Epic Games has plenty of avenues to create profit. The company has developed the Unreal Engine for game creators, has its own game launcher and owns incredibly popular games like Fortnite and Rocket League.
To build on this success, the company just completed its $1 billion funding round. While it is not uncommon for a business to do this, as it continues to grow, some are surprised by the contribution of Sony. Sony invested $200 million in this round of funding. However, this investment could pay off in terms of business and gaming.
Epic Investment
CEO Tim Sweeney explained that Epic Games opened the new round of funding to “help accelerate our work around building connected social experiences in Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys while empowering game developers and creators with Unreal Engine, Epic Online Services and the Epic Games Store.”
The additional billion dollars will undoubtedly help in these endeavours. Furthermore, it could help Sony with its long term projects.
Sony’s Relationship With Epic
This investment from Sony comes less than a year since a $250 million investment. In the previous instance, Sony acquired 1.4% of Epic Games. On the back of this investment, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said that the company is “excited to strengthen our collaboration to bring new entertainment experiences to people around the world.”
These investments are reflective of a close relationship between the companies. This has been reflected in the high praise Sweeney gave the PlayStation 5. Additionally, Sony showcased the capabilities of the PlayStation 5 by using the graphics of the Unreal Engine 5 software.
On the Unreal Engine 5 collaboration, Sweeney stated “We’ve been working super close with Sony for quite a long time on storage.” It now seems this relationship will continue and could lead to unique opportunities.
This tactic seemed to have paid off for Sony as we found that 83% of our 2020 survey preferred the offering of the PlayStation 5 over the Xbox Series X.
Future collaborations
While Sony and Epic Games haven’t openly committed to further work together, there is a good chance that Sony will utilise its stake in the business. In the last generation of consoles, Sony took advantage of exclusive deals and it would not be surprising to see the company attempt to strike a similar deal with Epic Games.
Equally, through technology such as the Epic Games Launcher and the Unreal Engine, the relationship could also be used to further a technical offering.
On the other hand, the benefit of this funding for Epic Games is clear. Apple has claimed that Epic Games has spent hundreds of millions on free game offerings. With this in mind, recouping these losses and strengthening relationships with other tech giants is a solid strategy.
