Sony is looking to acquire Kadokawa, the parent company of Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, according to a new report.
This news comes from Reuters, which wrote that discussions between Sony and Kadokawa are still “ongoing,” but could conclude over the next few weeks if both sides agree to a sale. The report is based on comments from two sources “close to the matter.”
Sony already had an approximate 2% stake in the media company. This deal was announced in 2021, but in 2022, Kadokawa announced that Sony and Tencent bought around 30% of the company’s shares, with Sony holding around 14%.
There could be a number of reasons for a Kadokawa acquisition beyond just acquiring the developer of some of the decade’s biggest games. FromSoftware does have a history of partnering with Sony on exclusives such as Bloodborne for the PlayStation 4 and the 2020 Demon’s Souls remake for the PlayStation 5. Sony’s previous deals with Kadokawa were made so the latter could leverage Sony’s resources to create new IP and maximize “the utilization of its existing IP in anime and game fields,” specifically as it pertains to FromSoftware.
“FromSoftware will aim to proactively invest in development of more powerful game IP for itself to strengthen FromSoftware’s development capabilities and will seek to establish a framework that allows the expansion of the scope of its own publishing in the significantly growing global market,” Kadokawa’s announcement read. To sum that up, other companies like Bandai Namco currently publish FromSoftware games, and the deal was made to hopefully allow it to publish its own games in addition to potentially leveraging it for other properties.
Kadokawa has its hands in video games, but also manga, anime, and film. It owns dozens of companies, including Danganronpa developer Spike Chunsoft and Delicious in Dungeon publisher Enterbrain. It also has a majority stake in Studio ENGI. Sony has already put a lot of money into growing its anime business with a $1.2 billion acquisition of anime streamer Crunchyroll. It also owns Aniplex, making it one of the biggest anime distributors outside Japan.
So there are a lot of reasons a Kadokawa purchase would benefit Sony beyond just gaining the rights to some of the biggest games of all time, although that certainly would be a bonus.