Tencent and Sony increase stake in Elden Ring studio FromSoftware
Well, this is somewhat a surprise. Tencent and Sony have increased their collective stake in FromSoftware, the studio behind Elden Ring, by more than 30 percent.
Right off the bat, let’s point out that Kadokawa Corporation is still the majority shareholder of FromSoftware — owning 69.66 percent of the studio. However, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) now owns 14.09 percent of FromSoftware, while Tencent subsidiary Sixjoy owns 16.25 percent. So this isn’t anything like, say, PlayStation purchasing Bungie.
Kadokawa Corporation issued a statement regarding the investment by Sony and Tencent.
“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 and other network technologies in the global market including China,” Kadokawa said. “And SIE within the Sony Group, which has strength in its capabilities to deploy IP in games, videos and various other media in the global market, concurrently and separately.”
Pretty bog-standard stock business stuff. FromSoftware’s titles like Dark Souls, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring sell well on PlayStation, so it’s understandable why Sony would further invest in the company. Tencent has either increased its stake or purchased numerous game developers recently, so no massive shock there either.
Written by Kyle Campbell on behalf of GLHF.