On the heels of news breaking that MGM is being acquired by Amazon for a whopping $8.45 million, Sony Group CEO Yoshida Kenichiro has clarified that his company – and any parts of it – are not going to be sold. This means that it won’t have its content funneled to one specific streaming service, like the model other top competitors have set up, but that it will continue to utilize its existing licensing deals with Netflix and Disney to enable audiences to access its library.
From an interview with the Financial Times reported by Variety, Yoshida explained the company’s mission, which is to “fill the world with Kando (the Japanese word for ‘emotion’) through the power of creativity and technology.” Speaking to recent moves, he said, “There is drastic realignment in the media industry, but I think our strategy of creating content as an independent studio while working with various partners will work.
I think the reason we were able to sign good deals with Netflix and Disney is because they were attracted to our PlayStation Productions pipeline.
We can strengthen our ability to create content through such group-wide collaboration.”
Yoshida’s short-term goals remain ambitious. “Sony plans to strengthen its initiatives in the service, mobile and social spaces to further expand these communities, and seeks to expand the number of people around the world directly connected to the Sony Group due to their desire to consume entertainment from the current number of approximately 160 million to 1 billion people” as well as “strengthening the PlayStation Now cloud streaming game service and … investing in or partnering with external studios.” Over the next three years, Sony will spend JPY2 trillion ($18.4 billion) on “strategic investment, and investment towards growth in the IP and DTC business; technology; and share repurchases.
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In terms of successful collaborations, Yoshida praised Demon Slayer The Movie: Mugen Train as an example of a positive cross-platform effort, from its start as a comic to an anime TV series, theme song, and ultimately record-breaking Japanese film, as well as a planned game. He also previewed that the PlayStation game Uncharted will become a film, a joint project between Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony Interactive Entertainment.