We've been asking since the announcement of the acquisition, what Sony gets out of buying Bungie. If it wasn't about making its games exclusives to its consoles, what was it all about? Well it seems we may have our answer as Sony already has plans to help transform Bungie's franchises into TV and film projects.
As reported by Eurogamer, Sony executive Hiroki Totoki spoke in an earnings call about the possibility of transforming Bungie's work into movies. The original report quotes him saying: "[It's] not just for [the] gaming area, but the multi-using of IP and merchandising of IP—like a game title maybe put into movies.
"Bungie wants to nurture the IP they have in a multi-dimensional manner, and that's their hope. For that, we believe we can help that—we have [Sony] Pictures and [Sony] Music, and Bungie can leverage our platform so that their IP can flourish and grow big."
The "multi-dimensional" is key here. It seems Bungie has big plans for its properties, and though it's not stated explicitly, it's likely Destiny is first in line. And although movies are the main focus of Totoki's comment, it's possible that a TV show may be more suited to Destiny's world.
I think it's likely that the successful expansion of Riot's League of Legends into music, TV, fashion, and more is at least an inspiration for Sony and Bungie. Riot has done such a good job of transitioning a massive game into several different mediums that Sony and Bungie could imagine the same for Destiny.
I'm sure there will be a debate between fans of what format would fit the world of Destiny better. Sony is gearing up to release the Uncharted film which definitely could have been a series over an action movie. On the other hand, the Halo TV series is already upsetting some fans with its interpretation of Cortana.
