Epic Games receives strategic investment from Sony Corporation

Armenius

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Sony and Epic announced today that the former has acquired a minority stake in the latter with an investment of $250 million. Tim Sweeney said of the investment, "we share a vision of real-time 3D social experiences leading to a convergence of gaming, film, and music." One hopes that this means the release of more PlayStation console exclusives on PC in the future, preferably without the transfer of exclusivity from one hardware platform to a singular storefront.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...eceives-Strategic-Investment-Sony-Corporation

Sony Corporation (“Sony”) and Epic Games, Inc. (“Epic”) are pleased to announce that Sony has agreed to make a strategic investment of $250 million to acquire a minority interest in Epic through a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony. The investment cements an already close relationship between the two companies and reinforces the shared mission to advance the state of the art in technology, entertainment, and socially-connected online services.
The investment allows Sony and Epic to aim to broaden their collaboration across Sony’s leading portfolio of entertainment assets and technology, and Epic’s social entertainment platform and digital ecosystem to create unique experiences for consumers and creators. The closing of the investment is subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.
“Epic’s powerful technology in areas such as graphics places them at the forefront of game engine development with Unreal Engine and other innovations. There’s no better example of this than the revolutionary entertainment experience, Fortnite. Through our investment, we will explore opportunities for further collaboration with Epic to delight and bring value to consumers and the industry at large, not only in games, but also across the rapidly evolving digital entertainment landscape,” said Kenichiro Yoshida, Chairman, President and CEO, Sony Corporation.
“Sony and Epic have both built businesses at the intersection of creativity and technology, and we share a vision of real-time 3D social experiences leading to a convergence of gaming, film, and music. Together we strive to build an even more open and accessible digital ecosystem for all consumers and content creators alike,” said Tim Sweeney, Founder and CEO of Epic.
 
I love Epic's tech, but I hate their game company side and what they do with it.
Considering Sony is basically only on their platform though, this could in theory expand what they do onto at least a second platform.

Fuck this cancer - I want video games not "social experiences".
You can safely ignore and not buy into anything you don't want. Vote with your wallet. This doesn't affect you at all.
 
I love Epic's tech, but I hate their game company side and what they do with it.
Considering Sony is basically only on their platform though, this could in theory expand what they do onto at least a second platform.

Very likely, the dip their toes in the water to see how it is and then acquire a majority share. PS4-5 games on PC don't mind if I do.
 
So quit your "Wine-Ing"? :rolleyes:
Image result for guy tip of the wine glass
 
I see this leading to games that are more heavily optimized for the PS5, not so much PlayStation games coming to the PC (though I certainly wouldn't mind that). It's easy to imagine Sony executives looking at that UE5 demo and scrambling to pour money into Epic to make sure they keep optimizing for PlayStation consoles.
 
I see this leading to games that are more heavily optimized for the PS5, not so much PlayStation games coming to the PC (though I certainly wouldn't mind that). It's easy to imagine Sony executives looking at that UE5 demo and scrambling to pour money into Epic to make sure they keep optimizing for PlayStation consoles.
That is a definite possibility. I'd still look at that as a great advantage though. Anything that optimizes the quality of games in general is good. if Sony did decide to become a majority shareholder of Epic, really interesting things could happen.
I just kind of doubt that their games division would truly know what to do with PC. Even though in theory all of their titles are developed on a PC (creation of assets, coding, etc).
 
Epic is more than just a gaming company these days, see the other threads on how UE is used in movie/TV. Likewise there is more to Sony than Playstation. I assume this announcement, which is super vague, is more about these technologies in general. Maybe a bit related to gaming.
 
Wonder if this could lead to having more timed PS exclusives coming to the EGS.
 
Wonder if this could lead to having more timed PS exclusives coming to the EGS.

If it means more coming to PC that would otherwise would not have, then great. If timed exclusive, meh, but would make sense since Sony is investing in Epic, even if the amount is relatively tiny.
 
If it means more coming to PC that would otherwise would not have, then great. If timed exclusive, meh, but would make sense since Sony is investing in Epic, even if the amount is relatively tiny.
I could see 2 years from PS5 release for EGS, and another year for other platforms. They are partners of sorts now, so don't see PC releases coming to all platforms at once if they chose to release to PC at all.

I wouldn't mind another God of War or Uncharted playthru on PC, even after a few years. :)
 
If they keep releasing Sonic exclusive games on PC im fine with that...
 
And all of a sudden, Timmy's big PR fluff over the PS5's new ssd tech for fast loading a few weeks ago comes into a new light.

I doubt it. The demo was apparently ready for GDC in March, so unless Sony takes a very long time to finalize an investment, the more likely scenario is that the public demo inspired the investment -- if it had any effect at all.
 
I doubt it. The demo was apparently ready for GDC in March, so unless Sony takes a very long time to finalize an investment, the more likely scenario is that the public demo inspired the investment -- if it had any effect at all.
Things like this can take a very long time to hammer out. More likely Tim Sweeney was sucking up to Sony to try to get this deal through.
 
Things like this can take a very long time to hammer out. More likely Tim Sweeney was sucking up to Sony to try to get this deal through.

Probably has some to do with it, but the PS5 does have nice tech. Won't redefine gaming of course, but small pushes are always nice. All things considered, $250 million is chump change to Epic though.
 
Folks, the 250m investment didn’t even buy Sony a 2% stake in Epic. Epic is worth nearly 18 billion dollars, do ya’ll really think Sweeny is sucking up to Sony over chump change?
 
I'm wondering if this is to combat 10cent's shares of Epic.

If Fortnite is available exclusively on PS5 and not Xbox Series X, that'll be huge for the kids though.
 
I'm wondering if this is to combat 10cent's shares of Epic.

If Fortnite is available exclusively on PS5 and not Xbox Series X, that'll be huge for the kids though.

Tencent owns 40% of Epic. Sony now owns about 1.4%. Epic themselves still own majority control. Sony has zero say in anything going on.
 
Tencent owns 40% of epic? Holy CCP shitballs, that's not cool.
I just hope this means FF7 comes to PC sooner... than later. I'm happy waiting. Might even wait for all the parts too.
 
Looks like Sony got suckered in with the fake stats of the platform userbase. Just because you have something like a Billion users who "bought" a couple billion games last year doesnt mean anything when over half of them were bought for free and half the userbase is only there to pick up free games and thats it.
 
And all of a sudden, Timmy's big PR fluff over the PS5's new ssd tech for fast loading a few weeks ago comes into a new light.

Was just about o comment on that...it does explain why a post by a Chinese Epic engineers post, showing the Unreal Engine 5 demo running faster on a laptop than the PS5 was pulled....

The hand that feeds you...
 
I'm laughing my ass off at all the stupid things being said in this thread. All caused by wanting to hate and refusing to look at anything that would invalidate the hate.
 
Looks like Sony got suckered in with the fake stats of the platform userbase. Just because you have something like a Billion users who "bought" a couple billion games last year doesnt mean anything when over half of them were bought for free and half the userbase is only there to pick up free games and thats it.
You are aware that there is more to Epic than EGS, right?

Was just about o comment on that...it does explain why a post by a Chinese Epic engineers post, showing the Unreal Engine 5 demo running faster on a laptop than the PS5 was pulled....

The hand that feeds you...

I don't think you realize how small 250m is to large corporations. "Hand that feed them"? Feeds them what? Pocket change? Epic is worth $18 BILLION. 250m only gets Sony a 1.4% stake in the company.

PS: The laptop that ran "Better" was all of 10fps better on a laptop with a 2080. Sweeney also stated that the PS5 demo was running with vsync on to lock it to 30fps.
 
Probably has some to do with it, but the PS5 does have nice tech. Won't redefine gaming of course, but small pushes are always nice. All things considered, $250 million is chump change to Epic though.
If you think $250 million is chump change then give me a million. Since COV19 all entertainment stock value has increased and another $250 million would go nicely to Epic Games stock price. Don't CEO's only get paid through stock? That's money directly in Tim Sweeney's pocket.

Also the tech in the PS5 is nice but when Tim Sweeney says that what the PS5 offers is beyond what's available on a top-end PC, when Sony is technically a competitor to Epic Games Store on PC then you know something shaddy is going down. A PS5 won't be beyond what's on High End PC today let alone on par. That's like Gabe Newell steps onto the stage and praises Xbox Series X for going beyond what is available on PC, and yet Half Life Alyx is only available on PC. It makes no sense until you realize that Microsoft invested heavily into Valve to publish games on Xbox including Alyx. The bullshit stinks too much eventually people are going to smell it.
 
If you think $250 million is chump change then give me a million. Since COV19 all entertainment stock value has increased and another $250 million would go nicely to Epic Games stock price. Don't CEO's only get paid through stock? That's money directly in Tim Sweeney's pocket.

Also the tech in the PS5 is nice but when Tim Sweeney says that what the PS5 offers is beyond what's available on a top-end PC, when Sony is technically a competitor to Epic Games Store on PC then you know something shaddy is going down. A PS5 won't be beyond what's on High End PC today let alone on par. That's like Gabe Newell steps onto the stage and praises Xbox Series X for going beyond what is available on PC, and yet Half Life Alyx is only available on PC. It makes no sense until you realize that Microsoft invested heavily into Valve to publish games on Xbox including Alyx. The bullshit stinks too much eventually people are going to smell it.

Epic is not a publicly traded company.

Edit: You should really pay attention to context for shit. The PS5's SSD IS better than anything consumers can get right now (there are enterprise solutions that are likely faster, but that's a bit different). Whether or not that remains the case when the PS5 launches remains to be seen.

Also, Sony is NOT a competitor to EGS. Consoles and PCs are not competitors to each other.
 
Also it seems people just look at raw specs for the PS5 SSD and ignore the underlying software.

Go do anything in a directory that has a ton of small files in Windows, it's just fucking terrible. Does it work - yes, is it good, no. My $150 craptop running Linux is at least an order of magnitude faster than my actual desktop in some cases. It is what it is (and probably why Microsoft said they want to bring DirectStorage to Windows, to presumably help these cases).

With this generation's focus on streaming data, I don't really think it's that strange of an access pattern that games may be doing many little reads, especially if it's dirt cheap on consoles. Doesn't mean it won't work on PC, it'll just be suboptimal in comparison.
 
The PS5's SSD IS better than anything consumers can get right now (there are enterprise solutions that are likely faster, but that's a bit different). Whether or not that remains the case when the PS5 launches remains to be seen.
Consumers can't get a PS5 right now. Meanwhile Samsung 980 Pro comes out in August and will make the PS5 SSD look like it's shuffling down the hall, pants around it's ankles, looking for toilet paper.

The PS5 SSD will be a godsend for reduced loadtimes, but its not going to increase FPS.
 
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Consumers can't get a PS5 right now. Meanwhile Samsung 980 Pro comes out in August and will make the PS5 SSD shuffle down the hall, pants around ankles, like it's looking for toilet paper.

The PS5 SSD will be a godsend for reduced loadtimes, but its not going to increase FPS.

As always, consoles will be dated pretty soon. But the hardware for the $400 model does look like a great bang for the buck. Of course, you pretty much need an extra SSD out of the box if you go with no disc drive if you want more than 5-8 AAA games installed. Bet an extra SSD will cost half as much as the whole console.
 
I just hope this means FF7 comes to PC sooner... than later. I'm happy waiting. Might even wait for all the parts too.
I doubt that, Sony paid Square-Enix for a year of exclusitivy on that one. As soon as FF7 Remake hits one year old i'm sure it'll be on PC and at least one of the Xbox consoles.


The PS5 SSD will be a godsend for reduced loadtimes, but its not going to increase FPS.
Yeah, but, and this might be surprising, FPS isn't all that matters. I run most of my games off a RAMcache because load times and pop in bother me far more than a few FPS do.

For another example, the reason I haven't replayed Breath of the Wild, as absolutely incredible a game as it is - has nothing to do with the fact that the game is usually 720p sub 30fps, it's because the load times for fast travel are absolutely fucking ridiculous.
 
I don't think you realize how small 250m is to large corporations. "Hand that feed them"? Feeds them what? Pocket change? Epic is worth $18 BILLION. 250m only gets Sony a 1.4% stake in the company.

Sony really just decided to invest in Epic in the last 3 months eh? Call me skeptical that they would view 250m as small potatoes or that they weren't talking things over with Epic 3-4 months ago.
 
Epic is not a publicly traded company.
Apparently there's more than one company called Epic that's publicly traded.
Edit: You should really pay attention to context for shit. The PS5's SSD IS better than anything consumers can get right now (there are enterprise solutions that are likely faster, but that's a bit different). Whether or not that remains the case when the PS5 launches remains to be seen.
Considering the only thing we have to go by is some footage of Spiderman loading faster, I'll remain skeptical until people perform benchmarks.
Also, Sony is NOT a competitor to EGS. Consoles and PCs are not competitors to each other.
They are, but they aren't. Sony and Microsoft would like you to believe that PC gaming is not a direct competitor but in reality if you buy a game for PC then you're unlikely to buy that same game for their console.

Go do anything in a directory that has a ton of small files in Windows, it's just fucking terrible. Does it work - yes, is it good, no. My $150 craptop running Linux is at least an order of magnitude faster than my actual desktop in some cases. It is what it is (and probably why Microsoft said they want to bring DirectStorage to Windows, to presumably help these cases).
I think people here are ignoring a bigger issue and that's Denovo, which is proven to slow the loading speed of games on PC. If PC is to compete with console then we need DRM protection removed. I don't see Tim Sweeney removing Denovo from games on this Epic store.

As always, consoles will be dated pretty soon. But the hardware for the $400 model does look like a great bang for the buck. Of course, you pretty much need an extra SSD out of the box if you go with no disc drive if you want more than 5-8 AAA games installed. Bet an extra SSD will cost half as much as the whole console.
Something to keep in mind with both Microsoft's and Sony's new consoles is that they seem to be pushing people away from physical media, and therefore used games. The $400 PS5 sounds great, until you realize you pay for whatever Sony is asking on the online store. You don't exactly have Steam or Epic store selling their games on the PS5. Microsoft seems to be going even further with a reduced performing Xbox Series S which may or may not be a thin client cloud gaming device. These are huge mistakes these companies are making and something Sega had to learn years ago with the 32X and Sega CD fiasco. Sony is doing a better job than Microsoft by offering a cheaper console with just a missing Blu-Ray drive but this won't be the cheaper PS5 in the long run. You'll save more money buying the PS5 with a Blu-Ray drive with used games and being able to purchase from multiple vendors. Anyone who buys a PS5 with no Blu-Ray drive is going to get screwed. Just remember that Foamy the Squirrel warned you about this years ago.
 
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Yeah, but, and this might be surprising, FPS isn't all that matters. I run most of my games off a RAMcache because load times and pop in bother me far more than a few FPS do.
But at the same time, loading time isn't everything either. Remember we went from the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo which had no loading time to Playstation and Sega Saturn with extremely long loading times for storage that's like 100x larger. Then PC came along and introduced the magic of the hard drive which significantly reduced loading time and now we have SSD's which also reduced loading time. Even the PS5 won't have the loading time of a 16-bit console. Apparently most people were fine with a loading time if that meant bigger and better games. The PS5's SSD is as much of a benefit as it is a restriction. Games will get larger and 840GB SSD will be a limiting factor at some point. World of Warcraft an old game is like 116GB for people. Quantum Break is 178GB, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 175GB, Destiny 2: Shadowkeep 165GB, Red Dead Redemption 2 150GB, and the list goes on. These aren't even PS5 games but PS4, so I assume games will get larger.

For another example, the reason I haven't replayed Breath of the Wild, as absolutely incredible a game as it is - has nothing to do with the fact that the game is usually 720p sub 30fps, it's because the load times for fast travel are absolutely fucking ridiculous.
My loading times were nearly instant while playing it on PC using Cemu. Also my frame rate was 60 fps at 1080p, with a number of enhancements. You also have a better PC than me so you shouldn't be having those problems.
 
You also have a better PC than me so you shouldn't be having those problems.
I play the game on Switch. As I previously said, FPS isn't everything. My Switch gets more use than my PC purely because of the strengths of it being a portable console.
 
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