Update: Kadokawa has confirmed that it's received an "initial letter of intent" from Sony with regards to the latter acquiring its shares, but that "no decision has been made at this time". Original story follows below.
Original story: A new report claims that Sony is in talks to buy FromSoftware parent company and media giant Kadokawa, with a deal potentially just weeks away.
The report comes from Reuters, which, in turn, cites the age-old "sources familiar with the matter". As ever, take that with as big a pinch of salt as you like.
According to Reuters' report, talks between Sony and Kadokawa are ongoing, and if the talks are successful, then "a deal could be signed in the coming weeks", so it may not be very long before Kadokawa - and, by extension, FromSoftware - officially belongs to Sony.
In light of the apparent talks, Kadokawa's shares rocketed up 23%, and Sony's closed 0.6% higher than before the report emerged. Naturally, both Sony and Kadokawa declined to comment when asked to do so by Reuters.
Sony already owns a stake in Kadokawa, having purchased shares back in August 2022 (alongside Chinese gaming giant Tencent). It's possible Sony wants to make a move before Tencent does, but of course, that's pure speculation.
In gaming terms, Kadokawa is perhaps best known as the parent company of Dark Souls and Elden Ring developer FromSoftware, although that's not the only studio it owns, and as a media conglomerate, the company has its fingers in plenty of other pies as well.
If the report turns out to be true, then Sony's desire to acquire Kadokawa makes perfect sense; FromSoftware's most recent release Elden Ring had clocked 25 million sales at last count, while DLC expansion Shadow of the Erdtree racked up five million sales in under a week.
Sony could probably do with the kind of boost that purchasing Kadokawa would likely provide right now.
Recently, the company shut down two of its studios, including Concord developer Firewalk, and earlier this year, the Sony Interactive department laid off almost a thousand employees around the world.
Subsidiaries like Bungie also arguably aren't in a good place right now, so if Sony could snap up the parent company of not only FromSoftware but also the likes of Spike Chunsoft and Octopath developer Acquire, then things may well improve. We'll have to wait and see what happens next.
