San Francisco, Feb 8 (IANS): Entertainment giant Disney has said that it will invest $1.5 billion to acquire an equity stake in the 'Fortnite' maker Epic Games and work with the game developer to create a "games and entertainment universe".

The universe will allow consumers to "play, watch, shop and engage with content, characters and stories from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, Avatar and more".

"Our exciting new relationship with Epic Games will bring together Disney’s beloved brands and franchises with the hugely popular Fortnite in a transformational new games and entertainment universe," Robert A. Iger, CEO, The Walt Disney Company, said in a statement.

"This marks Disney’s biggest entry ever into the world of games and offers significant opportunities for growth and expansion," he added.

The partnership comes after Disney's successful licensing of characters such as Spider-Man for blockbuster video games. Disney also collaborated with Epic to bring characters from Marvel, Star Wars, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Tron,” and more to Fortnite.

"Disney was one of the first companies to believe in the potential of bringing their worlds together with ours in Fortnite," said Tim Sweeney, CEO and Founder, Epic Games.

"Now we’re collaborating on something entirely new to build a persistent, open and interoperable ecosystem that will bring together the Disney and Fortnite communities," he added.

Moreover, the entertainment giant mentioned that the two companies have already engaged hundreds of millions of players through Fortnite content, including the Marvel 'Nexus War with Galactus', which drew over 15.3 million concurrent players.

Apart from Fortnite, Epic Games is well-known for challenging Apple and Google in court to force them to reduce their app store fees.