Hermen Hulst insists Sony is "very selective" about the developers it acquires
PS5 (c) Sony
It was recently announced that ‘Returnal’ developer Housemarque has been acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment for an undisclosed fee and is now officially part of PlayStation Studios.
Housemarque is the 13th studio to join the PlayStation family - another notable acquisition was the $229 million buyout of Insomniac Games in 2019 - but head of PlayStation Studios Hulst has insisted that Sony is not in “an arms race” with rival Microsoft and is careful about the companies it purchases.
When asked if he sees both Microsoft and Sony purchasing more game developers as “a bit of an arms race”, Hulst said: “No, not at all. We're very selective about the developers that we bring in. Our last new acquisition was Insomniac, which has worked out very well. I'm always looking for people that have a similar set of values, similar creative ambitions and work very well with our team that we can further invest in and help grow as creators. It's not like we're going around and just making random acquisitions."
Hulst also stated that the acquisition of Housemarque “makes so much sense” for both parties.
In an interview with GQ, he added: “They’re very, very targeted acquisitions of teams that we know well. The amount of collaboration between our external development group and Housemarque on the technical side, the production management side and even on the creative side has been so deep. So for us, it just makes so much sense to do that.
"Obviously, this is not something you do overnight. Ilari and my team have been working on this for quite a while, but we obviously didn't want to distract the core group at Housemarque that’s been working to get this amazing title out.”
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