As we know, for a few years, the big ones have been buying up the smaller ones, especially in video games. While we learned just a few hours ago that the Chinese giant NetEase has just completely bought out Quantic Dream, here is an official press release from Kadokawa Corporation announces to us the participation of Sony Interactive Entertainment and Tencent Games up to 30% of the capital of FromSoftware for the two combined companies. In detail, Tencent (via its subsidiary Sixjoy Hong Kong) bought 16.25% of FromSoftware’s shares while Sony Interactive Entertainment took 14.09%. It’s a big slice of cake that the two entities are giving each other, which should allow the studio behind the Dark Souls series and the recent Elden Ring to continue its growth. Inevitably, with the incredible success of Elden Ring and its more than 16 million sales, the value of the studio has skyrocketed and its next productions should be even more expensive.
However, behind this maneuver, it may well be that the objective is to make FromSoftware a company that can publish its own games itself, and separate itself from the services of third-party partners internationally. Because if FromSoftware is its own publisher in Japan, it goes through many intermediaries in Europe and the United States. We remember that Sekiro was published by Activision, and the Dark Souls + Elden Ring series by Bandai Namco Entertainment. Securing these next new IPs would therefore be the nerve of this financial maneuver.
