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| Sony plans to acquire more than $ 950 million in cartoon service Crunchyroll |
Nikkei News reported on Friday that Sony is in final negotiations with AT&T, a US telecoms company, to acquire the Crunchyroll animation streaming service for more than 100 billion yen ($ 957 million).
Nikki said the acquisition will give Sony access to 70 million members worldwide, enabling the Japanese entertainment and electronics company to better compete with Netflix and other global competitors.
Sony, which recently acquired exclusive trading rights (Crunchyroll), hopes to use the new channel to distribute its entertainment content, including movies and music.
Sony acquired Funimation Productions in 2017 for $ 143 million, and is an animation distribution company with 1 million paying subscribers.
As part of CEO Kenichiro Yoshida's strategy, Sony is expanding its gaming and entertainment business to increase recurring revenue streams to mitigate the impact of unstable hardware sales cycles.
Sony raised its annual revenue forecast this week as the gaming business continues to attract "cross-demand" and has acquired the Japanese animated film Devil Slayer, which was jointly published by Sony's music division. A good start in Japan.
In another message related to Sony, the company announced more detailed information on the PlayStation Plus series, a new (PlayStation 4) PS4 format available on the (PlayStation 5) PS5 platform, through a new blog that makes digital downloads.
The service is expected to launch on November 12 on the new American gaming platform. PlayStation Plus will provide more than a dozen classic (PlayStation 4) games to their (PlayStation 5) owners.
These games are available to PlayStation Plus subscribers for free and are always available as long as the subscription is valid.