Over the past 7 years, $13 billion was poured into intellectual property with the goal of establishing an “entertainment trading house” to broker synergies between games, films, television, anime, and music. Such an acquisition strategy performs a paradigm shift regarding how entertainment conglomerates would function in today’s media landscape, straddling what used to be separate divisions along synergistic routes.
And gamers are eagerly watching to see the fate of their beloved franchises.
The insider information came from Shinobi602, a man who dropped the bomb on Sony‘s giant investment plan. “They are not in just buying studios- they are in securing rights, developing new content, and merging businesses into a multimedia giant.” Oh, before I forget, that was, eh, $13 BILLION worth. That’s no small change. This is “We are seriously going to dominate entertainment” level of spending.
The tweets about the original tweet show how players seem very eager about what this means for their favorite games and shows. One even asked if Sony would be acquiring more just for PlayStation and mused if Bungie was “the end of a journey that began with Insomniac.” It is indeed a good question with Sony practically swiping developers left and right these days.
These are only natural; then, the conversation would move to anime land, as several others soon began debating the ownership of Demon Slayer by Sony’s Aniplex arm. There was some confusion about who’s who in the anime world, but the general consensus is that Sony has its fingers in many pies. “Aniplex and the latest movie literally all fund by Sony,” one user exclaimed, highlighting how the company traces the money from its own pockets through a few very lucrative franchises in several media formats.
The idea behind an entertainment trading house is that the actual IP development and adaptations are done within Sony alongside monetization in whatever recent medium is deemed workable. In other words, your favorite game becomes a TV show. That existence comes out with a soundtrack, which releases on their music streaming app, which in turn finds its way to their electronics division where everything gets heavily advertised. It’s corporate synergy amped to the highest degree, with Sony placing a big bet on it paying off handsomely in the long run.
In the reply section, more of the prospective acquisition targets are thrown about, with Warner Bros brought up on multiple occasions: “Sony get Warner Bros” was so flatly stated that such a purchase would be an even bigger one than all they’ve already pulled off. Then others weighed in about whether companies like Kadokawa or Bandai would realistically make sense, with one arguing, “Kodakawa would give sony ownership over a vast collection of ip they own and manage also a massive manga business.”
However, this has not gone down well with some. Some have expressed fears about what would become of beloved franchises if they were acquired by Sony. Whenever someone suggested that Sony might be smokin’ good on the Dragon Age IP, another user chimed in: “That would be Bad they probably would make it Playstation Exclusive so thanks no leave it to EA please.” That pretty much lays the friction between corporate expansion and player desires- nobody wants their favorite multi-platform games to become console exclusives.
Then you start considering if Sony might be pushing too far. Another user explains the other companies have pressures of their own, “they are 20 billion in debt and need to recover that money. wouldn’t doubt they set out feelers in the near future” regarding selling IP. In a nutshell, that could mean onset of yet another acquisition messing as companies begin to reassess their own portfolios.
Specific projects were named in the conversation, including the K-pop Demon Hunters IP allegedly leaked by Sony to Netflix. There was dejected commentary from there: “Ip pickups they say and shitty execs who have no clue gave away Kpop demon hunters ip to Netflix.” This just goes to show that not every move Sony makes goes down well with anyone watching, and there is more than a little debate about what properties they decide to feature fully and what properties they give away on license.
What does seem clear is that Sony sees content ownership as a lot more valuable than just content distribution. In this modern-day world when streaming ventures are conditioned to fight their way to getting subscribers and when gaming platform ecosystems are possibly in dire need of exclusive content, you can’t go wrong with a huge catalog of familiar IP.
One user beautifully summed it up with, “Ultimately, this is about Sony as a whole trying to gather IP.” This is really not just about gathering studios and properties but about constructing an interconnected web of content that can be leveraged by everyone in their gigantic corporation. The greatest gamble in entertainment history. Only time and fate will tell if they’ll make it.
