Sony Looking to Acquire Crunchyroll for Nearly $1 Billion, According to Report - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 06 February 2021 / 2,630 Views
Sony is looking to acquire US anime streaming service, Crunchyroll, and is currently in the final round of negotiations, according to a report by Nikkei Asia. The acquisition could end up costing Sony more than 100 billion yen ($957 million).
Crunchyroll has 70 million free members and three million paying subscribers worldwide. The streaming service was founded in 2006 and in 2018 AT&T became its parent company.
Sony has the exclusive negotiating rights for Crunchyroll, which has more than 1,000 titles available to watch.
Sony Pictures Television acquired Funimation in 2017 and it's one million paying subscribers who are mainly based in the US.
The worldwide anime market was worth around $21 billion in 2018, according to The Association of Japanese Animations. That is 50 percent larger than it was in 2013.
Demand for at-home streaming services has grown significantly since the start of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic earlier this year.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Sony determined to build up anime as their 4th entertainment pillar. They already own Aniplex, Animax, Funimation, Manga Entertainment UK, and 5% of Chinese Bilibili. Owning Crunchyroll would cement their position.
Free Crunchyroll with PS subscriptions incomeing?
Very smart move for Sony, this opportunity came because of AT&T needing to shed debt.
GO FOR IT
Now they going to censor Crunchyroll as well?. This must be great for all of weeb kind!.
Sony is jumping on the streaming service bandwagon. everyones going to have to invest more into original content not going to be much left to lease out with everyone putting all there back catalogs into there own services
Anime All-Stars: Battle Royale confirmed.
This would be huge for Sony's Aniplex and might be why Sony pulled Funimation out of VRV.
Don't forget who will ultimately be paying that $1Bn, though...
MS should sneak in and buy it, help them with the weebs. Let Gamepass Ultimate users access it for free.
You know that's a cope for not having The Young and The Restless. ;-P
We can but hope. Sony already own Funimation and, although they have a decent selection of shows, it's not a very good service. I suspect that they will increase the prices once Crunchyroll is out of the way. Shame as CR used to be very good value for money - I guess I'll be sticking to Netflix.
