Sony Buys Headphone Company Audeze to Benefit PlayStation Games

Sony buys premium headphone company Audeze to better strengthen PlayStation experiences.

By Tanner Dedmon

Sony has made another acquisition to benefit PlayStation, but this time, it wasn't a developer that's been acquired. Sony instead bought Audeze, the company known for making a range of different headphones with several of them geared specifically towards gaming. The acquisition is indeed geared towards enhancing the experience PlayStation users have when playing games, a fact that Sony made clear in the announcement of the deal between it and Audeze, but for the time being, Audeze says it'll continue to operate independently and will put out multi-platform products and not just headsets for PlayStation devices.

The plans for how, exactly, Audeze will benefit the PlayStation ecosystem weren't laid out in the acquisition announcement, but Audeze said it plans to help Sony take PlayStation experiences "to the next level."

"Sony Interactive provides Audeze with a unique opportunity to scale our business, as we continue with our mission to deliver best-in-class headphones to recording professionals, audiophiles, and gamers," said Audeze CEO Sankar Thiagasamudram. "We're also looking forward to contributing to Sony Interactive's efforts to take PlayStation audio experiences to the next level."

Audeze x PlayStation Headphones

Audeze makes headphones for all kinds of purposes, not just gaming, so it's only got a couple of headsets that are explicitly for that purpose. The Audeze Penrose is one of those headsets as is the Maxwell with both of those hovering around the $200-$300 range. That's not exactly cheap for a headset, but gamers are getting off easy there compared to some of the other premium headsets offered that cost in the thousands.

Audeze also makes headsets that are compatible with Xbox consoles and PC games, and for the time being at least, it looks like those on the non-PlayStation platforms don't have anything to worry about in terms of Audeze going exclusive.

""Audeze is a premier brand for headphones, and this acquisition highlights Sony Interactive's focus on innovation and providing the best audio experience to PlayStation players," said Hideaki Nishino, Senior Vice President of Platform Experience at Sony Interactive Entertainment. "We're excited to bring Audeze's expertise into the PlayStation ecosystem, building on the great strides we've made with PlayStation 5's Tempest 3D AudioTech and the Pulse 3D wireless headset."

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Past PlayStation Acquisitions

While Audeze was not directly acquired by PlayStation and was instead bought up by Sony, PlayStation itself has been busy over the past few years acquiring companies, though not quite as busy as some of its competitors. It acquired Savage Game Studios in recent years, for example, and in doing so opened the PlayStation Studios Mobile Division. Returnal developer Housemarque was also acquired after the success of its PlayStation 5 game, and just this year, PlayStation acquired Firewalk Studios which is working on its first game for PlayStation now. Probably the biggest acquisition in recent years was PlayStation buying Bungie, the creators of Destiny 2 and, ironically, the former developers of Xbox's Halo games.

There were rumors earlier about other larger acquisitions being talked about for companies as big as CD Projekt Red, but for the most part, PlayStation's been pretty quiet with its acquisitions lately. Currently, from Bend Studio to Sucker Punch Interactive to Naughty Dog, the PlayStation Studios team currently consists of over 20 studios.

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