Sony is rumoured as acquiring FromSoftware's parent in the ongoing consolidation of the industry.

According to Reuters, Sony may soon acquire FromSoftware's parent.

Kadokawa Corporation is home to some pretty major developers, including Danganronpa's Spike Chunsoft and Octopath Traveler's Acquire, and has almost a 70% stake in too-many-bangers-to-list studio FromSoftware. The media conglomerate owns Niconico as well, which is Japan's YouTube.

Sony already owns a small stake in Kadokawa, 2% to be precise, along with shares in FromSoftware that the publisher acquired in a 2022 deal. According to a Reuters source, Sony wants to own the entire pie. It is reportedly in talks with Kadokawa and a deal may be signed within weeks if all goes well.

It's not much right now, but if it happens, I wonder what impact it will have. FromSoftware and Bandai Namco have a very close working relationship. Bandai Namco has published a large part of FromSoft's games library, and owns the IP rights. Kadokawa is also responsible for a large amount of anime and Manga distribution. This isn't related to gaming, but Sony might be interested. Sony bought out Funimation before acquiring Crunchyroll, merging both services a year later. It wouldn't be surprising if Sony was interested in this.

I'm not exactly one for the alarming increase in industry consolidation--Microsoft's acquisition carnage has raised multiple eyebrows, and Embracer proved to be ruthless in scooping up multiple companies, only to dump many of them when it landed itself in financial hot water. If the deal goes through, FromSoftware is likely to come out unscathed. But I wonder what happens to the other operations under Kadokawa’s belt.