Sony Online Entertainment sold, will begin developing Xbox games

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Sony Online Entertainment (SOE), the studio behind EverQuest, DC Universe Online and several other MMO titles, has been sold off by its parent company and will now expand its operations to include development for the Xbox One, various media outlets reported on Monday.

In a statement posted on the SOE forums, the company confirmed that it had been acquired by investment management firm Columbus Nova, and that it would shift its focus to becoming an independent game studio working as a multi-platform game developer and publisher.

According to Ars Technica, the new company has been renamed Daybreak Game Company, and officials promise that all existing SOE games would continue to function as normal. In fact, they even suggested that they may actually have additional resources to devote to those titles.

DayBreak said that it would “continue to focus on creating exceptional online games for players around the world,” and that in addition to its PlayStation and PC, it would be expanding into the field of Xbox and mobile development. It also promised “new exciting developments for our existing IP and games as we can now fully embrace the multi-platform world we are living in.”

Moving forward

The new owners reportedly plan to move forward with the release of the upcoming EverQuest Next in the “near future,” according to TechCrunch. The studio released the original EverQuest in 1999, one year after it was formed, and had over 500,000 subscribers for the title as of 2004. It had most recently released the zombie-themed survival game H1Z1.

While surprising, the sale comes in the midst of financial struggles for Sony. The Japanese tech giant is currently projecting a loss of more than $2 billion for the fiscal year ending next month, according to reports. If that happens, it would mean that the company has posted a total of $10 billion in losses in the past eight years, despite a thriving PlayStation gaming division.

SOE president John Smedley told GamesIndustry.biz that he and his colleagues were “excited to join Columbus Nova’s impressive roster of companies,” adding that the investment firm has “a proven record in similar and related industries” and that they were “eager to move forward to see how we can push the boundaries of online gaming.”

“We see tremendous opportunities for growth with the expansion of the company’s game portfolio through multi-platform offerings as well as an exciting portfolio of new quality games coming up, including the recently launched H1Z1 and the highly anticipated EverQuest Next to be released in the near future,” added Jason Epstein, a senior partner at Columbus Nova.

Epstein went on to tout the ‘early access’ launch success of H1Z1 as one indicator of the “talent and dedication of the studio’s developers to create great online gaming experiences.” New York-based Columbus Nova was founded in 2000 and is run by CEO Andrew Intrater, a former energy, base metals and mining executive.

Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole told GamesIndustry.biz that the price paid by Columbus Nova was probably “fairly cheap” and that Sony most likely “had to eat a lot of development costs.” He added that the move was “definitely a positive for SOE/Daybreak because I think they were hampered by being tied to the Sony corporate behemoth and now they can concentrate on their core market.”

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