Interesting. Whoever Kakao is, they must be huge. On a related note: would you look at that Kadokawa stock price jump! Is this related to the acquisition news or are there other aspects involved?

A bluff from MS won't damage CoD at all provided Sony starts the fight. But yes, nothing Sony takes off Xbox can hurt combined software sales all that much, because Xbox is just not that big of a platform. I think a bluff is enough to force Sony to keep the biggest FromSoftware titles on Xbox.

"Elden Ring' (including a hypothetical "Elden Ring 2", or whatever FromSoftware is cooking to succeed it) is nowhere near CoD big when you remember that CoD is annual and also massive in the F2P scene. But it would still be Sony's most valuable asset and a tool they can use to influence decisions.

An "Xbox exclusive CoD" would benefit the Xbox platform a whole lot more than a "PS exclusive CoD' benefits Playstation. But conversely, it would sell much worse and hurt the CoD brand at least in the short to medium term. I doubt a 3 month exclusivity would hurt it though. I'd argue the business benefits of timed-exclusivity outweigh the negatives in this case.

The fact of the matter is Sony is too obsessed about CoD to entertain the thought of losing it, whether it's a bluff or otherwise. Fortunately for them, CoD is contract bound to stay on Playstation for several years, so MS doesn't yet have the negotiation upper hand.

A lot of this depends on how they were to integrate Kadokawa into Sony. 

I think keeping them under Sony Music like they do with Aniplex would lead to the situation you're talking about. 

If they did it more by pieces, and had gaming under Sony Interactive, things could be different. But that doesn't seem very likely to me. Certainly not in the short term. 

- If it happens FromSoft games won't be exclusive: It would be the same Aniplex situation, Aniplex is a japanese Sony company and they almost exclusively publish games for the Switch. They are also owners of Fate/Grand Order one of the biggest japanese gachas in the world and there wasn't any reports or rumor of annexing it to PS even when PS has a mobile division (lol).

- There won't be any creative impositions: When Sony acquired Bungie the plan was to let them do whatever they wanted for whatever platform they wanted, they knew Bungie was working in 6 games and none of them were canceled until ... the Bungie bubble popped and all the internal problems came to the light. Still of those 6 projects only one was canceled.

I could see Spike Chunsoft going to Aniplex and FromSoft/Acquire to PS Studios. Well, maybe Acquire publishes some things with Aniplex too.

FromSoft isn't large enough and they aren't the ones at the negotiating table to warrant a Bungie deal (which in the end didn't even matter after Bungie fumbled the ball badly, so there are lessons to be learned from that).

Yeah agree with this. I don't see any scenario in which From is put under Aniplex. 

In fact, I don't even think Spike and Acquire go under then. Aniplex doesn't own game studios afaik, and I'm not sure it makes sense to start giving them big ones.

I could see Spike Chunsoft going to Aniplex and FromSoft/Acquire to PS Studios. Well, maybe Acquire publishes some things with Aniplex too.

FromSoft isn't large enough and they aren't the ones at the negotiating table to warrant a Bungie deal (which in the end didn't even matter after Bungie fumbled the ball badly, so there are lessons to be learned from that).

Lasengle is under Aniplex bro. Lasengle is the dev studio of Fate/Grand Order the only Sony mobile business that is actually working lol. 1.6 billion in revenue since acquisition a couple of years ago.

My examples where more in the "they have done business in recent years where they don't want to change stuff" direction than they putting everything under Aniplex (although it would make sense to put Kadokawa there because anime is the biggest attractive of that acquisition).

It's true that there is a big chance for FS to be integrated to PS Studios if it happens but if they have the Fate/Grand Order studio making HUGE money outside PlayStation I see a chance for them to keep FS, SP and Acquire also outside PS. That's just my opinion lol.

And yes there is a lot to learn about the Bungie acquisition, for starters they need to make their auditing harder. You can't trust anyone not even one of the most successful and oldest videogame American companies lol.