Sony Just Made A Big Move With Elden Ring Parent Company But It's Not The Rumored Buyout

Sony Group has agreed to buy more than 12 million more shares in Elden Ring parent company Kadokawa Corporation, with Sony becoming Kadokawas's largest shareholder. Sony will own 10% of Kadokawa's shares after buying 12,054,100 new shares for about 50 billion yen ($319 million USD).

Sony Group said it plans to buy the shares on January 7, 2025. It follows on from Sony's previous acquisition of Kadokawa shares in February 2021.

Sony and Kadokawa have worked together on a number of projects throughout the years, and rumors swirled recently that Sony might have been plotting to buy the company outright. That isn't happening, though, at least not at this stage.

As part of the deal, Sony said it will work together to adapt some of Kadokawa's franchises for global and TV dramas and live-action films, though no specifics projects were announced. Sony will also co-produce Kadokawa anime projects and "further expand" its publishing efforts for Kadokawa's games.

From Software's Elden Ring is one of Kadokawa's biggest gaming projects, and the series continues in 2025 with the debut of the standalone game Elden Ring Nightrein. Beyond gaming, Kadokawa is known for media franchises like Re: Zero and Delicious in Dungeon, among numerous others.

Sony is also heavily invested in Fortnite studio Epic Games. In 2022, Sony invested more than $1 billion into Epic Games to help create the metaverse, which followed on from a $200 million investment in 2021 and $250 million in 2020. All up, Sony has invested more than $1.45 billion into Epic Games, which is about 4.5X more than it just agreed to invest into Kadokawa.

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