All week, fans have been expecting major announcements out of Sony. It began with a wild rumor spinning out of control, a few potential rumors heard by the right people, and one real announcement, and the next thing you know, many were curious whether Sony was acquiring Konami, FromSoftware, or others this week or not. Sony did reveal some major PS Plus changes, but apparently, it wasn’t enough. As fans began to lose faith and the final week of March was ending, Sony delivered that long-awaited announcement.
Sony has made a new, massive acquisition that could very well shake up the entire industry. Previously, it had announced some major acquisitions like Returnal developer Housemarque, Demon’s Souls remake developer Bluepoint Games, Destiny 2 developer Bungie, and Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios. This one trumps them all and could change the entire landscape of PS4 and PS5 releases for the next several years, and that acquisition, Sony’s latest and greatest, is the franchise restaurant chain Olive Garden.
Sony has officially acquired Olive Garden for an undisclosed amount. It’s not clear yet how all of this will fit into Sony’s gaming landscape, but it did announce two major plans related to this acquisition. The first is for Olive Garden to begin hosting in-person battle royales, where the winners are awarded a lifetime supply of PS5s (Max 0). Olive Garden workers will announce these battle royale dates as they are confirmed, with a simple but catchy chant: “unlimited soup, salad, breadsticks, and PS5s...but no seriously, the max number you can receive is 0.”
The second major plan is a new PastaStation Plus Service, expected to launch in Holiday 2022 or Spring 2023. Details are not clear at this time, but it seems that Sony will begin incorporating a new Olive Garden Battle Pass into future live-service PS5 games. Rewards could include free breadsticks, unique bread-themed skins, and more.
Players can expect to see more Chicken & Shrimp Carbonara, Raviolo di Portobello, Shrimp Alfredo, and Zeppoli in future games. Plus, current rumor has it that Kratos’ Axe in God of War: Ragnarok will be replaced with a breadstick.
On this acquisition, Sony Interactive Entertainment President and CEO Jim Ryan had this to say: “It all comes back to their breadsticks. Have you had their breadsticks? They’re delish. Anyway, we were thinking about what we could add to PS Plus since we’re not doing day one games, and that’s when it hit me, free breadsticks!”
Sony did confirm it would be making another announcement sometime between now and the end of time.
No PS5 consoles will be sold at any Olive Garden locations.