I don’t think anyone is more ecstatic at the prospect of PlayStation and FromSoftware becoming one than Geoff Keighley if Sony is somehow also able to purchase Kojima Productions, then his ultimate wet dream will be realized!

Cant really blame them since MS is buying up everyone, but it still sucks.

Sony own Aniplex and Crunchyroll (which they merged with the also acquired Funimation). Which means they own rights to major anime like Full Metal Alchemist, FATE, Sword Art Online or Demon Slayer. Kadokawa would add more and allows Sony to enter the Manga-sphere as well. These companies also control a good amount of distribution outside of Japan.

Look here for what Aniplex is involved with: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aniplex#Anime_productions

I thought we learned something from the aftermath of the recent consolidation between Xbox/Activision ... But I guess we're just bond to repeat mistakes ...


Anywoo, it hasn't seen like the talks are pretty advanced on the matter, nor are they truly verified.

The crazy part is can anyone even stop what Sony is doing? I mean regulators specifically. Are regulators really going to be capable of understanding that Anime is any different than say Avatar the last air bender or the X-men 90's cartoon? I think it will be nearly impossible to convince them that there is a difference here. What are you going to argue that animation made in Japan is special and is different than what other countries are doing? That animation made in Japan needs to be treated differently? I'm not sure they would go for that. 

because it's not playstation buying from software. it's sony group buying a multimedia company that happens to be their parent company. it's very unlikely they would end up under playstation instead of staying under kadokawa.

I don't see why it's very unlikely. They literally have a whole gaming division but they are going to let Kadokawa continue to act independently instead of moving it in house to their own division? What would be the incentive to do that? Especially after the disaster that happened with them letting Bungie do exactly what you're suggesting.

Sony Interactive already has a 14% stake in FromSoftware. Putting them under PlayStation makes sense even as a Sony Corp buy. 

Yeah, the anime market is the obvious goal with this acquisition. Kadokawa will run alongside Aniplex if the acquisition goes through - or Sony merges the two like they did with Funimation and Crunchyroll. Aniplex and Kadokawa seem more similar in their business, only Aniplex has less manga/print as far as I know. Aniplex by the way also publishes games on the side, which are mostly multiplat (Switch and PC). 

I don't think this is going to be the best thing for the anime industry. Luckily, however, for the videogame industry Sony is much more flexible with allowing games on all platforms these days than they were, say, ten years ago. So at least we may not have to deal with popular anime IP exclusive to Sony boxes