Kadokawa is a massive publisher of books and media in Japan.
For that reason alone I hope this is blocked. It would make Sony too huge in Japan to reasonably compete with outside of Shueisha and directly incentivize brand exclusivity deals.
Does Japan have anti-monopoly laws?
Please no
Nice while it lasted…
This would be massive, Kadokawa is a hell of a lot more than just Elden Ring. They’re one of the biggest media publishers in Japan. Books, manga, anime, games, you name it.
Wikipedia lists their gaming properties as:
- Spike Chunsoft
- FromSoftware (69.66%)
- Acquire
Acquire is a name I associate most with Tenchu but it looks like the developed the Mario & Luigi game that released a week or so ago.
Spike Chunsoft also developed the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games and, fairly recently, the new Dragonball game that, as far as I know, got good reception.
Kinda lame that these developers will be locked to PS or (months after release) Steam with PSN Account.
EDIT: And according to comments from Reddit, Kadokawa is a huge corporation that also distributes anime, manga and light novels. This isn’t just about games.
I just went on a rabbit hole of wikipedia. This would be a huge buy of MANY IPs.
Think of the remastering opertunities
Great.
Please don’t
If Sony buys Kadokawa Corporation. Sony will have a near stranglehold on so many industries. It’s insane. https://en.namu.wiki/w/KADOKAWA
There go the good games
