MONTREAL — Sony’s Haven Studios, the video-game production outfit helmed by longtime developer Jade Raymond, is moving into new digs in Montreal’s Old Port district, The Logic has learned, as the feud over IP between the company’s PlayStation and Microsoft-owned rival Xbox continues to dominate the industry.

The Tokyo-based company has leased over 50,000 square feet of office space on two and a half floors at 700 rue Saint-Hubert, with the company expected to move into the new space in about a year, multiple sources with knowledge of the transaction told The Logic.

Completed last fall, the sleek, glass-walled building is part of the Gare Viger project that also houses Lightspeed. Sony will take the top two of its seven floors, and half of the fifth. It will join pharmaceutical company Novartis, which moved into the first two floors this past spring. 

Raymond, 48, founded Haven Studios in 2021 after two years at the helm of Google’s game-streaming service Stadia, which was shuttered in February that year. The Montrealer founded Ubisoft Toronto as well as Motive Studios, an action-adventure gaming subsidiary of Electronic Arts. She played key roles in the development of Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs titles.

Haven, whose current offices are in Montreal’s Place Ville Marie, was one of 18 gaming studios acquired by Sony the following year. The studio aimed to simplify the complexities of video-game production by moving much of the development to the cloud, which allowed those working on the game to see changes in real time. 

Haven’s first title, Fairgame$, is a revenge fantasy against the world’s wealthiest one per cent, inviting players to “trespass inside forbidden locations around the world, fill your pockets like a kid in a candy store and unravel the nefarious plans of untouchable billionaires.” Its release date hasn’t been announced. Neither Sony nor Haven responded to a request for comment.

The deal would make the property in Montreal a key site in the video-game arms race between industry-dominating Sony and Microsoft. In June, Microsoft Xbox head Phil Spencer accused the company of paying game producers “to skip our platform” in favour of Sony’s PlayStation. Last year, Microsoft announced its US$68.7-billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the producer of the Call of Duty franchise. The proposed merger is now before the courts, with the Federal Trade Commission alleging it would “enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription and cloud-gaming business.”

The lease to Sony is also a shot in the arm for Montreal’s battered commercial real estate market, which has suffered through nine consecutive quarters of declines in net leased space, according to a recent report from the real estate and investment company Jones Lang LaSalle. 

Allied, which owns office properties across the country, acquired 700 rue Saint-Hubert in October 2022 for $126.2 million—a record amount for an office building in Quebec, according to two sources familiar with the deal. The Toronto-based real estate investment trust also owns the neighbouring historic former railway hotel. Allied CEO Cecilia Williams didn’t respond to an email requesting comment.

Correction: This article has been updated to correctly reflect ownership of properties on the Gare Viger project site.