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Epic lands $250m investment from PlayStation maker Sony

Date Type Companies involved Size
July 10th, 2020 investment Epic Games
Sony
$250m
Epic lands $250m investment from PlayStation maker Sony

Fortnite maker Epic Games has received a $250m investment from Japanese giant Sony.

The PlayStation firm has acquired a minority stake in the company through its American subsidiary. This partnership isn't strictly limited to Sony's games business, either.

In the press release announcing the deal, it says that the investment will allow the two companies to work together across Sony's "leading portfolio of entertainment assets and technology." The Japanese firm's Music arm has a team that is tasked with creating digital experiences. Travis Scott, the rapper who held a concert in Fortnite in April of this year is also a Sony artist and was potentially the firm seeing what working with Epic on Fortnite was like.

“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," Epic founder and boss Tim Sweeney (pictured) said.

"Together we strive to build an even more open and accessible digital ecosystem for all consumers and content creators alike."

Sony chairman, CEO and president Kenichiro Yoshida added: “Epic’s powerful technology in areas such as graphics places them at the forefront of game engine development with Unreal Engine and other innovations," Sony chair 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."

Epic was apparently looking for more investment earlier this year. Reports suggested that it was trying to secure $750m, which would value the Fortnite giant at around $17bn. Since its debut back in 2017, the free-to-play battle royale hit has been played by more than 350m people.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.