Last month, it became known that Sony is in talks to acquire Kadokawa, a Japanese media conglomerate whose subsidiary includes FromSoftware. Bunshun reported that Kadokawa employees are hopeful for a successful deal outcome.
In an interview with Bunshun, a long-term Kadokawa employee admitted that he and his colleagues are dissatisfied with the company's leadership and are hoping for changes. He pointed out the detachment of the top management from the rest of the staff in certain situations. According to Bunshun's source, the management did not even hold a meeting when hackers broke into Kadokawa's network in June and stole 1.5 TB of data, which included employees' personal information.
"I hope that if [Sony — ed.] takes over the management, they will first and foremost dismiss Kadokawa's president, Takeshi Natsuno," said a Kadokawa employee.
Additionally, Bunshun reports that former Kadokawa chairman Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, who stepped down after bribery allegations, was surprised to learn about the negotiations between Kadokawa and Sony. He is currently adopting a wait-and-see approach but is generally optimistic.
Earlier, Bloomberg, citing sources, reported that Kadokawa and Sony have differing views on the deal. Kadokawa is allegedly only open to a complete sale of the media conglomerate, while Sony would prefer to acquire only the divisions related to anime and video games.