Exclusive: Sony is in talks to buy Kadokawa, the media powerhouse behind 'Elden Ring'

submitted a week ago by simple@lemm.ee

www.reuters.com/markets/deals/sony-talks-buy-me…

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This would be massive, Kadokawa is a hell of a lot more than just Elden Ring. They're one of the biggest media publishers in Japan. Books, manga, anime, games, you name it.

Wikipedia lists their gaming properties as:

  • Spike Chunsoft
  • FromSoftware (69.66%)
  • Acquire

Acquire is a name I associate most with Tenchu but it looks like the developed the Mario & Luigi game that released a week or so ago.

Spike Chunsoft also developed the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games and, fairly recently, the new Dragonball game that, as far as I know, got good reception.

Kinda lame that these developers will be locked to PS or (months after release) Steam with PSN Account.

EDIT: And according to comments from Reddit, Kadokawa is a huge corporation that also distributes anime, manga and light novels. This isn't just about games.

I just went on a rabbit hole of wikipedia. This would be a huge buy of MANY IPs.

Kadokawa is a massive publisher of books and media in Japan.

For that reason alone I hope this is blocked. It would make Sony too huge in Japan to reasonably compete with outside of Shueisha and directly incentivize brand exclusivity deals.

Does Japan have anti-monopoly laws?

If Sony buys Kadokawa Corporation. Sony will have a near stranglehold on so many industries. It’s insane. https://en.namu.wiki/w/KADOKAWA

Nice while it lasted...