniac, an acquisition of a studio of that caliber and size was a way for us to continue our strength in innovation and quality with a heavy leaning towards the power of narrative, the power of storytelling,” he added.
“These are things that, if you look across our catalogue, we do a lot in this genre. We want to tell stories. We want to create a place where game developers can bring their vision to life and tell stories that impact the emotions and interests of our gamers. Insomniac fits perfectly into the division that we created at Worldwide Studios here, leaning into first and best.”
So, this is the profile of the teams that are possibly being acquired at Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios, and it’s also an exciting hint at the strategy going forward: PlayStation 5 will build upon the PS4 base when it comes to games that are specially crafted to aim for the single-player audience. This is not changing with the next-gen beginning in 2020.
