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Kadokawa confirms Sony sent an acquisition letter

Mayar

Member
This could drag on for a very long time, and again there is too much focus on From Software. Understand that Sony is interested in all of Kadokawa. This gives them huge control over Anime + Manga distribution, the studios that deal with Anime + Manga, plus of course the gaming divisions that Kadokawa owns.

If this deal closes in Sony's favor, they will practically become a monopoly on the Anime + Manga market. Well, as has already been noted many times, Sony is not the only one who is interested in this. Tencent is also very interested in Kadokawa, for absolutely the same reasons. This is a very good company, with a very good set of studios, the acquisition of which guarantees a very strong effect on the Anime, Manga and game market.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
I dunno but Astrobot doesn’t seem woke…
 

Pedro Motta

Member
Celebrate Lets Go GIF by First We Feast
 

Perrott

Member
That was before sony fully embraced wokeness. Current Sony is an incompetent company.
They've been consistently pumping out at least one GOTY nominee game for the past decade, while overall raising the average Metacritic score and commercial performance of their AAA releases gen on gen.

But they are "incompetent" because you happen to think that they're woke now? I can't take you seriously.
 

nial

Member
Speaking of Acquire, I do wonder what the plan is for them if the acquisition goes through. They’re the developers behind the recent Mario & Luigi Brothership, and they also handle the Octopath Traveler series for Square.

Will they keep them and continue doing contract work for Nintendo, Square, and other publishers, put them on different projects, or sell them to Nintendo or Square?
Acquire is the weird one here. If they're going to keep them all, From Software is 100% going under SIE as they've been having interest in them for a while now. Spike Chunsoft is under Dwango which essentially means that they will be under SMEJ (or so I think), and I can see the same thing happening with Gotcha Gotcha Games. I just don't have much idea of what should happen to Acquire.
I'm just expecting Sony to move several of Kadokawa's subsidiares all around the group, it would just be much easier for their company segments. Kadokawa will definitely keep their publishing business, though, maaaaybe the film one as well.
 

hyperbertha

Member
They've been consistently pumping out at least one GOTY nominee game for the past decade, while overall raising the average Metacritic score and commercial performance of their AAA releases gen on gen.

But they are "incompetent" because you happen to think that they're woke now? I can't take you seriously.
I don't care if a clown doesn't take me seriously. They have been trash since about 2018 after gow and getting worse. Gow2 and sm2 were woke nonsense. They will ruin fromsoft games with wokeness.
 

Perrott

Member
This purchase from sony not from SIE. Sonys japanese studios remain unaffected from the creative influence of california.
SIE currently holds a minority stake in FromSoftware, so of course they'll be transfered into PS Studios if the Kadokawa deal goes through.

Did Astro Bot get influenced by California? Or Rise of the Ronin? Or Stellar Blade? Or the Kojima Productions games? No? Then maybe, just maybe, you've been dead wrong all along in your culture war crusade.

Of course that Sony's Western studios are all going to reflect more progressive ideas and themes in their games, they're pretty much all operating out of blue states in the Pacific Coast of the US and working in a tech-adjacent industry, what else were you expecting?
 

Lokaum D+

Member
From Software going out with Elden Ring as the last good game.

Any future FS games I will not be pre ordering until I see reviews.

Ummm.... have you seen how Sony runs things?

Look into Bungie/Concord.
have u seen Helldivers, Returnal ? Concord was a failure ? Sure, now lets forget about it and link me another miss managed acquisition/project by Sony
 

jm89

Member
Did Astro Bot get influenced by California? Or Rise of the Ronin? Or Stellar Blade? Or the Kojima Productions games? No? Then maybe, just maybe, you've been dead wrong all along in your culture war crusade.

Of course that Sony's Western studios are all going to reflect more progressive ideas and themes in their games, they're pretty much all operating out of blue states in the Pacific Coast of the US and working in a tech-adjacent industry, what else were you expecting?
Uhm sure that's what i was trying to get at.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
You woke crusaders are really tiresome. Tell me, which Sony game has had top scars? Veilguard isn't Sony.
TLOU2, Spider-Man 2, and their other games got noticeably worse. Yeah, the top scars was perhaps over the top, but from most other perspectives Sony’s games storytelling and writing is just mid now days.

It’s going to be interesting to see what Ghost 2 does. I suspect more of the same.
 
From Software going out with Elden Ring as the last good game.

Any future FS games I will not be pre ordering until I see reviews.

Ummm.... have you seen how Sony runs things?

Look into Bungie/Concord.
Bungie would be in a worse state without Sony acquiring them. What do you mean?

And Concord flopping doesn't take away decades of good studios under their belt like Naughty Dog, Guerrila, Polyphony Digital, etc...
 
This doesn’t impact me either way, I have both consoles, but as with all M&A, there is going to be a shit ton of lay offs. Good luck to those who don’t survive that initial layoff wave 6-12 months from deal close
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
I suspect you'll call it still woke no matter what. Female lead and all.
And this is the sort of take modern gaming “journalists” take. Not liking a game with a female lead is not being anti-woke. And liking a game with a female lead isn’t woke.

The recent Tomb Raider 1&2 were fine as an example, despite some meh choices. Plenty of other female lead games were good. Ubi used to do a decent job with female leads as in Syndicate or Odyssey for example.

For Ghost 2, This whole thing reminds me of going from TLOU1 to TLOU2 so we will see if the game is going to have all kinds of “modern audience” targets.
 

midnightAI

Member
This remaster could have been done in 2020, Sony owns rights to BB. They are just not interested.
Yes, we know they own the rights, but who would make it? (and dont say BluePoint, they may be making it or working on something completely different, last we heard was they were working on something new, now whether that means new IP or not we arent too sure)

Wouldn't it be best for From to work on a Bloodborne remake or remaster? or better still, a sequel? wouldn't that be MUCH easier if you owned the studio? (they have been working on Elden Ring for a while so they would have been too busy to remake/remaster Bloodborne up to now)
 

nowhat

Gold Member
And this is the sort of take modern gaming “journalists” take. Not liking a game with a female lead is not being anti-woke. And liking a game with a female lead isn’t woke.
I'm not a journalist. Have been mistaken for one though, which I found baffling. Just that "the sky is falling!" takes really get out hand. We'll see how things turn out, and complain if necessary, shall we?
 

Bojji

Member
The Bloodborne situation never was about them being unable to update the SDK and make it 60fps on PS5 through backwards compatibility, but actually extracting financial value out of them bringing back Bloodborne.

A simple update would net them no financial benefit whatsoever, so the more likely answer is that they have grander plans for it - either an ambitious remaster along the lines of the recently released Zero Dawn or a complete visual remake ala Demon's Souls - and that such project has been lined up to fill a very specific void in their future schedule... which we don't know if might be six months, a year, two years or four years from now. I'd say it all depends on the release strategy around the alleged Bloodborne movie adaptation.

That's why I said they are not interested in remaster/patch. On the other hand, Ubisoft just patched 2015 game...

Yes, we know they own the rights, but who would make it? (and dont say BluePoint, they may be making it or working on something completely different, last we heard was they were working on something new, now whether that means new IP or not we arent too sure)

Wouldn't it be best for From to work on a Bloodborne remake or remaster? or better still, a sequel? wouldn't that be MUCH easier if you owned the studio? (they have been working on Elden Ring for a while so they would have been too busy to remake/remaster Bloodborne up to now)

They need skeleon crew to do remaster, it's just patch basically. But if they want to do remake they need entire studio.

BB doesn't need remake, game will look great at native 4k with reduced (or disabled) CA.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
I'm not a journalist. Have been mistaken for one though, which I found baffling. Just that "the sky is falling!" takes really get out hand. We'll see how things turn out, and complain if necessary, shall we?
… I compared your take to “modern journalism”. Not you being. A “journalist”. Mainly due to lack of nuance.

And separately, corporate mergers like this rarely turn out well for customers. This is especially so with modern Sony’s approach to storytelling and characterization in their properties.
 

midnightAI

Member
From Software going out with Elden Ring as the last good game.

Any future FS games I will not be pre ordering until I see reviews.

Ummm.... have you seen how Sony runs things?

Look into Bungie/Concord.
Yes, Bungie and Firewalks management sucked, whats your point? They shut down Firewalk (hardly a surprise) and are taking control of Bungie due to incompetence (I believe they couldn't do so straight away due to contracts in place)

Sony seems to run things fine, as mentioned MANY times, they are quite hands off, the studio heads run the studios (mostly, as mentioned, Bungie heads fucked up so Sony have been forced to take control and put their own people in charge, which is hardly surprising for an acquisition of that size) so IF they do end up with From then its up to their management to run them well, which they are doing currently so no reason to see anything change.
 

Sanepar

Member
This could drag on for a very long time, and again there is too much focus on From Software. Understand that Sony is interested in all of Kadokawa. This gives them huge control over Anime + Manga distribution, the studios that deal with Anime + Manga, plus of course the gaming divisions that Kadokawa owns.

If this deal closes in Sony's favor, they will practically become a monopoly on the Anime + Manga market. Well, as has already been noted many times, Sony is not the only one who is interested in this. Tencent is also very interested in Kadokawa, for absolutely the same reasons. This is a very good company, with a very good set of studios, the acquisition of which guarantees a very strong effect on the Anime, Manga and game market.
They will favor a japanese company to buy. Stop dreaming about foreign companies making this acquisition.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
Ignoring the fact that this is for Kadokawa as a whole, I think Sony has needed more than two Japanese studios for two decades at this point, so I can't complain in that regard. Sorry it had to be From Software, though.
I think I would like Acquire better, lol.

Well they're coming too.

I have always wanted Sony to have a deeper presence in Japan and hopefully, this is just the beginning. I'd love for them to bring Level 5 in.

This could drag on for a very long time, and again there is too much focus on From Software. Understand that Sony is interested in all of Kadokawa. This gives them huge control over Anime + Manga distribution, the studios that deal with Anime + Manga, plus of course the gaming divisions that Kadokawa owns.

If this deal closes in Sony's favor, they will practically become a monopoly on the Anime + Manga market. Well, as has already been noted many times, Sony is not the only one who is interested in this. Tencent is also very interested in Kadokawa, for absolutely the same reasons. This is a very good company, with a very good set of studios, the acquisition of which guarantees a very strong effect on the Anime, Manga and game market.

Anyone suggesting this would give Sony a monopoly in anime/manga, has no idea what they're talking about. Ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst.
 

nowhat

Gold Member
… I compared your take to “modern journalism”. Not you being. A “journalist”. Mainly due to lack of nuance.
I wasn't talking about you. It was one Sunday afternoon, hungover as fuck at a bar, drinking hair of the dog and playing bingo. Looking as unprofessional as I could, and suddenly this woman comes up to me "are you a journalist? I'd like to talk about islamization". And I'm like "GTFO. Fernet Branca. Bingo."
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Well they're coming too.

I have always wanted Sony to have a deeper presence in Japan and hopefully, this is just the beginning. I'd love for them to bring Level 5 in.



Anyone suggesting this would give Sony a monopoly in anime/manga, has no idea what they're talking about. Ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst.
The only thing close to a “monopoly” would be a very large presence in Western Anime distribution.
 

midnightAI

Member
That's why I said they are not interested in remaster/patch. On the other hand, Ubisoft just patched 2015 game...



They need skeleon crew to do remaster, it's just patch basically. But if they want to do remake they need entire studio.

BB doesn't need remake, game will look great at native 4k with reduced (or disabled) CA.
They still had all hands to the pump for Elden Ring, that was their priority (that and the DLC), for all we know Bloodborne may very well be being remastered/remade by either Form or someone like BluePoint, we just dont know (I'd argue I'd actually prefer to see BluePoint make it, their tech is obviously superior for a game like that). Yes, they could have patched it, but we do know that current Sony likes to release a PC version alongside a PS5 version if its a remaster so that would increase the work significantly to get it on PC also.
 

Mibu no ookami

Demoted Member® Pro™
The only thing close to a “monopoly” would be a very large presence in Western Anime distribution.

They have tremendous competition from Amazon, Disney, and Netflix, all of whom are larger companies than they are.

Nothing close to a monopoly.
 

DAHGAMING

Member
If they go through with this it better be just so they can have there games as exclusives and leave them alone. Sadly I can see Sony sticking there fucking nose in though and soying the gaff up, no BB remake or sequal, stop them games your making and start making another dogshit Horizon game, some soulslike spin off with some woofter geeza trying to find himself as the main character.
 

Mayar

Member
Anyone suggesting this would give Sony a monopoly in anime/manga, has no idea what they're talking about. Ignorant at best, disingenuous at worst.
You apparently don't follow the news well. Sony has been actively buying up everything related to Anime and Manga for the last 10 years. Including studios, streaming services and publishing houses.
Aniplex, A-1 Pictures,CloverWorks, Madhouse,Toei Animation - These are all Sony studios, not counting smaller ones like JOEN.
And slowly but surely they are taking control of the Anime and Manga market.
 
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