The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an investigation into Sony's acquisition of destiny developer Bungie. Earlier this year, Sony announced its acquisition of Bungie after Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard for nearly $70 billion.
At that time, Sony's acquisition of Bungie seemed to be a tit for tat acquisition. Although Bungie was much smaller, the final price was only $3.6 billion. According to sources, the FTC investigation has nothing to do with the scale of the acquisition, but this may represent a more radical position of regulators on the M & A of large technology companies.
Similarly, shortly after Microsoft announced its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Bloomberg reported that the Federal Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of justice would investigate the merger to ensure that consumers' rights and interests were safeguarded. At that time, FTA chairman Lina Khan made harsh remarks on business merger, pointing out that it could cause a series of injuries, from higher prices and lower wages to reducing opportunities, innovation and flexibility.
Sony said the main reason for its acquisition of Bungie was to help it expand to other media. Bungie has also confirmed that they will retain full control of the game production business and will continue to distribute games on all platforms.