Sony may quickly be buying FromSoftware’s mum or dad firm, in line with a report by Reuters.
Kadokawa Company is residence to some fairly main builders, together with Danganronpa’s Spike Chunsoft and Octopath Traveler’s Purchase, and has virtually a 70% stake in too-many-bangers-to-list studio FromSoftware. It isn’t simply video games, both, because the media conglomerate additionally owns Niconico, which is basically Japan’s different to YouTube.
Sony truly already has a really small stake in Kadokawa—2% to be precise—together with shares in FromSoftware which the writer secured in a deal again in 2022. Now, in line with a supply for Reuters, Sony is trying to take residence the entire pie. It is allegedly in talks with Kadokawa proper now, and a deal may very well be signed off inside weeks if discussions are all nice and dandy.
It does not imply a lot in any respect proper now, however I do surprise what affect it will have if it goes by way of. For one factor, FromSoftware has a reasonably tight working relationship with Bandai Namco, which has revealed a fairly large chunk of FromSoft’s library and has IP rights to these video games. Kadokawa additionally heads up a large quantity of anime and manga distribution, which is not gaming-related however may nonetheless be of curiosity to Sony: it purchased out Funimation in 2017 earlier than buying Crunchyroll in 2021, merging the 2 companies collectively a yr later. It would not shock me if there was at the least some curiosity in that on Sony’s half.
I am not precisely one for the alarming improve in business consolidation—Microsoft’s acquisition carnage has raised a number of eyebrows, and Embracer proved to be ruthless in scooping up a number of firms, solely to dump lots of them when it landed itself in monetary scorching water. If the deal does undergo, FromSoftware will possible come out of it unscathed, however I ponder what’s going to turn into of the quite a few different operations below Kadokawa’s belt.
