We recently found out that Sony was considering acquiring part of Kadokawa, the parent company of the creator of Elden Ring, FromSoftware. But it seems that deal might be a bit too big for Sony’s hands for now, according to Japanese financial experts.
Toyo Keizai reported that since the cost of Kadokawa is very high, Sony won’t be able to splurge for the entire company. On the one hand, Kadokawa leadership wants to sell off its entire company, but Sony only wants to acquire the parts that are related to anime and video games, which probably also includes FromSoftware.
The entirety of Kadokawa is worth around $4.3 billion according to estimates. Sony is currently tight on investment cash because of some recent acquisitions. Sony acquired Bungie for $3.6 billion in 2022, but then laid off a lot of the workforce and even canceled some projects.
There is also the possibility that a bidding war could start over Kadokawa, and that would increase the purchase price even further beyond Sony’s reach. Another possibility is buying 50% of Kadokawa and then turning it into a subsidiary it doesn’t own wholly.
Kadokawa operates in multiple entertainment industries including anime, manga, TV, and film. The company also publishes anima and manga, which could be a great fit for Sony as it already owns Crunchyroll and Funimation. On the gaming side of things, Kadokawa owns FromSoftware, Chunsoft, Acquire, and Gotcha Gotcha Games.
Speaking of FromSoftware specifically, Sony already owns 14% of the Elden Ring developer, while Kadokawa owns 70%, and Tencent owns 16%. But since FromSoftware itself won’t be sold alone, the likelihood of this deal going through is looking a bit low.
It may not be a good fit for FromSoftware anyway, seeing how Bungie was cut to ribbons through layoffs by Sony, if the same were to happen to Miyazaki’s team, it would reflect poorly on the studio’s future games.
