Sony May Be Buying FromSoftware’s Parent Company, Says Report

Sony may be poised to have another major weapon in its arsenal. Reuters (and now Nikkei) is reporting that Sony is in talks to acquire Kadokawa, the parent company of FromSoftware which is the developer of games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls.

The report says that talks are ongoing and a deal could manifest in a matter of weeks. Sony already has a 2% stake in Kadokawa and a 14% stake in FromSoftware itself, but this would bring both entirely under its wing. However, Sony-owned FromSoft games would not be the only result of this acquisition, as it would be yet another path for Sony to control manga and anime properties, when they are already an enormous powerhouse in that segment, owning the likes of anime streaming service Crunchyroll, which already absorbed another anime staple, Funimation, in the last few years.

As for how Sony owning FromSoftware would affect PlayStation, well, the obvious idea is that it’s entirely possible that future FromSoftware games could and/or would be PlayStation exclusives, released on PS5 (PS6), but not on Xbox like Elden Ring was. That could also affect PC release, as instead of launching on Steam day and date, a FromSoft game could use Sony’s delayed PC release schedule and not land there until much later.

Technically, games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring are multiplayer, as you can duel other players, aid other players and leave them messages. Sony has said that its multiplayer games would be released day and date with console on PC, but these FromSoft games are obviously primarily single player so it would be a somewhat unique classification.

Unlike Microsoft’s colossal purchase of Activision Blizzard, it’s unclear what, if any regulatory scrutiny there might be for this Sony Kadokawa deal. In the end, Microsoft left all existing IP from Activision Blizzard, Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, etc, as multiplatform titles.

Sony too recently agreed to leave Bungie’s games multiplatform after it purchased the company, which not only includes the existing Destiny 2, but also the unreleased Marathon multiplayer shooter. So it’s certainly possible that just because Sony buys FromSoftware, that future games could still be multiplatform. I’m sure that’s certainly the hope of all gamers outside of a die-hard collection of Sony superfans who would view pure exclusivity as some sort of console war “win.”

Sony declined to comment on this report and Kadokawa said it couldn’t comment. We simply need to wait until this is more official to know the full details of what’s going on here, but even if the deal goes through and we learn the price, we may not know what’s going on with future FromSoftware games for quite some time.

Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, Bluesky and Instagram.

Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.