The staff at Sony Online Entertainment left a surprising message for those logging into the official forum today: the company was acquired by Columbus Nova, an investment management firm based in New York, and will be rebranded as Daybreak Game Company. This move will make the company a multiplat studio.

SOE left the following message in the forum:

Dear Players, Partners and Friends,

Today, we are pleased to announce that we have been acquired by Columbus Nova, an investment management firm well known for its success with its existing portfolio of technology, media and entertainment focused companies. This means that effective immediately SOE will operate as an independent game development studio where we will continue to focus on creating exceptional online games for players around the world, and now as a multi-platform gaming company. Yes, that means PlayStation and Xbox, mobile and more!

As part of this transition, SOE will now become Daybreak Game Company. This name embodies who we are as an organization, and is a nod to the passion and dedication of our employees and players. It is also representative of our vision to approach each new day as an opportunity to move gaming forward.

So what exactly does this mean for you? It will be business as usual and all SOE games will continue on their current path of development and operation. In fact, we expect to have even more resources available to us as a result of this acquisition. It also means new exciting developments for our existing IP and games as we can now fully embrace the multi-platform world we are living in.

Our games and players are the heart and soul of our organization, and we are committed to maintaining our portfolio of online games and pushing the limits of where we can take online gaming together.

Thank you for your continued support. See you in game!

The Team at Daybreak

While the move certainly came out of nowhere, it is certainly a smart business move on both the parts of Sony and Columbus Nova. The latter especially since they are a hue technology firm invested already in many different technology sectors.

Hopefully the transition will go smoothly and keep the entire workforce intact as is.