Sony has acquired more shares in FromSoftware’s parent company Kadokawa, which will make the Japanese gaming giant Kadokawa’s biggest single shareholder (although it still doesn’t have a majority stake).
According to a GamesIndustry.biz report, Sony has agreed to acquire over 12 million Kadokawa shares in January to the tune of about $318 million. This will give Sony a stake of around 10% in Kadokawa, making it the single largest shareholder in the company.
It’s worth noting that as GI.biz points out, Sony already has a 14% stake in Kadokawa subsidiary FromSoftware, having purchased shares in the studio back in August 2022 alongside Chinese gaming monolith Tencent (which has a 16% stake in FromSoftware, but no stake in Kadokawa).
According to the GI.biz report, the acquisition deal “goes beyond the sale of shares” and also includes plans for Sony to adapt Kadokawa IP into “live-action films and TV dramas”, as well as an expansion of publishing and distribution for Kadokawa’s games and anime.
This news comes just a few weeks after Kadokawa confirmed that it was in talks for Sony to acquire it outright, but that no decision had been made as yet. This deal could see Sony moving one step closer towards that acquisition.
While Kadokawa is perhaps best known as the parent company of Dark Souls and Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, it’s also the owner of companies like Zero Escape studio Spike Chunsoft and Octopath Traveler developer Acquire.
Still, FromSoftware arguably remains Kadokawa’s most well-known and successful subsidiary, especially if the sales of open-world action RPG Elden Ring are anything to go by.
Other recent successful Kadokawa releases include Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero, another game published by Bandai Namco, which topped three million sales in a single day and which also recently received an update bringing split-screen multiplayer to all of its stages.
Sparking! Zero isn’t the only Spike Chunsoft release to land in the last few weeks, either. Roguelike RPG Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island also netted itself a PC release recently, having netted itself 200,000 sales on Switch in Japan “quickly” after release.
It remains to be seen whether Sony’s acquisition of more shares in Kadokawa will eventually lead to an outright purchase. Stay tuned for more on this.
