Great summary. Lmao at "medical reasons". Hog Slaw isn't fit to speak on law let alone practice it.
Reuters: Sony in talks to buy media powerhouse behind 'Elden Ring', sources say
- Thread starter Puff
- Start date
A lot of people gave him the benefit of the doubt but here he is showing his ass.
Activision is Hilariously the ones keeping Microsoft afloat without both Bethesda and Activision they'll lineup would be dry
Activision releases, like, one game a year. Its a big one but it is one game a year, unless you are counting King as part of Activision.
This is their 4D Chess plan afterall!
Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier.bsky.social)
Don't worry, folks — even if Sony buys Kadokawa, rest assured that future Dark Souls and Elden Ring games will still come to Xboxbsky.app
Putting all their games on PlayStation and Switch, and then calling them an Xbox
So, my PS5 is an Xbox too, since all their games will come there!
Kadokawa said they received the letter of intent, not when. Maybe received it even months ago and the announcement is ready to be made on the PS anniversary day.
$5B as the total acquisition cost is totally realistic considering the market cap it had last week + a premium of let's around 40% or 50% + acquisition costs (integration costs, retention bonuses, redundancies, etc).
They also said no decision had been made. Nothing has been brought to shareholders to vote on, so no, you're not going to get a announcement on December 3rd, because it hasn't reached that process where you could plan around that.
Again, man, you've gotta know what you're talking about.
It's not about the market cap it had last week. Sony's letter of intent would include the price they're willing to pay for the company. They're not going to pay a bonus on top of that price based on the fact that they're buying the company. Everyone knows that's a bubble bump that goes away if the deal doesn't go through. That is the price assuming sony buys them not the price sony is buying them for. So the premium is going to be based on the pre-public acknowledgment price, which is closer to 2.7B and with even a 50 percent premium, you're at best looking at 4.05B.
Japan has an entirely different practice around retention bonuses and you're not throwing additional money around like you would for say Bungie.
Most of Kadokawa will probably operate independently. Doubt you see much integration cost or redundancies. They might fall as a subsidiary under Sony Music, with elements of the gaming studios removed or kept on a case by case basis.
Some fun fact about the Kadokawa heads:
Kadokawa was ruled by its founder until died in 1975 being 58 years old (too young), its successor was his son who got arrested by drug trafficking in 1993, and then another son took the lead until got arrested in 2022 for bribing related to the Tokyo Olympics. Sounds like a yakuza family.
Since then the head is Takeshi Natsuno. This guy was the creator of i-mode, meaning: he was the creator of the first mobile gaming platform and mobile internet. He's external independent director in companiles like Oracle Japan, NTT or GREE, and in the past also other ones like Sega Sammy. Like the previous Kadokawa heads, he's an atendee and panelist at the World Economic Forum and he got his MBA degree in the University of Pennsylvania.
Only 20% of Kadokawa's revenue comes from outside Japan, and he wants to heavily increase that number by increasing their digital books, manga and anime sales outside Japan plus also expanding their anime production to outside Japan.
He has a very techy, west friendly profile compared to the average Japanese businessmen. I think he's a great fit for Sony and I think he'll be happy to sell to Sony to help them bring the Kadokawa stuff to the rest of the world.
The key shareholders pretty likely already know about the acquisition talks since the moment they started or even before. Acquisition talks don't start unless there's a consensus between the key shareholders to listen a detailed offer. In fact at least in some countries it's mandatory for companies to keep them informed about the acquisition offers justifying them if that offer would be good or not for them.
As an example, today Supercell (whose bosses are my former coworkers) today announced the investment on a new studio of also former coworkers of mine (and one of their cofounders also is cofounder of my studio).
Acquisitions pricing normally is the value of the shares plus a variable premium that depends on possible aquirers wanting to bid, potential to grow, and other stuff the company may have not reflected in the shares such as debt or value of the IPs and tech owned, manpower size, potential future revenue and profit and more.
Plus on top of that there are acquisition costs like the cost company audit for the due diligence, retention bonuses, integration costs (firing redundant people, moving people to different divisions, tons of meetings to reorganize many things, trainings tor the acquired team to teach them how their acquirer works, hiring more people for them, buying them maybe a new office, etc), taxes and way more. These acquisition costs normally depend on the size and seniority of the staff (this is a very old and successful company with over 5000 workers) and complexity of the acquired company (this has many divisions/subsidiaries and sub-subsidiaries) and planned complexity of the integration (it's going to affect multiple Sony divisions and may even involve the creation of another one).
Of course they will pay a premium and they will pay a huge one. As has been the case in all the main gaming and tech acquisition in the recent several years. And as it is the case in any industry that is in a consolidation stage, with several big players wanting to acquire the best companies available, as it is the case of gaming.
You said yourself on Tuesday that it had back then a market cap 2.9 billion dollars. Add there around 50% of a premium, this is $4.35B. Adding only $650K for acquisition costs (being Kadokawa that complex will be way more) you have the $5B.
A total acquisition price of $4.5B-$5B would be a very cheap deal, it could go higher if there are other major bidders involved. Which I assume it isn't the case considering the 30 years long relationship and the collaboration deal they already had signed 3 years ago for anime and games, pretty likely Kadokawa since the start only considered Sony as acquirer and they may have considering possible acquisition and integration options since several years ago before the previous owners retired.
Kadokawa was ruled by its founder until died in 1975 being 58 years old (too young), its successor was his son who got arrested by drug trafficking in 1993, and then another son took the lead until got arrested in 2022 for bribing related to the Tokyo Olympics. Sounds like a yakuza family.
Since then the head is Takeshi Natsuno. This guy was the creator of i-mode, meaning: he was the creator of the first mobile gaming platform and mobile internet. He's external independent director in companiles like Oracle Japan, NTT or GREE, and in the past also other ones like Sega Sammy. Like the previous Kadokawa heads, he's an atendee and panelist at the World Economic Forum and he got his MBA degree in the University of Pennsylvania.
Only 20% of Kadokawa's revenue comes from outside Japan, and he wants to heavily increase that number by increasing their digital books, manga and anime sales outside Japan plus also expanding their anime production to outside Japan.
He has a very techy, west friendly profile compared to the average Japanese businessmen. I think he's a great fit for Sony and I think he'll be happy to sell to Sony to help them bring the Kadokawa stuff to the rest of the world.
Yes, they said no decision was made because if not they would have confirmed the acquisition, which still isn't -at least oficially- agreed. Only the shareholders who have the right to vote will vote whatever they have to vote, if they have to vote it, when they have to vote it.
The key shareholders pretty likely already know about the acquisition talks since the moment they started or even before. Acquisition talks don't start unless there's a consensus between the key shareholders to listen a detailed offer. In fact at least in some countries it's mandatory for companies to keep them informed about the acquisition offers justifying them if that offer would be good or not for them.
I know what I'm talking about, my studio got bought twice and have many friends whose studio was bought, and a few of them twice too. Plus many got investments from top players. You are the one talking out of your ass.
As an example, today Supercell (whose bosses are my former coworkers) today announced the investment on a new studio of also former coworkers of mine (and one of their cofounders also is cofounder of my studio).
Acquisitions pricing normally is the value of the shares plus a variable premium that depends on possible aquirers wanting to bid, potential to grow, and other stuff the company may have not reflected in the shares such as debt or value of the IPs and tech owned, manpower size, potential future revenue and profit and more.
Plus on top of that there are acquisition costs like the cost company audit for the due diligence, retention bonuses, integration costs (firing redundant people, moving people to different divisions, tons of meetings to reorganize many things, trainings tor the acquired team to teach them how their acquirer works, hiring more people for them, buying them maybe a new office, etc), taxes and way more. These acquisition costs normally depend on the size and seniority of the staff (this is a very old and successful company with over 5000 workers) and complexity of the acquired company (this has many divisions/subsidiaries and sub-subsidiaries) and planned complexity of the integration (it's going to affect multiple Sony divisions and may even involve the creation of another one).
Of course they will pay a premium and they will pay a huge one. As has been the case in all the main gaming and tech acquisition in the recent several years. And as it is the case in any industry that is in a consolidation stage, with several big players wanting to acquire the best companies available, as it is the case of gaming.
You said yourself on Tuesday that it had back then a market cap 2.9 billion dollars. Add there around 50% of a premium, this is $4.35B. Adding only $650K for acquisition costs (being Kadokawa that complex will be way more) you have the $5B.
A total acquisition price of $4.5B-$5B would be a very cheap deal, it could go higher if there are other major bidders involved. Which I assume it isn't the case considering the 30 years long relationship and the collaboration deal they already had signed 3 years ago for anime and games, pretty likely Kadokawa since the start only considered Sony as acquirer and they may have considering possible acquisition and integration options since several years ago before the previous owners retired.
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No shits given to souls games, but I'm here to enjoy the fruity taste of haters tears when they go full exclusive, lol.
OP
OP
South Korea prosecutors indict Kakao group founder on stock manipulation charges, Yonhap reports
The Company seems to be sneaky.
The Company seems to be sneaky.
Well I guess they will try to make an example of him but mostly he will get a house arrest sentence, its very hard to get actual jail time for white collar crimes in SK. Also the investigative powers rest with the prosecutors office instead of the police in SK so bribery will work
I guess it's how you look at it.
Activision brings in revenue, but they also cost 70 billion dollars... So that really cancels itself out for quite the foreseeable future.
So the question is strategically what does Activision give you and I don't know that it gives you anything beneficial here. If anything if you're an xbox fan it's hastened Microsoft shift 3rd party, where more sensible and less splashy purchases might have resulted in a stronger ecosystem.
Sony bought Insomniac for 229 million and guaranteed 2 more Spider-Man games since the purchase with Rift Apart as icing on the cake. 229 million dollars... This helped push PlayStation hardware sales at launch and last holiday season. Spider-Man 2 is still one of the best selling PlayStation games actively. Sony has already recouped their investment in Insomniac and it has only been 5 years. They have a Marvel pipeline for the next 6 or so years.
Buying Kadokawa for ~4.5 billion dollars... They could recoup that (revenue not operating income) within the next 5 years.
ABK and Zenimax was supposed to deliver growth to Xbox and GamePass, and open up Microsoft's mobile plans which have not come to fruition at all.
Yep. Considering the hype and resources that went on it, Starfield was a huge disappointment and it's obvious it didn't do anything significant for GamePass.
Indiana Jones doesn't have the same expectations, but it will perform in similarly mediocre fashion in terms of sales and won't positively impact GamePass. Same applies to Avowed. Then you have the disaster that is the MSFS24 launch.
All they have to brag about is CoD. It would be interesting to compare overall sales so far with MW2 because again, anyone who wants to play it for an extended period of time will just buy it, not sub to GamePass.
Overall they paid a hell of a premium for Activision - $75.4bn all in wasn't it? Means the PS5 and Switch 2 ports will come quicker and quicker.
I called out Indiana Jones because it's a licensed game and almost certainly has worse licensing terms than Spider-Man since Disney has looked to increase their royalties.
So in order to get their money back on that game, it needs to hit certain performance levels. If I was to pull a number out of my ass, I'd say 5 million, which is almost impossible with the game being on GamePass... That's why it HAS to come out for PS5.
It's crazy to me that Matt Booty hasn't been fired.
OP
OP
It’s truly baffling how he had no problem with Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision earlier.
8:10
It’s incredible how these guys twist the narrative. When Microsoft makes a move, it’s somehow brilliant, but when Sony does the exact same thing, it’s a crime against gaming. They’ll back anything Microsoft does, no questions asked. The hypocrisy is staggering. It’s almost impressive how they’ve mastered the art of double standards.
So much of the media/influencers CRAVE console wars. There is massive fear in the air that we're reaching the end times on the console wars. You don't see any of that on PC. If console just becomes "PlayStation" a lot of these guys are SOL.
It's why it's so interesting listening to doomers. Sony hasn't been in a stronger position in gaming since the PS2 era. We're talking 20 year highs right now.