Report: Sony in Talks to Acquire FromSoftware Parent Company Kadokawa Corporation - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 19 November 2024 / 3,685 Views
Sony Group Corporation is reportedly in talks to acquire FromSoftware parent company Kadokawa Corporation, according to two sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Reuters.
The sources claim talks are ongoing and a deal could be signed in the coming weeks if successful. Nikkei reports negotiations are currently in the early stages.
Sony as of March 2024 has a two percent stake in Kadokawa and a 14 percent stake in FromSoftware.
Sony declined to comment when asked by Reuters, while Kadokawa said it cannot comment.
Kadokawa Corporation owns a number of video game publishers and developers, as well as companies in film and visual, and cross media. Video game subsidiaries at Kadokawa includes Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, Acquire, Spike Chunsoft, and Gotcha Gotcha Games.
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 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Kadokawa also includes Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa, DBZ Budokai/Sparking Zero), and Acquire (Tenchu, Octopath Traveler, Mario & Luigi: Brothership).
Wow.... this is bigger than I thought at first.
Sony’s primary interest is obviously FromSoftware, but yeah, it would bring a lot of other games under their roof. It would give them a new Japanese development base.
Their primary interest is the anime and manga since Sony already own Funimation and Crunchyroll.
Funimation the company still exists. it was rebranded to crunchyroll. the old crunchyroll corporation is the one that got absorbed into funimation. all the execs are funimation execs. they took the brand that was better known internationally. a bit like showbiz pizza buying chuck e cheese and then changing their name to chuck e cheese really.
Kadokawa is like 8-to-1 in terms of publishing/anime vs. gaming revenue, if they wanted just FromSoft they would have bought that alone.
Hopefully they would still be allowed to work on Mario and Luigi games.
If and that's a massive if, since Sony hasn't acquired universal either. They will most likely get the Bungie status before they imploded. A lot of freedom as long as they are profitable.
there's minimal chance kadokawa's gaming companies would end up under palystation. aniplex already has it's own games seperate from playstation.
There's more of a chance that their gaming companies would end up in Playstation than under Aniplex. Aniplex in under the Sony Music arm of Sony Group and Playstation is under the SIE arm of Sony Group. In Aug of 2022 SIE (Playstation ) already invested and purchased over 14% of From Software (gaming studio). Kadokawa's gaming studios or at least From Software would more than likely be grouped with Playstation considering the investment that SIE already has in them.
Maybe worth mentioning: “Ownership” refers to Kadokawa owning 70% stake in FromSoftware. It’s a little bit different than how Microsoft has ownership over Rare and Activision, for instance.
Sony also owns a 14 percent stake in From Software. So buying Kadokawa would add Kadokawa’s stake in addition to what Sony already owns.
Exactly, after the deal goes through Sony would own 83.75% of From Soft with Tencent owning the other amount.
yeah, doesn't look too good. Hopefully Nintendo will be able to continue working with Acclaim, and Sony will continue allowing FromSoft to publish on all platforms day one. Acquisitions are bad for the industry: Goes without saying.
It seems like a lot of people forget that Sony is more than just a video game business. This deal is almost certainly focused on anime, not gaming. Gaming is just a small part of it.
Ha, Sony and Microsoft just competing to buy up studios. All these big M&A are not good for gamers. I like Nintendo's strategy, of just making the best games themselves, and not needing to buy up tons of companies to get the best games.
Nintendo may need to start doing acquisitions at some point. They need content, and acquisitions like this have a tendency to deny content. Nintendo seriously needs to think of locking down some key IPs, especially since that’s where things seem to be heading. Marvelous and Falcom might be good targets for them. Ys would fill the gaps between Zelda, Legend of Heroes could be added to Nintendo’s RPG stable along with FE and XBC. Marvelous would bring Story of Seasoke (already a Nintendo staple) and Sakuna. And these studios could help out with other projects, since Nintendo often seems to need more manpower.
NIntendo will just form new studios if they need to. But they have bought 2 studios in the last couple of years. A small port studio and Next Level Games. Don't expect to see them go out and buy Platinum Games or something.
Just as long as Nintendo isn’t purchasing studios like Capcom, Atlus, or SqEnix with intent on securing IP, then I’m in complete and total agreement with you. Grezzo, for instance, would make for a great acquisition seeing their work on Link’s Awakening Remake and Echoes of Wisdom. Very small, humble, and reliable studio. No IP to gain.
They should also have bought Saber Interactive. That would have helped guarantee US/European content for Switch 2.
I'd argue more for owning larger stake in Saber Interactive, not purchase. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Saber_Interactive_games) With this catalogue of published titles, a Nintendo acquisition would only hurt the industry.
....If it helps push out Bloodborne 2 faster lol
Xbox out here putting their games on PlayStation...
PlayStation out here taking more games off Xbox...
Neither one of these strategies is a benefit to the industry lol
I disagree. Competition is good. It brings out the best. Take the 16-bit generation, for example. Would we have gotten all those iconic games and franchises if everything was cross-platform? Same with PS1 vs N64 etc. We need more of this in the industry, imo.
Sure, but games are more expensive and require much more time to develop, but porting games is easier across platforms once the games are actually made. If it wasn't for these factors, there would be more exclusives.
Well, buying rather than building seems to be normal and good now, so yeah.
If that ever happens, I can kiss Dragonball games goodbye, because they'll eventually require PSN to sign in, which also means they will magically stop appearing on Steam for me...
When MS buys games, I can still buy them on Steam, and half of them either require the MS account which I am auto signed -in at the OS level, or their own account system/none.
When Sony buys something, it just outright denies me access to said games, and it's becoming daft as hell.
It's just super weird, because I live on the Isle of Man, literally that tiny island, smack dab in between the UK & Ireland. I know Google knows I exist, Amazon knows we exist, hell, Microsoft knows we exist and same with Nintendo, but Sony and Nexon don't for weird reasons.
Our island has the 2nd oldest parliament in the entire world, as well as the famous Manx T.T. Motorcycle races (With participants joining from the US, GER, JPN, CHN, etc). We even made a deal nearly 62 years ago with Japan when Yamaha came over to make a deal with us to join with the races.
A good fit for Sony if they go through with this. I wonder if they would keep these studios multiplatform like with Bungie and how other publisher/studio purchases have gone? We'll just have to see.
Sekiro being a PS exclusive would be a major blow to my handheld version aspirations (not buying a steam deck). Very sad! Please no.
This absolutely shouldn't be allowed, would give them a near total monopoly over the anime market.
It really wouldn't. kadokawa is not a competitor to crunchyroll. crunchyroll is just a western distributor and streaming service. kadakawa is an ip holder. they'd own more anime and manga ip but it's not like crunchyroll would suddenly dwarf netflix which grew so fast in anime that crunchyroll is less of anmonopoly now than it was before the merger.
I wonder if the FTC and CMA and the Japanese Comission will get involved? The Amine Monopoly doesn't seem like it will sit well.
There can't be an anime monopoly because there is no anime industry. It's a subset of film and tv. crunchyroll is more a streaming service competing against the netflixes and hulus of the world.
Japanese animation is just part of animation in general, of which Sony would definitely not have a monopoly. I can't imagine that being a serious legal argument.
Geeze they are doing a Microsoft because they aren't doing so hot in Japan anymore
This is for their anime/manga business first and foremost, which they're doing very well in.
Gaming makes up like 10% of Kadokawa's revenue. They mostly do publishing, and anime. If it was just for gaming, Sony would make a more targeted acquisition.
I know this is a gaming websit and people will comment on that bit as "FromSoft" is the big name, but the anime/manga side is the key bit here and what is most likely to cause it to not go through considering what Sony already own.
Please no, they would make fromsfotware make a live service elden ring then shut them down if it flops.
Uh no. Sony absolutely wouldn't do that.
Sony's been reversing their live service push, and they didn't force their developers to make live service games in the first place.
I agree that notion is ridiculous, but Sony haven't reversed their live service push.
Your welcome
I mean I posted it in the PlayStation thread hours before your did lol
Ooow hahah well my bad then!
Microsoft needs to respond now with a Japanese acquisition.
Nintendo
Nintendo and Capcom
Nintendo, Capcom, and Sony.
I wonder if this is a Sony reaction to Phil's comment about MS looking to acquire more devs.
