Akatsuki enters into capital and business alliance agreements with Sony and Koei Tecmo

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Akatsuki
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2023/12/20
Announcement of Capital and Business Alliance Agreement with Sony Group and Koei Tecmo Holdings, and Notice of Disposition of Treasury Shares via Third-Party Allotment
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Akatsuki, Inc. (the “Company”) hereby announces that it has entered into capital and business alliances agreements (the “Alliance Agreements”) with Sony Group Corporation (Head Office: Tokyo, Japan; Chairman and CEO: Kenichiro Yoshida, hereafter “Sony Group”) and with Koei Tecmo Holdings Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Kanagawa, Japan; President & CEO: Yoichi Erikawa; hereafter “Koei Tecmo Holdings”) and conducted a disposition of the Company’s treasury stock through third-party allotment (the “Share Disposition”), as resolved at the Board of Directors meeting held today.
■Purpose and Aims of the Alliances
Under its mission to “entertain the world and resonate with creators,” the Company is pivoting on games and has entered the Comics business, aiming to be a company that utilizes digital content to compete globally in the long term.
Since its founding, the Company has been expanding its core games business in Japan and overseas with a focus on mobile gaming. With recent market changes and improvements in handset performance, and presuming business expansion outside of Japan, an increasing number of game titles are being simultaneously developed for use not only with mobile devices but also for use on PCs and home consoles. The mobile gaming market is on the cusp of evolution into a new market of multi-device, multi-language “live gaming.”
With the above market changes in mind, the Company announced in its “Explanatory Materials for Management Strategy Briefing” in August 2022 that it will invest 20 billion yen in strengthening its game development system and, aiming for more agile and dynamic capital policies as a venture company in the future, the Company conducted a buyback of treasury shares, as noted in its “Announcement of Acquisition of Treasury Shares and Purchase of Treasury Shares through the Off-auction Share Repurchase Trading System (ToSTNeT-3)” of May 15, 2023. Additionally, we have been actively investing in new products, technologies, and human resources, and our consolidated subsidiary Akatsuki Games Inc. (“Akatsuki Games”) held its “Akatsuki Games Now” event for new products in August 2023. Going forward, with the goals of further strengthening our game development capabilities, improving our overseas marketing skills, and creating new content through collaboration, the Company had decided to enter into capital and business alliances with Sony Group and Koei Tecmo Holdings by the disposition of the Company’s treasury shares, and had agreed as written in “Details of Business Alliances”.
■Details of Business Alliances
①Sony Group
The Company will further build relationships with Sony Group and its affiliates to create new business opportunities, aiming to cooperate in overseas market expansion for mobile games, both those currently under development and those to be developed in the future, as well as to collaborate with co-production and development of new IP and content.
②Koei Tecmo Holdings
In addition to game projects already underway, the Company will further build relationships with Koei Tecmo Holdings in the following three areas to create new business opportunities in the future:
A) Collaboration in development and operation of multi-device next-generation live-ops games
B) Collaboration on global expansion, marketing, and publishing of live-ops games
C) Collaboration on new IP, content and services
For details of the capital and business alliance, please refer to the timely disclosure “Announcement of Capital and Business Alliance Agreement and Notice of Disposition of Treasury Shares via Third-Party Allotment,” which we disclosed today.
■Akatsuki Company Profile
Akatsuki is an entertainment company with our mission “Entertain the World and Resonate with Creators.” We aim to bring stimulating entertainment to the people of the world by leveraging our strengths in game development and game operations that incorporate a deep understanding of the world view of IP content.
URLhttps://aktsk.jp/
EstablishedJune 2010
RepresentativeTetsuro Koda, Representative Director and CEO
Address (HQ)Oak Meguro 8F, 2-13-30 Kamiosaki, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
BusinessesGaming, Comics

PRESS​

 
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KiryuRealty

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Where it’s at.
What do you see coming from it?
Well, KoeiTecmo is pretty prolific when it comes to game production, so with a stream of IP to base their games on, and Sony's strong marketing and distribution, potentially this could lead to a lot of cross-media projects involving PlayStation games. I know KT has been making great use of XDev Japan resources this generation, so this seems like a Japanese corporate consortium forming, basically synergising the IP creation, game creation and product pipelines between the three into one operation of their projects.

KT haven't really done anything AAA in ages, if ever, so I am thinking a solid stream of AA product, which Playstation could definitely use to shore up their lineup.

The wild card here is how much of it they plan to localize for non-Japanese markets, but even if most of it stays in Japan, that's a lot of tailored product for a market where Sony has their market space to themselves for all intents and purposes.

This is also a way for the publisher to get their properties exported using Sony's pipelines, as Sony owns Aniplex and CrunchyRoll, so we may be seeing some manga getting anime adaptations that haven't yet, and those could come out of Japan via Sony's media pipeline.

Basically, for all the people saying Sony needed to buy up Japanese publishers, this move is the Japanese version of a merger. I doubt this is the last deal like this we will see, and I have a feeling an expanded deal with Kodansha along similar lines is probably not far off.
 

Dabaus

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Well, KoeiTecmo is pretty prolific when it comes to game production, so with a stream of IP to base their games on, and Sony's strong marketing and distribution, potentially this could lead to a lot of cross-media projects involving PlayStation games. I know KT has been making great use of XDev Japan resources this generation, so this seems like a Japanese corporate consortium forming, basically synergising the IP creation, game creation and product pipelines between the three into one operation of their projects.

KT haven't really done anything AAA in ages, if ever, so I am thinking a solid stream of AA product, which Playstation could definitely use to shore up their lineup.

The wild card here is how much of it they plan to localize for non-Japanese markets, but even if most of it stays in Japan, that's a lot of tailored product for a market where Sony has their market space to themselves for all intents and purposes.

This is also a way for the publisher to get their properties exported using Sony's pipelines, as Sony owns Aniplex and CrunchyRoll, so we may be seeing some manga getting anime adaptations that haven't yet, and those could come out of Japan via Sony's media pipeline.

Basically, for all the people saying Sony needed to buy up Japanese publishers, this move is the Japanese version of a merger. I doubt this is the last deal like this we will see, and I have a feeling an expanded deal with Kodansha along similar lines is probably not far off.
I agree with the bolded here but i wish it were Capcom or Squar enix instead of Koei Tecmo.
 

Gods&Monsters

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Wait I'm confused. I read that as Atsuki buying shares of Sony and Tecmo.

This has nothing to do with a deal between Sony and Tecmo. They are making Rise of the Ronin together but that's irrelevant here.

You guys are saying Tecmo and Sony are forming an alliance with this deal?
 

Danja

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This seems more like a mobile push than for consoles but could be wrong
 

KiryuRealty

Cambridge Dictionary High Priest of Grammar
28 Nov 2022
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Where it’s at.
Wait I'm confused. I read that as Atsuki buying shares of Sony and Tecmo.

This has nothing to do with a deal between Sony and Tecmo. They are making Rise of the Ronin together but that's irrelevant here.

You guys are saying Tecmo and Sony are forming an alliance with this deal?
Read it again. It is a three-way partnership deal.
 
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Danja

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Wait I'm confused. I read that as Atsuki buying shares of Sony and Tecmo.

This has nothing to do with a deal between Sony and Tecmo. They are making Rise of the Ronin together but that's irrelevant here.

You guys are saying Tecmo and Sony are forming an alliance with this deal?
Sony buys 9.8% stake into Atsuki and Tecmo bought 7.9%. all 3 will be strategically working together
 
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Gods&Monsters

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Read it again. It is a three-way partnership deal.
Sony buys 9.8% stake into Atsuki and Tecmo bought 7.9%. all 3 will be strategically working together
But why would Sony need Akatsuki to make an alliance with Tecmo? They already work together. I think only Akatsuki will benefit from this deal.

I would prefer if Sony makes a separate alliance between them and Tecmo. And Capcom. And Square etc.

Akatsuki is just an irrelevant party here.
 
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KiryuRealty

Cambridge Dictionary High Priest of Grammar
28 Nov 2022
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Where it’s at.
But why would Sony need Akatsuki to make an alliance with Tecmo? They already work together. I think only Akatsuki will benefit from this deal.

I would prefer if Sony makes a separate alliance between them and Tecmo. And Capcom. And Square etc.

Akatsuki is just an irrelevant party here.
IP. It is right there. 🙄
 

Dabaus

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Sony has formed strategic alliances with Kadokawa/Fromsoft and now Koei Tecmo. They seem to really be pursuing the third person action/rpg genre. Id like to see them form alliances with some full blown rpg companies.