Sony confirms that it has acquired a minority stake in Fortnite developer Epic Games. The two companies have a close relationship, with Epic Games having released an Unreal Engine 5 demo featuring PS5 gameplay footage back in May.
Today, Sony announced that it has invested $250 million in Epic Games, granting it a 1.4% stake in the company. The investment stands in stark contrast to the $330 million that Chinese conglomerate Tencent invested into Epic Games in 2012, granting it a 40% stake in the company. This means that Epic Games is now valued at $17.86 billion in comparison to a value of $825 million in 2012. Last month, Tencent announced SYN, a cyberpunk game developed with the use of Epic Games technology.
Sony and Epic Games have worked together several times before, so few will be surprised to see the PlayStation platform holder put money into the Fortnite developer. Epic Games has released PlayStation exclusive Fortnite skins several times since the game was released in 2018, as Sony tries to beef up PS4 console sales and PlayStation Plus subscriptions.
In 2018, Fortnite was the first PS4 game to get full cross-platform play. Players had previously only been able to play games between PC and console players but this shift meant that they'd now be able to play with and against players on other consoles. In a statement announcing the investment, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said that together, Sony and Epic Games will be a “more open and accessible digital ecosystem for all consumers and content creators" and cross-platform play can be seen as part of that.
Beyond that statement, it's unclear what the Sony and Epic Games partnership will really look like. However, fans on other, non-PlayStation platforms shouldn't expect Epic Games to just drop support for their devices. Despite the Unreal Engine 5 demo running on PS5, Epic made it very clear that Unreal Engine 5 will support Xbox Series X, along with other consoles and mobile devices.
This will bring a sigh of relief to Xbox fans as games like Xbox Series X exclusive Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 will be using Unreal Engine 5. The next game from inXile Entertainment, another developer under the Xbox Game Studios banner, will also be developed using the game engine.
Epic Games has confirmed that Fortnite is a PS5 and Xbox Series X launch title and that its Unreal Engine 5 demo is playable on PS5 development kits. This doesn't really provide fans with an idea of what the partnership will bring them, but they potentially may not have to wait long to find out.
Source: GamesBeat