640°

Sony Interactive Entertainment Acquires 14% of Elden Ring Developer FromSoftware

Sony's PlayStation division, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) has now acquired roughly 14% of Elden Ring studio, FromSoftware Inc..

darkrider596d ago

Good move, but should have got the studio.

jonny897596d ago

Kinda difficult when the big Tencent is also involved.

Army_of_Darkness595d ago

What even the point in acquiring 14% of a studio?? It's not even 1/4! Either buy the whole studio or not, no?

frostypants595d ago

@Army_of_Darkness, the point is you get a percentage of the profit.

excaliburps596d ago

Maybe they tried? I mean, Tencent co-owns it as well. Won't affect things much, I gather, no? But yeah, I'd be shocked if Sony doesn't try and acquire From. I mean, plot twist: what if Microsoft buys them? LOL!

lonewolf10596d ago

Or if MSoft get 15% to match Sony/Tencent, that would be interesting.

darkrider595d ago

Or tencent joint forces with sony!

Shane Kim595d ago

No Tencent in Sony please.

garos82595d ago

shuhei Yoshida could have done this years ago after they released demons souls but he failed to identify how much of a powerhouse they were to become

Christopher595d ago (Edited 595d ago )

Always easy to say someone should have done something once you know the end result. Not so easy when you don't and, at that time, you're struggling to compete with the 360 and a poor hardware decision that ended up being costly to them as well as slow to gain back market reach.

MONOLITHICIDE595d ago

@Shane Kim
Well why doesnt your old company do something about it?

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 595d ago
porkChop595d ago (Edited 595d ago )

They can't. Kadokawa still owns 69.66%. They're only selling small portions. If Kadokawa was interested in selling them off they would have done that.

sinspirit595d ago

I feel like they are just trying to deter some devs/publishers from being bought

thesoftware730595d ago

Wow, now you want them to buy studios...months ago that was taboo. lol.

TheCaptainKuchiki595d ago

Tencent is private company. You can't buy them out unless they agree to it.

strifeblade595d ago

How is that a good move. They will not gain exclusive from this move. They literally just bought some shares lol

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 595d ago
Orchard596d ago (Edited 596d ago )

Tencent now owns 16%… 🤢

Hopefully they don’t ever get their hands on the rest or a majority.

EDIT: NetEase just bought Quantic Dream too…

darthv72595d ago

Looks like the disagrees WANT Tencent to get 'the rest or a majority'.

Or they are just disagreeing about the NetEase / QD partnership.

ZeekQuattro595d ago

Orchard gets disagrees no matter what. A good chunk of those are probably that. Lol

DOMination-596d ago

An interesting line that may get missed by headline readers:

"FromSoftware decided to conduct the Third-Party Allotment to Sixjoy within the Tencent Group, which has strength in its capabilities to develop and deploy mobile games"

Retroman596d ago

So. was this a tactical move so Microsoft would not buy Elder Rings??

ironmonkey596d ago

Prob not but who knows. software also made Sony's exclusive Bloodborne game that was a huge success and demon souls for PS3 so it maybe cause they have a very good coop partnership already?.

lonewolf10595d ago

They already had a minor amount of shares anyway and tactical move by who as Tencent also own shares?

brewin595d ago

I dont think the SoulsBorne style games move the needle on Xbox much. Those kind of games are typically associated with PlayStation. I even bought Elden Ring on PS5 rather than Xbox Series because it just seems better suited to the Dual Sense controller. Idk, its just one of those things. I think Elden Ring actually did pretty good numbers on Xbox, but those games just feel more at home on PS.

Christopher595d ago

Likely just putting money where they can make more money out of it. I doubt their ownership will change where and how FromSoftware develops games.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 595d ago
Bathyj596d ago

Should have bought them after demon souls.

Godmars290595d ago

Would rather see more independent studios.

Not that the market allows for independent survivability.

Bathyj595d ago (Edited 595d ago )

Me too.
But I would rather see talented Devs in Sony's hands then Microsoft's, Tencents, Amazon etc.

Every dev Sony gets they make better. The others not so much.

Plus Demon Souls made From Software and Sony had a lot to do with that. People forget that.

Neonridr595d ago

@Bathyj - so as long as the company you support does it, it's good.

lol, the hypocrisy in this post.

shinoff2183595d ago

Id rather see sony to catch a little after ms bought all the stuff they did. Im still hoping they buy square so maybe square can put some of these smaller jrpgs on playstation to. Not just switch.

Anomander595d ago

@neonridr. Right if is MS the evil empire that Sony fans claim to be then they should go full DR. Evil with their purchases and keep all the IPs on Xbox and PC. Give everyone a chance to switch to their service in a couple years then shut down those servers outside of their networks.

Godmars290595d ago

@Anomander:

Would think influencing the market towards subscription services was evil enough.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 595d ago
Christopher595d ago

So they could be Sony-fied rather than letting them be them?

Bathyj595d ago

What's this Sonyfied you speak off? Can you give an example because all the Devs I can think of pretty much pick their own projects and maintain their visions.

You think Guerilla would be allowed to drop their staple FPS franchise and do and open world action RPG under Microsoft? You think sucker punch would have done Ghost? Do you think Naughty dog would abandon successful franchises not once not twice but three times to do something completely different and have a new benchmark each time? Would Insomniac get handed properties like Spiderman and Wolverine?

Answer all that honestly and then think about what you said This Sonyfied thing is starting to sound like a good thing.

Christopher595d ago

***What's this Sonyfied you speak off? Can you give an example because all the Devs I can think of pretty much pick their own projects and maintain their visions.***

How many are doing AA games at the scale that FromSoftware does? With Sony, there's a distinct difference between their low-budget games and the expectation of AAA from their other parties.

I'm certain FromSoftware would have been pushed towards what we saw of Demon's Souls Remaster and not Elden Ring level of graphics. That level of focus can hold back other things that otherwise were put into FromSoftware games.

Bathyj595d ago

Sony didn't start this arms race and they aren't buying whole publishers with stables of developers and ip. How come you guess are always so oblivious to that?

And yes history counts. Want me to rattle off a list of developers Microsoft made worse and Sony made better?
I don't have all day, I gotta get to work.

babadivad595d ago

They actually did start it. On top of paying for exclusivity deals on third party multiplatform games. Locking gaming modes to their system and paying publishers to keep games off of Gamepass.

Show all comments (89)
140°

Microsoft has ‘let Blizzard be Blizzard’ following its acquisition, studio says

Microsoft has 'let Blizzard be Blizzard' following the acquisition of the veteran developer according to World of Warcraft's executive producer.

Read Full Story >>
videogameschronicle.com
Kaii14h ago

Diablo 4 storefront being a cash grabbing shitshow does unironically attest to that, kudos.

XiNatsuDragnel12h ago(Edited 12h ago)

Okay i will be interested if they become old Blizzard but might as well be dead.

Vits12h ago

Shame most of the people that made Blizzard what they were, have already left a while ago.

ApocalypseShadow12h ago

I was about to say this. How can they be blizzard when they're no longer blizzard from yesteryear?

blacktiger2h ago

Rare was the thing I lost heart

Knightofelemia8h ago

Blizzard is not the same Blizzard like it use to be.

PassNextquestion2h ago

Were you expecting Microsoft to hire everyone that had left Blizzard long before they purchased the company...

Microsoft has let the Blizzard company they purchased continue to be the Blizzard company they purchased.

Show all comments (11)
60°

Ubisoft's Recent Antics Have Me Fearful For The Sands of Time Remake

Hanzala from eXputer: "With Ubisoft's practices becoming increasingly anti-consumer lately, the destruction of The Sands of Time Remake looks almost inevitable."

thorstein17h ago(Edited 17h ago)

Hey Ubi, here's a gun, don't shoot yourself in the foot.

*Ubi takes gun, aims at foot, empties clip*

Chocoburger6h ago

At this point, only dummies have any hope left for Ubi-junk games.

190°

GTA 6 Publisher Take-Two to Layoff 5% of its Workforce and Cancel Games

Take-Two Interactive has announced that it will lay off 5% of its workforce and cancel some of its games in an effort to increase profits.

Read Full Story >>
insider-gaming.com
Knightofelemia1d 7h ago

I am curious as to what games got canned.

DarXyde1d 1h ago

Probably GTAV: Enhanced for PS5 Pro 🙂

Newmanator23h ago

$1 Billion + for GTA Online. Need to increase profit!

just_looken13h ago

They had a deal with netflix there were rumors of a bully remake and or port.

They also were deep into another version of gta iv like there crap gta trilogy remember all the takedowns.

roadkillers22h ago

It's a business tho..TakeTwo has 11,600 people, which means they let go around 600 people. There was probably a lot if bloat, but did anyone report about TakeTwo giving any "stimulus" to the employees laid off?

$35 million is being spent on severance pay. That's roughly $58,000 per employee, which probably includes continued benefits and pay after seperation. Can we get more of a report on how TakeTwo is supporting those let go?

roadkillers20h ago

^ That's if the averages worked out. We don't know if its like that or if a big shot got $30 million while others got dirt...

That's why we need journalists to dig in instead of these shallow news reports.

ConsoleAgnostic20h ago

Severance is great but the problem is the industry is experiencing layoffs all over, which makes it very hard for a lot of these people to get back into a job. The issue is these companies are expecting higher revenue every year, and when they have a year where they make the same amount or a little bit less all hell breaks loose. The only silver lining I'm seeing here is that a lot of these people will go on to create smaller indie studios and hopefully create something.

jwillj2k422h ago

There should be a law that says you can’t get rid of employees just for profits without executives taking a x % pay cut first. Encourage them to figure something else out.

redknight8021h ago

100% agree! I understand layoffs are a necessity sometimes but in addition to that, yeah, the CEO should not have their bonuses paid out that year; at the very minimum.

jwillj2k420h ago

Anyone who disagrees hasn’t felt the turmoil of being laid off.

Barlos3h ago

Exactly, and I'm feeling this right now for the second time in less than 2 years. I lost my last job 3 weeks ago.

blacktiger20h ago

They haven't even released the game, previous game made 10000% percent profits and then layoff?

Relientk7720h ago

Should be canceling the casino simulator sports games, but I know it's not them. It better not affect BioShock 4 and the Borderlands games

Show all comments (18)