Sony to acquire Bungie game studio — developer of Xbox-owned Halo — for $3.6 billion

PlayStation-maker Sony is escalating its competition with Xbox-maker Microsoft by buying the video game studio behind one of Xbox's hit games.

Sony Interactive Entertainment said Monday it would spend $3.6 billion to buy Bungie Inc., an independent game publisher based in Bellevue, Washington. Bungie makes the popular game franchise Destiny and was the original developer of Xbox-owned Halo.

Microsoft bought Bungie in 2000, but later spun off the game studio in 2007 while retaining intellectual property rights to the Halo franchise.