I don’t think people quite grasp how big and terrible this news is. Kadokawa is the entertainment company. You have a favorite anime? It’s probably kadokawa’s or at least related to them some how. You like Japanese jank games? Chunsoft belongs to kadokawa. RPG Maker classics? RPG Maker belongs to kadokawa. Novels? They are a big publisher in addition to owning bookwalker. Not to mention the random shit they have like niconico. Did i mention tourism? Because they have a lot of that too.
This could genuinely be catastrophic for Japanese culture (and that means otaku culture too, weebs)
Fuck Sony and the people that allow this acquisition to go through.
Ugh.
Same. Dark souls, bloodborne, sekiro, and elden ring are my favorite games of all time. Rest of the world is going to shit. Seems like we just can’t have nice things.
Is that what everyone is worried about? I’m more worried about the IPs getting turned into something bland or botched releases due to overly aggressive deadlines. Examples being bioware, bungie, infinity ward, and obsidian which were all acquired by larger companies and as a result turned into “meat grinders” responsible only for churning out titles to feed their parent companies.
Before anyone else mentions it, I will say Insomniac has been a success under Sony — releasing spiderman and ratchet and clank. That said, a company is not a person. You cannot trust companies to behave consistently.
I have a feeling their intention here is less about acquiring FromSoftware and more about getting those anime production houses so they can continue to monopolize the industry. FromSoftware would be a happy accident.
FromSoft’s games have been on my ‘I will buy anything they release’ list for quite some time, and I’ve never been disappointed with one. There’s not much at this point that would get me to stop buying their stuff on release, but a PlayStation account sign-in requirement on PC would definitely accomplish it.
PlayStation account sign-in requirement on PC
I think you’re not seeing your situation clearly here. There’s a big chance their games will become PlayStation exclusives like Bloodborne. Might be ported to PC after a few years.
I’m a little hopeful that Sony is going to get better at PC support. The Japanese PC gaming market has doubled in size a few times in the last 10 years but companies at Sony’s scale can be slow to adapt. Maybe it’ll take them another 10 years but I think eventually they’ll give up on exclusives.