I think Sony is going with a Japanese publisher this time, they are in need of japanese studios, and it can be anyone even Kadokawa.
I don't understand why people are mentioning Amazon or Apple but not Tencent...
The issue with acquiring a notable Japanese publisher is that they largely still have a heavy degree of family leadership and ownership. You'd basically have to have the founding families cash out and at a certain point money might not be enough of a motivator. Especially with Sony, who's been de-investing regionally over the past half decade. I can see a new round of consolidation in Japan (mirroring they western buying spree we're going through) but if that happens on the big publisher level I'd expect more mergers than acquisitions like we saw in the early/mid 2000s.
This applies to pretty much everyone too; Bandai Namco, Square Enix, Capcom, Koei Tecmo, Konami, Sega Sammy, etc. Funny enough the one notable JP Publisher to really cut ties to it's founding family was Nintendo several years back.
As far as Kadokawa, beyond just the complication of Sony buying a primarily (print) publishing house and also owning Niconico, there's the fact Tencent is actively investing (already the 2nd largest shareholder with more than triple Sony's investment) and would probably swoop in and outbid them if the opportunity was there. It's also worth pointing out Nintendo's also a shareholder in Kadokawa, although with only about half the shares Sony owns after their capital alliance.
The theorycrafting I've seen around Sony buying Kadokawa rests on SME being the acquiring group anyway and if that were to happen I don't see why Aniplex wouldn't just hold on to the games division (which includes Kadokawa Games, Spike Chunsoft and FromSoftware). Aniplex is already firmly multiplatform and looking to grow more in the console/PC space too. Souls specifically has it's largest market on PC (by far, almost 2:1 vs consoles) and while Xbox is smallest slice, it's still roughly half of PlayStation going by DS3 shipments+digital. There's a lot to lose there if From went PS exclusive/first and besides which I think if SIE were at all really interested in going this direction then they probably wouldn't have fired all the Japan Studio leads and contacts at EDD that worked on Demon's Souls (both versions), Bloodborne and Déraciné.
I think if Sony were looking to acquire a JP pub, one that might work better would be a tier down with Arc System Works. They're already privately owned and they could align well with PlayStation's eSports and service initiatives via the FGC/Evo. I mean, I'd hate it because it'd probably mean the end of Kunio and other non-fighting ASW projects like Kowloon Highschool or Jake Hunter but I can at least see a sound path and logic here.
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