Sony has announced that it has acquired a 2.5% stake in Bandai Namco, with a view to “expanding the fan community for IP such as anime and manga around the world”.
In a press release, Sony says the goal with regards to acquiring this stake in the Elden Ring and Tekken studio is “strengthening engagement, particularly in the anime field”, an area in which Sony expects “rapid market growth”.
Sony acknowledges its previous collaborations with Bandai Namco, but the company says it wants to expand these efforts beyond “games, anime, and music” into a “broader range of areas”, including merchandising, “experiential entertainment”, and more.
It’s worth noting that this isn’t specifically a gaming-related investment; this is the wider Sony corporation investing in Bandai Namco Holdings rather than Bandai Namco Entertainment, so it doesn’t just pertain to the latter’s video game output.
However, since Sony and Bandai Namco seem focused on the anime and manga part of this partnership, it’s entirely possible we’ll see some new anime or manga adaptations of Bandai Namco’s best-known works.
One particularly obvious addition to that catalog would seem to be Elden Ring, which is arguably crying out for an anime adaptation; I’m not a huge fan of the idea of any visual reimagining of FromSoftware’s work, but it makes a lot more sense than the recently-revealed live-action movie.
Other Bandai Namco properties, like Tekken, the Tales series, and perhaps even Little Nightmares could be prime candidates for anime and manga adaptation, but of course, we’ll have to wait and see what comes of this partnership to find out whether any of those are on the cards.
This news comes just a couple of months after Bandai Namco celebrated a strong year in sales terms, with profits almost doubling on the previous year. That success likely comes as a result of the strong performance of 2024 releases like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree and Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero.
