Today, Sony Interactive Entertainment already owns 14.09% of From Software, and 2% of Kadokawa as a whole. But obviously, such figures are not enough for the Japanese ogre. According to an exclusive report from Reuters, Sony is in discussions to acquire the Kadokawa group, and thus add it to its already full portfolio.
As a reminder, Kadokawa was born in 1945, as an editor, before expanding his horizons to various exercises, including video games, anime, events or even figurines. Today, Kadokawa is a multimedia giant including Dwango, which manages the Japanese video sharing site Niconico. At the same time, Dwango (and therefore Kadokawa by extension) has owned Spike and Chunsoft since 2005, before merging them into a single entity in 2012, Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa, Zero Escape). Dwango is also responsible for Mages, the studio specializing in visual novels like Steins;Gate.
Since August 2022, Kadokawa also owns 69.66% of the shares of FromSoftware (Elden Ring, Dark Souls, Sekiro), making it its majority shareholder – Sony coming in second with its 14.09%. The firm is also responsible for Acquire, Gotcha Gotcha Games in particular. A takeover of Kadokawa by Sony would give the PlayStation manufacturer a significant advantage over the competition, especially on the Japanese market.
Note, however, that such an acquisition does not necessarily imply that Spike Chunsoft or FromSoftware will become part of PlayStation Studios: it is entirely possible that they will remain independent subsidiaries in the future, like Bungie. In short, this does not necessarily exclude Xbox or Nintendo versions for games from studios acquired by Sony.
For the moment, however, we are only at the stage of rumor, no information having yet been confirmed: for Reuters, Sony and Kadokawa refused to offer comments.
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