Bandai Namco has been doing pretty well for themselves over the past few years, and they’re apparently looking to reach new heights.
Sony announced today that they are acquiring a stake in Bandai Namco worth almost half of a billion dollars in a new strategic partnership between the companies.
Per their press release, Sony is set to buy 16 million Bandai Namco shares equating to approximately 68 billion yen or $464 million USD.
While this is a lot of money to throw around, this still only gives the PlayStation owners a 2.5% ownership share in the multimedia company, so they won’t be pulling all of the strings moving forward.
Although both corporations are well known around the world for their video game productions, it sounds like this new venture may primarily focus on other aspects of their business.
“Bandai Namco and Sony have historically collaborated on various projects in the fields such as games, anime and music, and they plan to extend this collaboration to a broader range of areas,” reads Sony’s press release in part. “The two companies intend to implement initiatives including the expansion of works as well as products and services based on IP developed by Bandai Namco, leveraging Sony’s strengths in areas such as the production and distribution of anime and other video content, as well as merchandising.”
“They also plan to engage in detailed discussions regarding the joint development and promotion of IP such as anime and manga, in addition to planning and technical collaboration on experiential entertainment. Furthermore, the two companies plan to explore opportunities to support creators by jointly developing and operating entertainment-related technologies and services, and to engage in joint investments and business alliances in fan engagement areas.”
Where this could come into play more for games is Bandai Namco’s ownership of the licenses for many popular anime brands like Dragon Ball, Naruto, Bleach, Demon Slayer and many others while Sony owns Crunchyroll and Funimation.
Sony has been putting more of an emphasis on fighting games, however, as co-owners of Evo as well as working on Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls, so perhaps we could see further pushes for Tekken in the future even if it’s in other media projects outside of games themselves.
This is also a bit reminiscent of the Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund buying up 5% of Capcom back in 2022 though that ended up as more of a straight investment into the company then.
We’ll have to wait and see what fruit this new partnership between Sony and Bandai Namco bears in the future.
Source link
