... Fine. For Nintendo anyway. Here's why.

[@CBMX_GAMING]

Video games aside, Kadokawa being purchased by Sony will be incredibly BAD for the anime industry. Sony's handling of Crunchyroll and Funimation has been downright embarrassing. Sony runs these companies like skeleton crews to extract maximum revenue with almost no regard for fans' concerns or delivering a good product. Expanding this monopoly will only lead to disappointing outcomes.

[@TheGamingTeam101Tgt101]

i agree

[@gregwilliams4926]

Didn't Funimation die recently?

[@lucazaroli6761]

Konosuba season 4 would never get made😭

[@pablocasas5906]

​@@gregwilliams4926I think Funimation closed half a year ago Honestly, the way Sony handled the Crunchyroll acquisition was incredibly bad for people in Latin America like me. You see, Funimation had a rough start in Latin America, they gave of of their most popular titles, My Hero Academia, one of the worst Spanish dubs in the last ten years, but they quickly tried to improve things with other anime they owned like Attack on Titan, though the damage done on MHA in my region still continues. Nonetheless, Funimation began dubbing old anime that was previously blocked by them in Latin America, but when Sony acquired Crunchyroll they suspended all of the dubs for old shows, let Crunchyroll handle anime dubbing and nowadays they only focus on new content, despite the fact that there were rumors that shows like Gurren Lagann, Code Geass and Haruhi Suzumiya would finally receive dubs into Spanish and Portuguese, but it seems Sony canceled those plans Also, not all of Funimation's content was added to Crunchyroll, the excellent re-dub for Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood made in 2021 hasn't been added yet

[@-lord1754]

​@@lucazaroli6761The series might as well get canned if Sony owns it

[@cookeecutkk]

Like others have mentioned, the potential fallout is greater on the Anime side rather than gaming. Sony will undoubtedly force some level of censorship on Kadokawa properties and they are a very significant player in the Japanese animation business.

[@nintendoforecast]

Yeah, that's a good point. I edited "for Nintendo anyway" into the title as I don't mean to disregard the many other ramifications.

[@therealjaystone2344]

Kadokawa is a big company in Japan and highly doubt Sony will just buy it. Otherwise, it would have to go through the FTC before greenlighting the purchase.

[@nintendoforecast]

Maybe, though Sony are headquartered in Japan still. I'd have to look into the FTC's regulatory scope but if it's a Japanese-on-Japanese acquisition it might be outside FTC jurisdiction.

[@SailorPalutena]

FTC only defends Sony interests.

[@Nikolas0269]

Sony doesn't feel japanese anymore. Until Americans fucked it up entirely.

[@pokemigas6049]

FTC's main person is about to be fired due to Trump taking over so I doubt they will do much about it. And unfortunately, another company (I forgot the name but it also starts with a K) has been slowly trying to takeover Kadokawa (by buying more and more shares, little by little) so the japanese government will very likely allow this acquisition (by Sony) to go through. Because it's either that or risk this foreign company taking over slowly

[@X2011racer]

​@nintendoforecast I thought they re-registered themselves as American after moving their main headquarters to California.

[@totempoleman7810]

"Sony potentially acquiring Kadokawa" AKA shitstorm heading towards the anime nation

[@Switch_Lens]

That's a bold video-titling strategy

[@MarioSonic46]

Oh so because your precious Concord failed you have to mess with our Concordia, Sony?

[@Ar021]

I’m just worried about FromSoft because Nintendo said they wanted to strengthen their relationship with them. Especially with next consoles updated graphics, we could get games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3

[@matheusgenaro]

Given that there are rumours of a definitive edition of Elden Ring and a remaster of Dark Souls 3, I am expecting these titles to come to Switch 2, regardless of this acquistion. However, I do wonder what would be the future of new FromSoftware titles

[@Ar021]

@ yeah, other than MLB and the Lego horizon game I’m not sure if Sony will but their games on other platforms like what Microsoft is doing with Activision

[@pablocasas5906]

I've been reading comments saying that From Software were never interested in developing games for Nintendo so Sony buying Kadokawa wouldn't affect them, but as you said, Nintendo has been trying to have more third-party games on their systems, acquisitions like this only complicate things. I can imagine Elden Ring doing great on the Switch's successor, especially in Japan

[@kevinramirez3134]

@@pablocasas5906, where's your proof of that because clearly that is a lie, and you are literally lying.

[@beatlejuice1165]

I’m sick and tired of all these acquisitions that just end in closing the studios because the companies that buy them out don’t respect them.

[@-lord1754]

A purchase like this is way bigger than just video games. Kadokawa is a HUGE distributor of LNs, manga, anime etc. At minimum itll probably see more censorship in those industries to appease modern sony standards.

[@rossruss6901]

It really suck for M&L for their series to come back after so long just to have it put on ice again because Sony brought the parent company. Hopefully, for them, this doesn't happen.

[@PNats-fg4bw]

If the game sells well, it wont take long for nintendo to look for another company and begin work on another entry. Future is still a lot brighter for M&L than it was in 2019 with the bankruptcy and poor sales anyway

[@corey2232]

People treating this like it's a way to get back at MS really annoy me. Sony is already at the top of the industry. They've been so dominant that MS has all but moved on from competing in hardware. MS is putting their games on MORE platforms. Meanwhile, Sony is still money-hatting 3rd party exclusives to keep games off other platforms, and is already taking advantage of being alone at the top of their market. Increasing prices on games, services, hardware, etc. and giving consumers less in return. And here people are, cheering on Sony to be able to remove more 3rd party games from other platforms, while also having a true monopoly over anime. Just look into how much control Sony owns over the anime industry. It shouldn't be legal.

[@gabrielgian6207]

They try to be lucrative in the most ludicrous ways possible. Meanwhile Nintendo just soars by sheer quality alone.

[@KoOk-h1d]

You realize a lot of things shouldn't be legal, but it is. Sony would own the most popular isekai, manga, light novel, and video game developers in the world.

[@therealjaystone2344]

@@KoOk-h1d and only to not use them most of the time

[@X2011racer]

That may be why Nintendo is unable to bring back their anime in any capacity.

[@KoOk-h1d]

@@therealjaystone2344 That's true for the most part, but not always

[@danielgrezda3339]

I really hope this doesn't go through. Crunchyroll got a lot worse after the sony acquisition and if this goes through sony would have near monopolistic influence over anime.

[@shadowsquid1351]

Bad news no matter what, yes Nintendo might not be affected that much, but consolidation of art/entertainment is always bad. I doubt Sony will force Fromsoft or Acquire games to become exclusive but Kodokawa is huge & it'll be affected. I just want more Octopath Traveler games without Sony's shitty influence 😢

[@lightdarksoul2097]

I fully see them making fromsoft exclusive at least to ps and pc

[@zeroshadow-warrior2304]

Octopath Traveller is owned by Square Enix and Team Asano are the main devs. Aquire did help with development but the IP is solely owned by Square Enix as far as I know.

[@shadowsquid1351]

@@zeroshadow-warrior2304 oh that's good at least.

[@shadowsquid1351]

@@lightdarksoul2097 I really hope they don't, especially with Switch 2 having better specs enabling them to get Fromsoft's games day 1. Sony released Horizon Lego game on Switch this month, so they could still put more of their games on Switch 2. Time will tell though..

[@LONKULADE]

praying for octopath traveler 3

[@richtersundeen6105]

Video games are a tiny fraction of Kadokawa's portfolio. This affects a ton of Japanese cultural media.

[@nintendoforecast]

Good point; I added to the title "For Nintendo" to acknowledge that there are wider consequences beyond the scope of this video.

[@KoOk-h1d]

It reminded me of when Sony was trying to block Microsoft acquisition but ultimately failed. The problem is nobody can stop Sony, unless the government I'd involved.

[@DuckyShrunks]

It seems that KADOKAWA asked Sony for help before falling into the hands of South Korean Kakao, which is pushing ahead with its acquisition. Kakao is a company that operates South Korean manhwa and other businesses and is a fairly large company. KADOKAWA's largest shareholder is Kakao. They have recently been increasing their stake. So even though Sony on handling Crunchyroll and their Anime library being mixed, I would rather have Sony buy it than have it be taken over by Kakao.

[@Luxembourgish]

It's not okay because Mario & Luigi is a very special formula that requires devs who undestand it, not just Nintendo higher ups directing them. Sticker Star's generic Toads, no original characters, and no story, is a result of Nintendo higher ups directing and even they misunderstood Paper Mario. Acquire understood the formula and captures what makes Mario & Luigi in their latest game Brothership. It was a lucky hire that the developer understood it. The odds of lightening striking the same place twice is rare.

[@Lukas-ny2fz]

You failed to mention the most important part about this acquisition, even from a nintendo perspective. Kadokawa owns a 70% majority share in fromsoftware. I really hope this deal falls through because that would be really sad.

[@GreekTheGeek1]

Acquire & Spike chunsoft should go it alone independently as I doubt Sony will fund games like danganronpa somnium files master detective archives and so on if the purchase goes through I expect with a couple of months those 2 studios to be shut as Sony isn’t shy on closing studios

[@SilverKitten10000]

Nintendo should acquire Acquire and Bamco should get Spike Chunsoft because of talent in Sparking Zero.

[@napoleonfeanor]

The biggest problem is the anime/manga issue and Sony's NA stranglehold

[@malo932]

This acquisition would be a problem also because Spike Chunsoft is there, and they are the developers of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

[@jellycore1316]

Yeah, this is what I'm most worried about too ^^' I'm scared getting a new Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game or even a remake might be even harder if this happens!

[@EnigmaticGentleman]

This acquisition could actually still affect Pokemon in a big way, contrary to popular myth Gamefreak is just the core team, and most of the development is outsourced (seriously people need to read the credits Scarlet and Violet had like 1400 people on it, its not hard to see), and IIRC some of these subsidiaries are pretty significant contributors.

[@madnessarcade7447]

They outsource development to creatures so Pokemon has nothing to do with this

[@madnessarcade7447]

Spike chunsoft has worked on Pokemon spin offs

[@nintendoforecast]

I've just done a quick scan of the corporations credited on Scarlet and Violet. There's a lot of credits and I can't be sure I checked everybody and I don't know the list of Kadokawa subsidiaries on Wikipedia is up-to-date but I don't see any corporations overlapping?

[@christianr.5868]

1400 people and it still ended up like that..

[@Crafty_boy70]

@@christianr.5868 The number of people and the amount of money invested is totally meaningless if not enough time is given for development.

[@lilisaur]

A SquareEnix deep dive would be... interesting. They are basically operating backwards over the last few years. Most of their income isn't from the games people expect, but from the Final Fantasy XIV MMO and being the Japan publisher for a number of western studios. Most of their own games are financial failures or merely break-evens. Even a major title like Final Fantasy XVI is only just in break-even territory after 3 million unit sales. FF7 Remake was their last monster hit, 4 years ago. Rebirth is only profitable for them because of the boatload of cash Sony provided for exclusivity, and the third game might well follow suit. They all but gave away Foamstars as a free to play game to try to salvage some player community. Their advertising strategy, especially in regards to the Dragon Quest series, is a total mess. For Dragon Quest, they spend a hundred times on advertising in Japan as they do in the west. (For 2024, a paltry 65-70 million yen, between $400K and $450 USD, advertising Dragon Quest in the west, practically all of it on DQ III HD-2D, but somewhere north of 8 -billion- yen, or $50 million USD, in Japan.) Their recent financial situation has forced them to cancel some underway projects, emptying pipelines for their own developers and burning bridges with some third parties like Tose who were counting on those projects to pay for their own work on the games. With only a few games known to be in development, and only one committed for 2025 release (Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D) they've got to cross another financial desert before they get to heavy-hitters like Dragon Quest XII, Kingdom Hearts 4, and the third Final Fantasy VII reimagining game - as bad as things have been they may get worse before they get better. And since shedding their western studios for pennies on the dollar and returning to a fully-Japanese directorship, they seem to have rolled back a number of western-oriented expectations (like choice of skin color for character creation.) SquareEnix management just doesn't have their fingers on the global pulse anymore like they did a decade ago and just seem to be blowing in the wind with no real understanding why their games aren't as successful as they think they should be. They need to refocus their development efforts and especially their money into more effective spends.

[@goranisacson2502]

I knew of some of these things, but some are news to me. Do you recall which game TOSE was working on that got cancelled, or the game that cut skin-tone selection? Sounds truly backwards if that's happening, no way they can make it by focusing on Japan of all markets.

[@lilisaur]

​@@goranisacson2502 The names of the projects cancelled haven't been made public. Based on prior work, probably 65% likelihood of being a Dragon Quest title, 30% likelihood of being a Final Fantasy title, and 5% something else. Could be (and likely is) more than one project canceled, but seems doubtful to be more than two. As far as speculation, Dragon Quest Builders 3 has been nominated by others, but it seems more likely that game would have returned to Koei Tecmo Omega Force who did Builders 2 than to be assigned to Tose. (Of course, there's possibility SquareEnix cut projects with other third parties as well. Tose is the only one who has come forward to make it known, not counting Amata K.K. who had the original DQ3 HD-2D project torn away from them sometime around later half of 2021, and that game was nearing completion, before being reassigned to ArtDink.) My personal thought it was two projects: an experimental Dragon Quest title with some new kind of gameplay (like Treasures was), and a Final Fantasy spinoff, perhaps tied in some way to the FF7 Remake series. The Japan-centric focus has worked for them in the past. The problem is, it's becoming impossible to continue doing that. It used to be that games could be developed for a few hundred thousand dollars (or say, 50 million yen.) in the Famicom days, and millions of dollars (few hundred million yen) in Super Famicom days. They then turn around and sell a couple of million copies, like they would with Dragon Quest and Final Fantasies, and its a financial windfall of over $100 million USD each game. Even spinoffs that sell "only" a million units are still very profitable. But as development costs have grown, and the size of gaming populace has grown, the size of their fanbase hasn't kept up. They're still selling an average of 4 million copies of their newest Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy mainline titles, and still one million of spinoffs, just like they were 20 to 30 years ago. The spinoffs are now not financially viable, and the mainlines are in danger of the same (as I pointed out with Final Fantasy XVI.) And the giant-sized titles, like Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth and Dragon Quest 12, with budgets around $200 million USD, have to hit marks of about 7-8 million unit sales just to break even. Remake got there, and with Sony's additional exclusivity funding, was very profitable. Rebirth needed that Sony cash just to break even. DQ12 isn't getting any exclusivity bonus money, so its got to pay for itself with sales alone. That means it has to be the best selling DQ game of all time. Even if it reaches the 6.5 of DQ11 or 7.2M of DQ9, that's short of covering development cost, let alone leaving any for advertising costs. The simple fact is, SquareEnix needs to find a way to create millions of new RPG players (or more accurately, millions of new RPG -buyers-), or they're going to have to start scaling back to just the mainline games, and find a way to do them much cheaper (and thus, less impressive). Fewer games that don't sell as well, doesn't give investors and stockholders much hope. This is why they threw everything they could to put as much polish onto Dragon Quest III HD-2D, including the nuclear option of ditching the almost complete version they had in 2021 to rebuild it bigger and better. SquareEnix really needs this game to approach the 7 million sales threshold. Not so much to pay for developing the game (twice), as 3 million or so will do that, but to prove that they might be able to push upwards of 9 or 10 when Dragon Quest XII comes along. But if they struggle to get much above 4 million in Japan, and struggle to reach a million in the west, which is where they've been for the last 20-30 years, they're probably in real trouble. This is why I hate how they've spent their advertising money. Knowing full well that they might land somewhere between 4 and 5 million sales in Japan at best, they had to have known that they'd need 2 to 3 million sales in the west. They've never come close to that on a Dragon Quest title before. DQ9 did a little over a million and DQ11 got there, but only with multiple editions. Doubling the best they've ever done, but going from August 27 (the second Nintendo Direct) to November 14 (launch day) without any promotion of the game at all in the west outside of a weekly Twitter post (which doesn't cost SquareEnix any money), has probably doomed them to come in well under that 2-3 million goal. Spending 98 to 99% of your advertising budget in Japan for 4-5 million sales (3+ probably assured even with zero advertising) but spending only 1% to try to conquer the remaining 2-3 million buyers, in regions where the series is much less popular, is just ridiculous. I don't pretend to be an advertising whiz or know the ins and outs of the advertising business, but I know that kind of spending is not a plan for success. So come January, we're going to hear from some SquareEnix exec about how domestic sales were strong, but the game failed to meet overall expectations because of underwhelming sales in the west. Well, if you don't really advertise the game for the two and half months leading up to release, that's going to happen. SquareEnix is pretty much digging their own grave by overspending advertising a not-so-great title in Final Fantasy XVI, vastly overspending on advertising Dragon Quest games in Japan, and then laughably underspending on their most important (and likely best) title of the year in regions where the advertising could have had the biggest bang-for-buck. The only explanation for doing what they've done is that they expect to jump Dragon Quest from 4-5 million sales to 7+ in Japan alone, but both sales history and population metrics are just not on their side.

[@TMS-Oddbot]

You practically wrote the script for the video here. So much detail! I’ve not really known what has been happening to Square Enix

[@lilisaur]

@@TMS-Oddbot I hope not! I'd really like to see NintendoForecast go into more detail on developers moving in and out, or on the divisions of SquareEnix I don't really know much about. I don't follow individuals or even company as a whole - I specifically follow Dragon Quest, and by extension Creative Business Unit 2. This is a personal pet project of mine, as I'm a Dragon Quest Builders 2 fan and want a Builders 3, but found some of the SquareEnix decisions on money spend (or income, in the case of the selloff to Embracer) so unwise that I started following it more closely. This has caused me to need to learn more about SquareEnix in general. And with Dragon Quest III HD-2D releasing this year (just the other day), I've been having to research and estimate costs for it, and compare it to other 2024 SquareEnix games like Final Fantasy XIV and FF7 Rebirth (for which costs are fairly well known) and FF14 Dawntrial expansion (which is a bit more of a mystery.) I don't really have much behind-the-scenes information on pre-2024 Final Fantasy stuff, Kingdom Hearts, or minor series like Mana, SaGa, etc, except when its newsworthy (often big flops) - of course I've played some of these titles but don't know anything more about them than the average player. I think NintendoForecast still has a worthy video by doing something similar to what they did a few weeks ago in breaking down Nintendo's divisions, what games and series they are responsible for, and which external partners they work with (kzbin.info/www/bejne/nn7HcqSPnJeSaMU) - I especially liked the big flowchart that was referenced during the video. Zelda insiders may have watched that video and been unsurprised by anything covered about the Zelda team, but learned things about the other development teams. Similarly, such a video for SquareEnix might not tell me anything I didn't already know about CBU2, but might enlighten me on the other units. However, I don't think any video is complete without harping on just how critical Dragon Quest III HD-2D is going to be going forward. This is the last big game for probably a year and a half to two years. With both FF16 and FF7 Rebirth this year, we're not seeing another big FF for several years (likely 2028). Kingdom Hearts 4 is in the works but I doubt we see it in 2025 (more likely, 2027). DQ12 is on the horizon, likely arriving in the 40th Anniversary year of 2026. But SquareEnix first has to survive 2025 with smaller, less profitable titles (though Dragon Quest I+II HD-2D will be quite profitable.) SE is a rather large publisher, averaging 8-10 titles a year, not far behind Nintendo in number of titles per year. But while Nintendo sells 70+ million units of games per year, SquareEnix runs only 10-15 million. And their big projects are hugely more expensive than Nintendo's. NF estimated Tears of the Kingdom, almost certainly Nintendo's most expensive game ever, at $185 million USD, including advertisement spend. Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth, and Dragon Quest 12 all have estimated development budgets of 30 billion yen (or around $200 million), not counting advertisement. Tears of the Kingdom has run 21 million unit sales, making a return on investment of about 7X (i.e., every 1 yen spent resulted it about 8 yen made.) And people call this disappointing in the face of Breath of the Wild. When even the best SquareEnix titles run in the 4-7 million sales range, that's putting their ROI dangerously close to 1X, and rarely more than 2X, and for most smaller titles, well under 1X (i.e., money-losers.) Since they make primarily RPG games, they need more RPG buyers to keep the overall ROI above 1X. DQ3 HD-2D is supposed to do that for them - its the tentpole title to wow people in the way Final Fantasy VII Remake did a few years ago, boost overall sales, and get people excited for future entries in the series. But if its sales come in closer to historical DQ performance, then its a sign they'll probably not make money on DQ12. And having already not made significant amounts of money on either FF16 or FF7 Rebirth, that would put Kingdom Hearts 4 as the last saviour title. KH3 only did the same range of 7 million sales, so expecting KH4 to run north of 10 is really questionable. So if I were a major investor in SquareEnix, and DQ3 HD-2D doesn't bump the sales needle up any further than where they've been, I'd think it's time to abandon ship. This is why I'm personally interested in SquareEnix expanding outside the RPG realm, but selling off those non-RPG assets to Embracer made the problem worse, not better. The best remaining alternative I've seen is a Dragon Quest Builders 3. Builders 2 adds a Minecraft-style block building element to the RPG formula (a new genre SquareEnix has named 'Block-Make RPG".) Minecraft has sold 300 million copies: that's 40 times SquareEnix's best efforts. Builders 2 already does a lot of stuff better than Minecraft. If Builders 3 can grow on that, do the things Minecraft was doing better, and if properly advertised as the superior, more adult-oriented alternative to "childish" Minecraft, they could grab a large chunk of the Minecraft market share, especially from teenagers and adults who are the historic RPG fanbase. They don't even need to displace Minecraft; a mere 10% of Minecraft's market, or 30 million sales, would be gigantic for SquareEnix. If a single game has potential to outdo everything they else do for a two to three year period, why aren't they pursuing it? (And even if they do make Builders 3, and its exactly the game fans wanted, I still bet they don't advertise it well enough to put a significant dent in Minecraft's market share, and it only ends up marginally profitable, not the mega-hit SquareEnix could really use.)

[@goranisacson2502]

@@lilisaur An interesting perspective here- I'm very curious what made SquareEnix decide to leave Amata and go for ArtDink. Economic issues all the way back then? Hubris thinking that the game already made wasn't good enough? Something breaking down somewhere in the companies personal relations? Who can tell, who can guess... As for Dragon Quest Builders 3 being able to take Minecraft's marketshare, I wonder if that would be possible even if they did it and marketed it right. Though I don't know what the previous game-sales were, I also wonder if the audience interested in "minecraft but refined" will still be able to leave Minecraft behind for a game that is a sequel AND carries the name of a franchise they might not be interested in. No argument about the marketing madness though- if DQ3 really is that important to them, the lack of trailers and ads I've seen do not bode well. Though they DID just announce they're making a mobile version of FF14, so if they found a way to monetize that in some way that WON'T have fans rebelling, but willingly spending even MORE money AND drawing in a new audience... well. Maybe that's what they're banking on in 2025.

[@blazie42069]

this acquisition better be blocked

[@misaafton]

Nah I hope it happens

[@pokemigas6049]

​@@misaafton Because...?

[@misaafton]

@@pokemigas6049 It won't be abandoned by Nintendo after mario and luigi brothership undersold Just like alpha dream

[@pokemigas6049]

@@misaafton Acquire makes more games than Mario and Luigi so they aren't at risk of closing. And where did you get the idea that Mario and Luigi undersold? There are no official numbers yet and Nintendo hasn't commented on whether or not they are disappointed with the sales. Don't make stuff up

[@misaafton]

@@pokemigas6049 Alpha Dream also makes more than one game makes no sense They did undersell Of course the Aquire could be looking for others so Nintendo dosnt do the same to them like alpha dream after underselling Also they originally made games on Playstation so it's natural the would choose sony

[@GinnyNReviews]

I have been playing M&L Brothership and, to me, it's somewhat sad they possibly they would not have the possibility of doing a 2nd one: This one has a hint of insecurity in almost all decisions and I would love for them to do a second game but with better footing in their own style

[@Level_Eleven]

This news made me so angry. Sony refuses to remaster Bloodborne or elaborate on why, but now they want to buy FromSoftware? 🙄🙄🙄

[@misaafton]

Nintendo refuses to touch star fox And earthbound both company's suck with IPs i argue Nintendo is way worse thou They have a hored of IPs that are neglected

[@SUPERVEGETTO92]

@misaafton Earthbound has been finished for years the creator doesnt want to make new games gor it.

[@sharkchannel61]

@@misaafton That's just not true. Nintendo has brought back a lot of classic franchises recently like Famicom Detective Club, Mario and Luigi, Advance Wars, Endless Ocean, Mario vs DK, Another Code, F-Zero, etc. And all that while keeping most of their other old franchises still going and even creating new ones like ARMS, Splatoon, Game Builder Garage, etc. Also, Nintendo has some really good reasons not to bring back some ips or at least slow down with them for now: last Star Fox game was disappointing for many fans, Earthbound's creator doesn't want to make a new game as he feels like there is nothing more to add and the game wouldn't be as good as first 3, it was his passion project after all, etc. Now compare this to Sony. Out of tons of their old ips only GoW, Ratchet and Clank (which isn't going to get a new game any time soon as we know from the leak) and Gran Turismo are still alive. You can try to count LBP but the only game it got is Sackboy 3d-platformer spin-off, so really not the same, just the same character. And there are a lot of dead ips there: Ape Escape, LocoRoco, Patapon, Dark Cloud, Jak and Daxter, Sly Cooper, Resistance, Syphon Filter, Forbidden Siren, Killzone, Spyro and Crash Bandicoot (yeah, they lost rigths to them, but still), Motorstorm, Gravity Rush, Legend of Dragoon, Pursuit Force, Rogue Galaxy, Infamous, Jeanne D'Arc, etc. Sony is just objectively worse at keeping their legacy franchises alive.

[@misaafton]

@@sharkchannel61 Fzero99 was a asset flip 99 royal game that isn't what fans wanted from the classics Or earthbound Again they own the IP if the creator dosnt want to make new ones they can find a studio to carry the torch Pilot wings they just left them to dust One of the best n64 games that utilized 3d graphics with physics They even let alpha dream shut down Ect ect you I could go on a ranting paragraph on each game neglected like starfox as you said they it didn't do well they will never touch it again Yet mario and luigi undersold so I'm guessing the same logic applies here

[@Yoshizuyuner]

@@misaafton they don't have enough companies to keep up with all the new and old ip afloat, is ridiculous to expect them to be able to carry that amount of ips on wards without little help from there partner companies and even then their partner companies are still busy with their own ips, they also respect the creators wishes of earthbound is more important than carrying the torch if you even have any respect for the creator at all you would agree

[@guedesbrawl]

I'm curious how well a video with a title like this, continuing from the thumbnail, will perform.

[@nintendoforecast]

It's off to a good start although it's posted a little later than usual so more people are online. I see Nin10doland posted a video on this at almost the exact same time and it has ~3 times as many views which is roughly consistent with the usual ratio of his views to mine (according to VidIQ, his average 26k; mine average 7.5k). I think the strategy should work when most views are coming in via the home page or KZbin recommendations. It may be that in a few weeks I change the title but not because it failed; simply because at that point more people would stumble into it through search and searches need keywords in the titles.

[@rodondendron]

Not ideal, but I’d rather have this outcome, than Tencent acquiring Kadokawa.

[@adult11252]

It's like choosing heart attack or cancer, lol.

[@Elykar]

Man this would really suck. I can only imagine the type of quality decline that will go down if this goes through. Seen Sony destroy their best stuff in favour of Western focused cinematic garbage (in my view). Sincerely hope this doesn't happen.

[@Melonposting]

Of course Sony _“Microsoft owning Call of Duty would create a monopoly!!!”_ would try to create a significantly bigger monopoly. This is what Sony does

[@owenkelsey6279]

I’d think M&L will still continue even if the acquisition goes through. Sony and Microsoft are just buying up all these game companies like they are spots on a literal monopoly board. I would find it foolish if the acquired companies weren’t allowed to collaborate with others outside of Sony.

[@TakisEnjoyer]

There are so many bad things about this acquisition. Really dont like the idea of Sony owning more than half of all anime medium considering how bad they handled previous ones...

[@questworldmatrix]

See Brak acquire. Acquire, Brak, acquire.

[@MorePower8679]

Sony is desperate. They is a chance they could become the next Sega. The whole Palworld lawsuit thing only happened because Sony got involved

[@1000rogueleader]

This acquisition would be terrible for the Anime and Manga industry. Kadokawa are huge players in both, and this would just increase Sony's stranglehold on them. It wouldn't be good for video games either, since Sony would gain Spike Chunsoft (whose former sister company, Mages, made the Famicom Detective Club remakes and the most recent game) and From Software, on top of Acquire. However, one thing that I've seen nobody bring up is that Nintendo actually OWNS stock in Kadokawa. This was stock that Nintendo bought in Dwango years ago at the behest of its CEO prior to it merging with Kadokawa. Nintendo still owns that stock, so Nintendo will have a say in any potential deal as a shareholder. Who knows, maybe Nintendo will intervene in this deal in some way, or present a counter offer.

[@AmboXB]

I hope so man, losing PMD like this would be soul-crushing

[@jellycore1316]

@@AmboXB Yeah, honestly ^^' I really don't want to lose PMD, that would be awful

[@DontKnowDontCare6.9]

Sony acquiring Kadokawa was just another move for them to corral various media in their stable. That From Software and Spike Chunsoft was there was a bonus. But can be interpreted as Sony doing a PS1 era of acquiring studios to limit their competitors.

[@madnessarcade7447]

Nintendo will either step in for acquire or spike or both

[@napoleonfeanor]

Sony doesn't care about the gaming parts

[@kirbythekirb59]

Like they did for rare 💀

[@madnessarcade7447]

1:46 they still like to keep PMD in their back pocket from time to time I assume TPC could buy spike if Nintendo doesn’t Or at least the rights to the mystery dungeon ip Could always return for switch 2

[@stellardafellar]

Nice video! Your video certainly has similar points I've covered in my own so I certainly agree with what you have to say.

[@InvaderIceStrike]

I’d love to see a Square Enix deep dive! My mind was blown when I learned how deep they are in manga. They own Full Metal Alchemist!!!

[@SpaceKingScot]

Gonna have to (respectfully) say no on the pokemon mystery dungeon sales and future talk. Our last update for Rescue Team remake was just shy of 2 million. Which places it confidently above both prior mainline titles in gates to infinity and super mystery dungeon. It's also better than explorers of the skys numbers, the third version of the explorers. We're now 4 years out from rescue team DX, when DX itself was 5 years off from super. It's just about time for a new title come next year. Gates to infinity was fairly early in the 3ds life cycle. As was blue rescue team back on the ds. Its a safe bet that they'd want to get a new game out early on a new platform. It's how the series has traditionally operated. We're probably not entirely likely to receive Gen 10 next year, 2026 just makes more sense in general. So filling that pokemon slot next year with a pokemon Mystery Dungeon game early into the new system makes perfect sense.

[@AmboXB]

Yeah but if sony takes over that means they wouldn’t make any more pmds? Plus we’re getting legends za next year so…..

[@carjohnson9729]

As much as Nintendo has always been my main focus in terms of the gaming sphere, I would absolutely love to hear you talk about other gaming Studios.

[@TMS-Oddbot]

I would love to see a video about Square Enix or other past close partners with Nintendo! There’s always ways to throw relevance of Nintendo in there, even if it’s minor

[@madnessarcade7447]

Let’s say Pokémon did want to make a new mystery dungeon game They still need spike because spike owns the original mystery dungeon ip

[@KoOk-h1d]

That's true considering the trademark ™️ is owned by chunsoft. I'm worried about how this will affect other parts of the industry. Side note does square own HD-2d ™️

[@lightdarksoul2097]

​@@KoOk-h1dI don't think you can own an art style

[@KoOk-h1d]

@lightdarksoul2097 You can still own an art style separate from your game. All video game series art styles can be trademarks or copyrighted to a series specifically to protect it.

[@adult11252]

​​​@@lightdarksoul2097You can own the brand, but not really in the art style in practical. There are plenty games that graphics similar to HD-2D but use another name because it's already trademarked. For example, Sword of Conralia named it NeoPixel.

[@lucazaroli6761]

Hope it doesn’t happen, I don’t want kadokawa to be bought

[@waffleboywonder8868]

I kinda figured Sony would have their eyes on Rockstar and square but this is quite troubling still well at least it aint Disney...

[@giffica]

this is an incredible channel man, honestly, as an investor and consumer. great work frankly.

[@zackwarrington7272]

After seeing Sony Fumble and bumble through concords failure. I hope this does not go through.

[@PalaeoJoe]

I love Square Enix, please do a deep dive into them

[@JCSA79V]

Kadokawa wouldn't be getting acquired by Sony Interactive Entertainment considering how multimedia they are so from a gaming perspective this is unlikely to affect much, they'll probably operate under Sony Music like their other anime related purchases. SIE might ask to have From Soft under PlayStation Studios, but the other gaming studios would continue as is.

[@FoxGalahArtStuff]

02:49 More information about Mario and Sonic's status nowadays. The IOC cancelled the series in favour of esports and NFTs. This is an instance of one of the IOC's many corrupt practices (ironic because they are meant to represent the harmony of humanity). This was a bad decision because it upset many fans, NFTs are dead now, the Mario and Sonic fanbase was big enough to warrant the Mario and Sonic games being released, and the IOC can easily do Mario and Sonic, esports and even the NFTs (as idiotic as they are) since they are one of the biggest sporting companies in the world and have lots of money. However, like you said, Mario and Sonic can return and we might see it return in the 2030s. Why do I think it will return in the 2030s? Well, it's because the IOC is getting a new president soon and there's a chance that they'll bring back Mario and Sonic since they would likely have different opinions and visions from the current president.

[@Twinflame.ascending]

Id love to see your idea for square enix and what to do next as i feel they need nintendo to help them and guide them forward, being multiplatform is not the way to go and plus final fantasy needs direction or will be lost as a franchise

[@BigaloMax]

Nintendo will be fine but the anime industry wont be

[@56ty_]

I’m really worried for gaming as a whole. The news just keep getting worse and worse…

[@HuigbertsGamed]

Just when we got Mario and Luigi back D:

[@AmboXB]

Man… if this goes through this may well kill off any hope of a new PMD game.. Just hurts the soul.

[@houragents5490]

I'd love to see you cover Square Enix

[@andrewmcleod9993]

Always enjoy your videos, i particularly like the balanced approach and lack of sensationalism, so I for one would be very keen to see a video on Square-Enix

[@cytota8613]

I'm def curious to hear your insights on Square's current situation

[@psypokeslowduck2880]

Great video, very informational.

[@randombread1456]

Crazy how Sony also got mad at Microsoft for trying to buy Activision because they were concerned it’d cause a monopoly. This is the most “rules for thee, not for me” stuff I’ve seen in a while.

[@itsasecrettoeverybody]

No chunsoft.... My shiren the wandering.... No!

[@Aztorak_1]

"Greed is food" - Every Board of Directors in the entire World, Every Year

[@joes-jv9hk]

I would appreciate your insight on any company. Your videos are always well-researched . I would love a deep dive on how Activision utilizes their developers or how Insomniac develops multiple games at once. You could be like the Modern MBA of video game companies

[@nintendoforecast]

Ha! Thank you! I'll probably stick to Nintendo's orbit in the main as for time reasons I seldom if ever follow news in the Sony/Microsoft space but never say never.

[@darknova3529]

if Snoy buys it, maybe they can help develop successfull titles such as concord 2.

[@goranisacson2502]

Would like to see a video about SquareEnix, have your type of patient investigative videos might give me more insight into the matter.

[@Drakevid]

Imagine if Nintendo responds with buying Kadokawa instead of Sony, that would be actually better for everyone, especially videogame industry and anime.

[@Elykar]

They don't usually do stuff like that (which is part of why I like them more). That would be massively preferable to this though.

[@-lord1754]

I still dont want a monopoly but i imagine nintendo at least wouldnt do anything to what kadokawa produces lol

[@poyrazunlu]

*worse for everyone

[@Drakevid]

​@@Elykaryeah I know Nintendo is note like that but if anything that would be note only better bit actually low key good

[@Drakevid]

​@@poyrazunluworse than Sony buying then ? No the only thing worse than Sony and Microsoft is Tencent Games...

[@circledude2362]

you do know once sony acquires acquire, sony can forbid them to work with nintendo

[@icalivy]

i'd love a square enix deep dive

[@BearsFanGoomba]

Nintendo should buy them 😎

[@Goolix_Aero]

Let's hope Sony doesn't acquire Acquire. And doesn't keep From from the rest of the industry

[@DragonGamer-ml4mq]

Short answer I would really much rather have someone else not SONY buy Kadokawa. that way Managa, light Novels and anime and the other good stuff from Kadokawa can continue to growing with " SONY say and show it not make anime big sale unlike our video game sell number which usually make us BIG Money currency " or something SimilarTo sell expectations that square keep say does meant our sell goal.

[@StephenYap3]

Hey, Sony. How about making use of your currently-owned resources instead of buying companies?

[@Fonz128]

Nintendo hasn’t acquired a studio since monolith soft during the Wii era.

[@zeroshadow-warrior2304]

Nintendo have bought Shiver Entertainment this year and Next Level Games in 2021.

[@be2081]

Looking at Square would be interesting so yes please

[@Fonz128]

If Sony acquires that company then Sony gets a cut off of the sales of some Nintendo games.

[@ruolbu]

If Aquire and Spike Chunsoft FINALLY get around to reviving the Way of the Samurai series under Sony, I don't care about whatever consequences this might have for Nintendo. They'll be fine. WOTS is not T_T

[@nesterpowers8814]

Would love to hear more about square enix...i remember when sony was propositioning a squenix buyout but shut it down during microsofts legal issues while they aquired activision I had always hoped after that face slap from sony that squenix would work out an acquisition with nintendo. Especially now that it seems that square is hemorrhaging money due to massive failures like forespoken and even ALL the recent final fantasy games not preforming as well as expected (tho by no means would I say the FF titles were a flop)

[@LucasMantin]

If Sony acquire Acquire it'll be...

[@ninaschmidt3619]

I hope Nintendo does not go through with this Nintendo to How to proud to lose Game , Devolder company

[@SailBros_204]

First Palworld, and now this? What is Sony thinking?

[@christianr.5868]

@@SailBros_204 money

[@Soggyweatbix]

what happened to the pink shirt

[@PikaPhantomVG]

"Many of the Mario & Luigi staff were within Nintendo anyway" On what basis are you making this claim? The main sticking point for me is that Acquire and Spike Chunsoft's approaches to game development feel like an antithesis to what PlayStation has become. They're generally focused on making games they understand are niche in their appeal, whereas Sony wants virtually every first-party game to be a blockbuster release. It doesn't seem like they'd mesh well together. It may be possible that they wouldn't move Acquire, Spike Chunsoft, and Gotcha Gotcha Games (the RPG Maker developers) under PlayStation Studios, as they did with Bungie, and that they would operate similarly to Aniplex, which has apparently been releasing games on Nintendo platforms. But it might also mean they'll be willing to offload the studios to willing buyers. I could see Square Enix wanting to own Acquire, and Spike Chunsoft could go to just about any Japanese company with the money to acquire them.

[@nintendoforecast]

See my previous video but while I didn't investigate everybody's prior credits, I did do a random sampling and a number of the staff were across a range of previous Nintendo projects. Perhaps I should have said "a number" rather than "many" as this could suggest more than half.

[@JCSA79V]

Good shout on the Aniplex situation.

[@tessafroese992]

What does he mean buying the company is not the same as buying the talent?

[@nintendoforecast]

People can change jobs and often do during big shakeups like a takeover.

[@tessafroese992]

@@nintendoforecast change jobs for who though?

[@tessafroese992]

@@nintendoforecast this kind of thing worries me.

[@johnsmith-ut8dq]

Make a video on yoshiaki koizumi

[@nintendoforecast]

On my Patreon there's a fairly chunky podcast about EPD8 which has a lot on Koizumi. He's also in my director deep dive. I will one day make a video about him as I think he's great and there's a lot to say but I expect he'll be front and centre of a lot of Nintendo media soon so the video would date very quickly.

[@benji6325]

A video on Square Enix would be interesting

[@T-Truth_vanillemilch]

All I want is Octopath Traveler 3 on the Nintendo Switch 2. C'mon Sony don't you have enough already?

[@zeroshadow-warrior2304]

Isn't the Octopath Traveler IP solely owned by Square Enix as Team Asano were the developers with Aquire being a co-developer. Like I remember that the first game was initially published by Nintendo and that upon the publishing rights returning to Square the game was delisted for a few weeks. I also just looked at the copyright notice for both games and the copyright only states Square Enix next to the little encircled c.

[@T-Truth_vanillemilch]

​@@zeroshadow-warrior2304Didn't Kadokawa buy the studio Acquire earlier this year? So that they have Fromsoftware/Acquire/Spike Chunsoft all under them

[@madnessarcade7447]

Depending on how important it is to Nintendo if brothership does well Nintendo will probably step in like they’ve done before

[@napoleonfeanor]

It's not Playststion division of Sony. They may sell developers as Sony closed all Japanese studios they owned

[@Nikolas0269]

Give it until Christmas man

[@Jackie_burnp]

Yay late stage capitalism 😔

[@DontKnowDontCare6.9]

Id rather have late stage capitalism, than late stage communism disguised as woketards.

[@blankfall]

Cash rules everything around me.

[@pistolpetereal]

Sony be like yeah let’s sue Microsoft for doing something we have done multiple times while we continue to copy Xbox and Nintendo and literally do nothing for the game industry because we can generate money through marketing hype (We would have been much better off if the 3DO and Jaguar beat the PS1) And the PS2 having DVD capabilities was sort of the jackpot for them too unfortunately. All their exclusives kinda suck they really only focus on graphics and story while undermining the most important thing which is gameplay. If people wanted to have good visuals and a good story they would have bought a DVD playe- OH WAIT 😂 Baffling to me how they’ve taken off this much

[@madnessarcade7447]

I thought from soft was owned by Bandai namco?

[@frostysnowj2760]

They only publish fromsoft games, they don't own fromsoft

[@Crafty_boy70]

Kodokawa owns a roughly 70% stake in From Software

[@madnessarcade7447]

I mean Nintendo is going after palworld because Sony is involved specifically Nintendo can sometimes be petty when it comes to Sony so I wouldn’t be surprised if they stepped in just because Sony is involved

[@lilisaur]

Nope. They were going after Palworld before Sony got involved; would still be going after them even if Sony wasn't. Nine out of ten times they go after someone, Sony isn't involved.

[@madnessarcade7447]

@@lilisaurno it was when moon chnnl made a vid on it he’s a lawyer

[@KoOk-h1d]

Sony also did the same to Mircosoft. They try cutting others resources to make sure stuff like this won't happen.

[@lilisaur]

@@madnessarcade7447 Wait.. So your argument is that Nintendo won't take legal action until someone else makes a video about it? Have to wonder how that worked back in the 80s and 90s before the advent of things like KZbin, because Nintendo would go to court then, too. (In other words, coincidence is not proof of correlation.)

[@DontKnowDontCare6.9]

Moon channel also made a video on The CONpletionist. Which he immediately took down after Karl Jobst, a nonlawyer pointed out the errors in his defense of said scammer in a rebuttal video.

[@HaruVibes_]

Ppl like to overreact as usual. Can always expect and count on NF to give proper in depth takes.

[@-lord1754]

A lot of panic is related to non game related things

[@GamesAndAnimes]

That would really sucks, less for Nintendo, but more for Spike Chunsoft. They released so many good stuff on Nintendo systems (Zero Escape series, Master Detective Archives RAIN CODE, Mystery Dungeon/Shiren the Wanderer, AI Somnia Files, Danganronpa series), if Sony say stop to Nintendo releases, they would only have Sony and Steam as platform and losing a lot of potential buyers. Also the combination of the Spike Chunsoft games and Nintendo systems is really fitting in my eyes. That would be, at least for me, a interesting topic for a video. On what system sold Spike Chunsoft the most unites? (And yes, I am interested in other companies too.) It sucks, that Sony do a Microsoft. Buying others, make terrible business decisions and closing studios (Sony London with that killing WipeOut, the Studio behind Concord). ------------ Scrolling though Wikipedia page about Kadokawa Corporation. Spike Chunsoft is 100% owned by media company Dwango Co., which also own the video platform NicoNico and company Mages. Mages, the developer of visual novel like Steins;Gate and the Famicon Detective Remake and Emio. Also it seems Nintendo brought 2013 1,5% of shares from Dwango Co., so Nintendo saw them back then as a valuable partner. I really hope Nintendo win the patent lawsuit against Palworld to give Sony a clear stop of there behaviour.

[@DragonGamer-ml4mq]

I and many other anime fans dont want SONY to buy the fire bird aka Kadokawa; because Kadokawa have output so many Quality real Quality MANGA Light Novels. Meanwhile SONY on the other side have shut down there own anime stream website afterwords bought Crunchyroll and then the quality of stream anime and selll anime good products condition started going down because there was no Competition in the anime industry for streaming with quality of life change and more options since SONY destroy there well now anime and manga Light Novels rivals website for anime good, Anime Manga, Anime Lights and anime Figures etc and all of the stuff arrived in very good condition without big damage to the quality all in one piece; no items are bended, no items become broken as the packages make it to the destination where the people are Expecting anime Figures, videogame figures to not be missing party or important parts to support the figures in general to not be damaged to the point that you pay for a new well care quality product that cost $500 and above for even lasting durability test for years. The example is you pay 5k for a brand new "Car" however you receive a car that very problematic which the car break down every 5 to 8 months to fix the car engine it would cost the same as buying a "brand new car in better amazing condition " from the same car seller or on the other hand maybe it not the car engine that break down every 6 to7 months the rise problem for the car is the transmission parts of the car to start the car transport of injection gas to the starting car engine and then re turning the gas to the gas tank of the engine of the car; so the start transport the people in the of Safety human way possible with Medium to low pass quality product sells of "brand new" use cars product.