Sony is acquiring the esports tournament venue Repeat.gg, marking the PlayStation maker’s most delinquent investment into esports.
Repeat.gg has put on additionally than 100,000 tournaments with over 2.3 million participants, featuring famous games like League of Legends, Fortnite, and Call of Duty: Warzone.
Last year, Sony became a part owner of Evo — now it’s acquiring Repeat.gg. “Together with the proficient Repeat.gg team, we’re eager to explore more ways for players to encounter competitive gaming and expand the scope of our esports offerings,” Sony Interactive Entertainment’s Steven Roberts stated. “This is just the commencement of our journey and we look forward to communicating more updates with our society in the future.”
Because of the investment, Repeat.gg will have admission to “more resources, game titles, and technology,” the team documented in its blog post about the purchase. And the platform will continue supporting PC, mobile, and other consoles “alongside PlayStation.”
The Repeat.gg acquisition tracks Sony’s purchase of the prestigious esports tournament Evo in collaboration with RTS the previous year. The first in-person Evo since 2019 will be taking place in August. The company also already hosts its tournaments through the PlayStation Tournaments platform.
However, as Sony grows into live service games in a big way, it appears as if the company is looking to find more forms to bring players together for competitions.
Monday’s acquisition is the latest in a string of recent deals. Sony officially closed its acquisitions of Destiny developer Bungie and Jade Raymond’s Haven Studios last week, and in May 2021, it announced a significant partnership with Discord.
Repeat is one of the world’s most comprehensive esports tournament platforms that works with brands to reach gamers. Repeat hosted more than 20,000 tournaments with more than 15,000,000 games on the site and worked with some of the largest gaming brands, influencers, and communities.
The Evolution Championship Series, known as Evo, is an annual esports event focusing exclusively on fighting games. The tournaments are fully open and employ the double-elimination format. As with Super Battle Opera, contestants travel worldwide to participate, most notably from Japan.
The first Evolution was held as a Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 tournament dubbed the Battle by the Bay. It altered its name to Evo in 2002. Each successive match has witnessed an upsurge in attendees. It has been held at different venues across the Las Vegas Valley since 2005. As of 2021, the occasion is jointly possessed by Sony Interactive Entertainment and the Endeavor esports venture RTS.
Evo was established by Tom Cannon, also known for his work on Shoryuken.com, a fighting game site.
The tournament began as “Battle by the Bay,” a 40-man Super Street Fighter II Turbo and Street Fighter Alpha 2 match in 1996 in Sunnyvale, California. The event then proceeded to its recurring venue in the Las Vegas Valley. Finally, the event changed its title to Evolution Championship Series, or EVO for brief, in 2002. Over time, the tournament grew, recording over one thousand participants in 2009.
Initially, the tournament operated arcade cabinets, but in 2004 the decision was created to move all games over to their console versions, with no small share of controversy. During the transition to games on the seventh generation consoles, most games were played on a PlayStation 3, though Evo 2014 ran most fun on the Xbox 360. Aside from the official tournaments, there is also a “BYOC” (“bring your own console”) area in which many additional games are played, and side tournaments are organized.
Sony Interactive Entertainment, formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment, is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company owned by the Japanese international partnership Sony. The SIE Group comprises two corporate legal entities: Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC, based in San Mateo, California, US, and Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc., based in Minato, Tokyo, Japan.
Tokyo-based SIE Inc. was founded as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. in November 1993 to bear Sony’s venture into video game outcomes for the PlayStation designs. SIE LLC was founded in San Mateo in April 2016 and is managed through Sony’s American branch, Sony Corporation of America.
Since the takeoff of the original PlayStation console in 1994, the company has been evolving PlayStation home video game consoles, accompaniments, and services. The company extended from Japan into North America and Europe, establishing the branches of Sony Computer Entertainment America in May 1995 and Sony Computer Entertainment Europe in July 1995.
The company quickly became Sony’s leading resource for research and expansion in video games and interactive recreation. SCE and Sony Network Entertainment International were rebuilt and reorganized in April 2016 into Sony Interactive Entertainment, carrying over both companies’ operations and primary objectives. The same year, SIE LLC was founded, with its headquarters in San Mateo, California.
Sony Interactive Entertainment handles the research, development, production, and sales of hardware and software for the PlayStation video game strategies. SIE is also a creator and publisher of video game titles and drives several subsidiaries in Sony’s most noteworthy markets: North America, Europe, and Asia. By August 2018, the company had traded more than 525 million PlayStation consoles globally.
The PlayStation Portable (PSP) was SCEI’s first incursion into the small handheld console trades. Its development was first revealed during SCE’s E3 conference in 2003 and was officially unveiled during its E3 conference on May 11, 2004.
Finally, the system was unleashed in Japan on December 12, 2004, North America on March 24, 2005, and Europe and Australia on September 1, 2005. Since then, the console has seen two major redesigns, with new features including a more diminutive size, a better quality LCD screen, more internal memory, and lighter weight.