Mario & Luigi's Future In Doubt As A Potential Sony Acquisition Emerges

Acquire aren’t even the original team so why the fate of Mario+Luigi going forward would be in question is beyond me. It’s already shifted to a new developer once so there’s nothing stopping them finding a new studio should it come to it

what will nintendo ever do?
it's over guys.
it's OVER

@MJF /s

Sony owning Kadokawa would probably be a bad thing for a lot of japanese pop media, since Kadokawa is a large face in the akihabara subculture, even if a lot of people don't know they exist.

There's always that looming fear of anime adaptations being diluted in the future, or forcing censorships in anime beyond what is allowed on TV. Or just playing things overly safe like what Sony has been doing with the Madoka Magica series, giving lots of sequels even after the original series ended properly

The console market is so anti-consumer with it's "exclusives'. There's honestly no reason to buy consoles without that, unless you want something on the go like a Switch or Steam Deck - which are a little more mobile than laptops.

What did carry over from the original M&L formulation to the latest game, would not at all be beyond another studio to replicate or even enhance. Perhaps moving over the tools to make a new game to another studio may mean it’ll take longer for the next game, but it’ll doubtless remain an active series within Nintendo.

I'm a million times more concerned about stuff like AI: The Somnium Files and Danganronpa in this scenario honestly. Would have to imagine those series would go on to basically only exist in the form of, like, a Monokuma Astro Bot skin or something.

I kind of want Sony to just go away now, they're actually making gaming a bit more difficult.
Still waiting for FF7R2 to appear on another console/PC

really hope so, haven't played a game like MLB that's as soulless, grindy and with horrible graphics in forever.

@DarkFighter You should play more games then

@eltomo I agree, Xbox and Playstation have zero raison detre. They're just sub-par PCs which lure people in with anti-consumer exclusives. At least the handholds have a USP.

I don't like Sony and don't really care for anything they do gaming related, but this would make me like Sony even less.

I'm pretty sure Sony had lay-offs at some point this year, but they can afford buying game studios? JUST GIVE MARIO AND LUIGI A BREAK

If Brothership doesn't sell well then Nintendo might not see a point in continuing the franchise especially if this goes through. That would mean they'd have to find a whole new team, and it simply might not be worth it to them.

I honestly had no idea Kodakawa owned all those game companies. Or any game companies. I just thought the published Sailor Moon and like, romance manga…? Sucks though, SpikeChunsoft makes some pretty good games, it’d be a shame to lose them on Nintendo consoles…

If Sony is stupid enough to throw away the money Spike Chunsoft games makes on Nintendo consoles, that's their problem.

There's plenty of others than Nintendo can make games with.

How about no more massive corporate consolidations?

@Dazman Using that logic the Switch is a sub-par tablet that lures people in with anti-consumer exclusives.

@PikminMarioKirby That would be sad after such a revival year for the Mario RPG genre. 3 in under a year!

Surely this can't be even be possible. I remember reading that in the 2000s Nintendo was blocked from acquiring Bandai (before the Namco merge) under anti-monopoly laws.

How could Sony be allowed to buy a company that big?

@MrPeanutbutterz Yeah, pretty much. If there weren't exclusives only poor people would choose it over something like the Steam Deck and not through choice.

I don't really think there's anything really to worry about here, at least in regards to the prospect of PS exclusivity. Kadokawa are quite a multimedia company, having fingers in many pies. Sony have also demonstrated with the Bungie acquisition that they aren't above owning gaming studios which aren't part of the PlayStation Studios family. It would be in Sony's best interests to allow Kadokawa's gaming entities to exist as is, much of their output is specifically Japan focused, and sells better on Nintendo. Let's not forget they've been getting into shipping games on PC and even Switch.

Unless proven otherwise, I would imagine Kadokawa will largely operate independently, much like Bungie were supposed to do until they started losing massive amounts of cash.

Kadokawa is a very important Japanese company. If Sony will buy them... RIP Japanese media.

I mean, if Brothership does well I’m sure they’ll arrange something with them or find a new developer. And if Brothership doesn’t do well, well then they probably weren’t going to make another with these devs anyway.

I guess the only way this could result in the series being cancelled that wouldn’t have had that happen anyway is if Brothership has a middling performance and finding a new dev is not worth the time. But even then, there are a lot of for hire studios out there that would jump at the chance to work on a Nintendo franchise like this. I don’t think they’d have trouble.

The genre isnt in trouble, Nintendo will find another.

Sony doing what Sony does best: buying their way to success. Their fanbase says Sony only bought studios they have close collaboration with but it’s still buying your way to success.

Over $3 Billion on Bungie and that didn’t go well. They have so much money to throw away it’s disgusting. Horrible company.

@mariomaster96 I've literally completed 60+ games on Switch alone, not counting the previous generations. the game is bland and empty

This is getting ridiculous. It feels like every other day, the big gaming companies or their parent companies are constantly in talks of buying basically everything despite the fact that they can't sustain themselves doing so (Microsoft shutting down multiple studios following the ludicrous Activision-Blizzard buyout comes to mind) so really in the long-run the only people that benefit from these buyouts are the out-of-touch CEOs and shareholders that don't actually care for any of the games these companies produce and only are invested in the bottom dollar.

Terrible new's. I have zero faith in Sony these day's and this would probably spell end to Shiren and other nieche series.

I thought my day couldn't get anymore terrible

This would be a nightmare if it turns true... That Sony will own Kadokawa and FromSoftware will be so bad for us.

What if Sony injects their politics into on all of Kadokawas Anime and Manga if now Sony owns them then?
The Anime and Manga industry has been completely untouched by the western PC and Woke propagandas while the western entertainment industry has been dead for ages thanks of it.

I really hope that this is just a baseless rumor... But Sony is so desperate now, so this probably is true.
I also don't think that FS wants to be owned by Sony which will just hinder their freedom. No way that Sony will letting FS having a full creative freedom with their politics. Sony will probably force FS to co-working with Sweet Baby Inc.

I fear that Sony will trying to buy every bigger Japanese gaming studios just to hinder Nintendo and Microsoft.

Sony owns Crunchyroll and Funimation. Now it's hungry for Kadokawa. It would be horrible.

But it wouldn't kill Mario & Luigi RPG. We thought it would die when the original dev team went kaputz but Nintendo revived it. The same would happen, if there was desire enough from fans.

Spike Chunsoft's loss to Sony would further consolidate Square-Enix and their franchises onto PlayStation, because not only are they key for Octopath, but more importantly, they're key collaborators with Enix on Dragon Quest. That's the franchise that allowed Enix to buy Squaresoft. They're also developers of the Mystery Dungeon franchise, so Pokémon Mystery Dungeon would be an issue (but expect more Torneko & Chocobo Mystery Dungeons, perhaps, instead).

I believe it will reach a point where actions like this would already be considered monopolizing and companies can file legal action.

As for the companies being acquired, they would need to consider if being boxed in to just one system is to their best interest. Let's be honest, Sony isn't exactly the biggest in the gaming industry right now, no matter how loudly the purists howl.

Who cares about that, the real issue is that Sony would have From Software, meaning any future Dark Souls/Elden Ring/Sekiro games could all be exclusives from now on. We already saw how bad that with what happened to Bloodborne (they still refuse to remaster/port it, even though Miyazaki is up for it).

Hold up...how would this cast doubt? Alpha Dream was straight up shut down and Nintendo just moved the series to a new developer. They could even decide to develop a new M&L game in-house if they wanted to.
How does this cast doubt?

I'm really sick of Sony and Microsoft trying to buy every studio. The worst part is it's not even working for them. The studios end up shutting down and gamers take the hit in the long run.

Even if the acquisition went through, Sony like Microsoft will also had to face the FTC first before they would be able to bargain on an acquisition that big. The FTC didn't go after them when they acquired Bungie cause Bungie was a smaller entity.

Acquiring not just the studios but the actual parent company of said studios is a dangerous gamble as it could lead to multiple layoffs and potential job loss from staff of both the acquisition partner and Sony Interactive Entertainment. I don't see this acquisition doing so well if somehow the talking actually works out. In any case RIP to some of these studios soon, Sony are known for killing their own studios without any rhymes or reasons so here's hoping Kadokawa see the lights and don't take the bait.

It depends on which arm of The Sony Group is doing the purchasing.
Sony Music has historically done well with Nintendo collabs. They've published soundtracks for series like Zelda and Mother and have advertised things like the Switch port of Fate/Extella through Fate/Grand Order. Sony Pictures will be working with Nintendo and Arad Productions to distribute the upcoming live-action Zelda movie.

If it's Sony Interactive Entertainment (the division that owns the PlayStation brand), however, that's a wrap. Part of the reason why Nintendo pulled Smash out of the EVO fighting game tournament lineup was because of EVO being bought out by Sony.

''Should Sony acquire, um, Acquire''

I knew that line would show up somewhere in the article lol

@larryisaman Well seeing as the series director works at Acquire, the series would probably actually die. They’re the only reason Nintendo went with Acquire I’m pretty sure.

@NCChris The reason why Nintendo went with Acquire is because the series director and combat director for the original games worked there.

Very tired of these big Sony and Microsoft acquisitions, followed by studio rot and demise without fail, of course.

This was a ridiculously click-baity headline, and I don't care for it! 😝

@Dazman "Exclusives" are about 95% of new games that are actually worth playing. Nintendo and Sony have incentive to make system selling games. If you take consoles away and exclusives with them. You're going to see a whole lot more live service garbage.

The click-baitiest of click-bait titles that ever click-baited.

@MrPeanutbutterz It's not anti-consumer exclusives if Nintendo are the ones who made those games or actually own those IPs. Nintendo didn't buy franchise to make them exclusives, Nintendo made their own exclusives. When Nintendo bought Rare, they didn't make Battletoads or Jetpac exclusives to their platform, they had Rare made exclusives for them like Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, heck Nintendo even let Rare kept a lot of those exclusives with them when they got shift to Microsoft such as Killer Instinct, Conker, and Perfect Dark.

When Nintendo bought Monolith Soft, they didn't acquired IPs like Xenogears, Xenosaga, and Baten Kaitos, those IPs remained with their parent publisher. Instead Nintendo had them create an entirely new IP such as Monado: Beginning of the World series which we now known as the Xenoblade Chronicles franchise.

Okay, I've seen all the click bait versions of this story but this one ticks me off the most because it's just a bold faced lie. PlayStation could never buy Kadokawa themselves. Kadokawa is too freaking big. Sony could feasibly buy them, IF Japan's much stricter anti-monopoly laws allowed it, and in this scenario there would be no change whatsoever. Other departments of Sony have played nice with Nintendo in the past; other divisions of Sony have games currently in Switch. FATE is Sony Music's biggest earner and it's on Switch.

Kadokawa Games will not suddenly become locked to PlayStation if this does go through. Stop lieing

That would suck so much if that purchase actually happens.