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PlayStation has acquired another developer, and though you may not have heard its name before, there's a good chance you've enjoyed its handiwork.
PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst announced on Twitter that Nixxes Software is joining his company, just days after revealing that Sony had also acquired Returnal developer Housemarque. Nixxes Software was established in 1999 and specializes in lending additional support to big gaming projects, including doing additional work on Marvel's Avengers and heading up the PC version of Shadow of the Tomb Raider.
Excited to announce that the talented Dutch studio Nixxes Software will be joining PlayStation Studios. It's a real pleasure to welcome a team with such deep technical expertise and vast experience to the @Playstation family. Huge congrats to everyone @NixxesSoftware!July 1, 2021
A press release from Sony specifies that Nixxes will "join PlayStation Studios Technology, Creative & Services Group to provide high quality in-house technical and development capabilities for PlayStation Studios" - so it sounds like Nixxes will still be working on the more technical side of game development, just from within the Sony umbrella.
Hulst wrote in June that Sony is "still early on in our planning for PC", and given Nixxes' expertise with bringing big-budget games to PC, Sony may have acquired the studio to bolster its own in-house resources for more PlayStation-to-PC ports in the vein of Horizon: Zero Dawn and Days Gone. All we know for sure, however, is that Nixxes will be lending its tech expertise exclusively to PlayStation Studios projects from now on.
Between this and Housemarque, it's been a busy week for Sony acquisitions - and there are some indications that another is on the way. PlayStation Japan briefly announced that Demon's Souls remake developer Bluepoint was joining PlayStation Studios before deleting the Tweet, but Bluepoint itself poured some cold water on rumors that PlayStation Japan had jumped the gun on a planned announcement by adding the fact that it's "fully independent" to its Twitter profile.
Meanwhile, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has come out to say he believes studio acquisitions are a "healthy part of our industry," which you would expect him to say after Microsoft finalized its purchase of Bethesda then put its games front and center at the Xbox E3 2021 presentation. It looks like gaming giants buying up promising independents and former partners is set to become an even bigger part of the business for both companies in the years ahead.
See what else is going on in Sony-land with our guide to PlayStation Studios projects.
