Nintendo's industry pal Sony has just invested another $200 million in the Fortnite creator Epic Games.
Epic's $1 billion in funding from Sony and various other companies will allow it to support future growth opportunities, including its "Metaverse". This now also puts the company's equity valuation at $28.7 billion.
According to Epic's latest PR, Sony's investment reinforces the shared mission to advance tech and more:
“[The investment] builds on the already close relationship between the two companies and reinforces their shared mission to advance the state of the art in technology, entertainment, and socially-connected online services."
As Push Square's editor Sammy Barker highlights, this is not an investment from the PlayStation division.
Sony's first minority stake in Epic actually took place last year when it dropped $250 million on the video game juggernaut. It was clarified here on Nintendo Life at the time that it wouldn't impact Epic's titles on other platforms, like the Switch.
Here's exactly what Epic's CEO and founder, Tim Sweeney, had to say about securing $1 billion:
“We are grateful to our new and existing investors who support our vision for Epic and the Metaverse. Their investment will 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."
On a related, and much lighter note, Horizon Zero Dawn protagonist Aloy (who also happens to be a PlayStation IP) will be joining Fortnite.
[source epicgames.com, via pushsquare.com]
Comments 33
It’ll be for the potential Epic’s technology has for the CGI sector.
What a riveting article.
I don't get the Epic Games Metaverse. Fortnite, Rocket League, and Fall Guys are separate IP, and while that can be said for many Nintendo series, I don't see the synergy between the IP Epic acquired that Nintendo has. Maybe Fall Guys and Fortnite, but not Rocket League. I feel like Epic saw Marvel movie sales and wants a piece of that pie. Heck, maybe not even Epic but maybe Tencent or some other investor. It's too cynical and contrived to be real. Maybe it's because I found Fortnite to be boring, but Epic's marketing even seems self-aware. Free Fortnite was totally pitched towards getting bored kids to heckle Apple's customer service as if Fortnite is as dire as the situations in Tigray or Myanmar. CD Project Red tried something similar when they told their customers to demand refunds from Sony. Fortnite was kinda cool with the Travis Scott concert and battle royale craze but at this point it's all cameos and marketing deals. Epic is just milking Fortnite and the Epic Games Store for anything they can get at this point. I guess Unreal engine will always be relevant. I miss the days when Epic made Unreal Tournament, Paragon, and Gears of War.
Ugh, I cannot stand Epic. They bully small devs who don't accept their exclusivity deals, they try to buy up anything remotely popular, Fortnite is only kept alive by churning out pop culture content to milk more money off kids, they do not have any consideration at all for players. Tim Sweeney even stated that the developers should decide where the players enjoy games, not the players when defending his exclusive buying tactics. They are next level evil as far as game companies go. And they have their eyes on monopoly.
This has nothing to do with Nintendo.
@the4seer It's industry news. Epic Games also makes Fortnite and the Unreal Engine - both of which are on the Nintendo Switch.
@the4seer the same way news about Netflix’ The Witcher gets reported here. A game related to that is on a Nintendo console... yeah it’s farfetched but I remember one on the reporters here saying that. It also is a Nintendo focused websites not Nintendo only news. Once again not mine words but theirs.
@Liam_Doolan Ok... and...How is Sony's investment related to Nintendo?
@BrintaPap Ok... and...How is Sony's investment related to Nintendo?
@the4seer don’t shoot the messenger bro I don’t work here
I want Link in Fortnite
Or Kirby in a mech
@Slowdive They have been though some studios use Unreal engine so this isn't entirely farfetched. The specific amount of money may be though.
I've updated this story.
It sounds like a lot but then you find out their stake is only 1.4%. That's much smaller than what Nintendo owns of Cygames yet you don't see Cygames discussed on this website.
Uncharted quadrilogy coming to Epic Game Store.
Those hoping Fortnite would eventually die, sorry?
So are they basically afraid of Epic? I imagine Epic having almost a monopoly on gaming engines for third party software. If Epic doesn't like you, they might just stop supporting your platform which could have awful consequenses... especially for gaming platforms who are becoming more and more dependent of Epic. In the long run Sony/Nintendo etc might fear that Epic wants to put their gamestore on their systems as well. Maybe I'm overthinking but Epic is doing a great job cementing its future
Why do they need funding? Last I heard they were making 200 million per month from Fortnite alone.
So Fortnite not making as much nowadays?
Didn't know Epic had something to do with Fall Guys, ah well, there goes that game from my hype list
Sony still pay a fortune for timed exclusivities (Final Fantasy) and now they want to own 1.4% of Epic because why not.
@the4seer
Epic is a company that makes games for the current Nintendo system and developed a game development engine used by many on that Nintendo system, including Nintendo themselves (Yoshis Crafted World and Links Awakening). A competitor is buying a share of it, which has potential ramifications for the Switch and Nintendo. Though it’s Nintendo-related news for the above reasons even if it doesn’t have any effect in the end.
@ilh
Growing companies consume incredible amounts of cash. This is pretty typical behaviour.
Is Fortnite still big? Besides these “guest” characters I don’t hear much about it any more
...what's a metaverse?
They are quite premium on their engine business - must be some radical changes coming in the next few years for that part...
I'm genuinely surprised that Epic have any need or interest in securing funding. I read yesterday that Fortnite brings in 400 million USD in revenue per month, so what impact does it make to their cash pile for Sony to give them another 200M once-off?
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/04/how-long-can-epic-afford-to-throw-money-at-the-epic-games-store/
@ilh that’s exactly what I was wondering. Why do they even need investment at all, something seems a little odd with epic these days...
@LUIGITORNADO if you go by Twitch numbers, Fortnite is at 89.9 thousand streams at the moment, but I've seen it top out at over 300,000 recently.
Didn’t know this game was still popular. Never played it. But from the outside looking in, it seems to have turned into the game equivalent to Space Jam or Time Square. Jam it with IP...IP...IP...
So today I learned that the Fortnite developers are also the Unreal devs. Don't know why that never registered before.
@ilh corporations don't invest in saving a sinking ship, that's what tax payers are extorted for. Corporations, the state and government included (which are just corporations as well, in every way), only invest for returns, and investing is just a modern way of laundering whatever they stole or completely made up out of not even thin air wherever. The returns are "clean", and "real", because they have the paperwork to back it up then. And they can twist everything to make it seem like a good thing, that's what PR is for.
Great, competition for Steam is good for us. Customers win.
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