The ongoing Epic Games vs Apple legal battle is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes goings-on in the video games industry. Many of these appear as official court documents, some unintentionally. A new one that falls in that category has revealed something new, that’s both surprising and not at the same time.
The now deleted document suggests that Epic Games tried to offer Sony Interactive Entertainment US$200 million (~RM821.2 million) to have first-party PlayStation titles on the Epic Games Store. Said documents mentions the above amount as a minimum guarantee for four to six titles. Though it’s unclear if the amount is for all the games, or just a single title.
A number of them have indeed made their way to PC, though not necessarily as EGS exclusives. Most notable among them is Horizon Zero Dawn, which is also available on Steam. Ditto the upcoming Days Gone PC port. According to PC Gamer, ReadySet Heroes is one title published by Sony that is currently still exclusive to the EGS. Predator: Hunting Grounds is now also on Steam following a year of timed exclusivity.
Of course, Epic Games didn’t only approach SIE for this. The company also had a back and forth with Microsoft, but faced resistance from the latter’s Game Pass side of things. And as it turns out, Microsoft was also in talks with Valve. As for Nintendo, it appears that Epic did not even bother, since their “corporate history says this is a non-starter”.
Overall, while it’s not publicly known if SIE took the deal, it’s the one that probably the most likely to succeed. The two companies may have had their disagreements, especially when it comes to crossplay. But SIE did invest US$250 million into Epic Games.
