Sony Close To Buying Crunchyroll For Nearly $1 Billion

According to Nikkei, Sony is close to acquiring U.S. anime-streaming service Crunchyroll for more than $957 million. From the report: Sony has its own popular anime, titles like "Demon Slayer" and "Kimetsu no Yaiba," but has been licensing it to streaming services. Sony's Aniplex, the studio behind "Kimetsu no Yaiba," has a variety of content, including movies and music, that is mainly distributed by overseas companies. If the acquisition is realized, global competition for content among companies like Netflix and Hulu will intensify.

Crunchyroll was founded in 2006 and has its headquarters in San Francisco. In 2018, AT&T, the U.S. telecommunications giant, became its parent company. Sony recently obtained the exclusive right to negotiate for Crunchyroll. Crunchyroll has 70 million free members and 3 million paying subscribers in more than 200 countries and regions, including the U.S and Europe. Crunchyroll would also give Sony more than 1,000 titles that it can use to vary its offerings.

The hell with that

[dwillmore]

Guess I will stop being a paying member if this goes through becaues teh hell with Sony.

Re:The hell with that

[Dutch Gun]

Given that they already own Funimation, it seems like a bad idea to hand Sony a near monopoly within this particular streaming niche. Why don't we stop these monopolistic acquisitions *before* they happen for once?

Because that would mean interfering with

[rsilvergun]

the free market. You don't want to support Job Killing Regulations (TM) do you? What are you, a Communist or (shudder) a Socialist Member Of The Radical Left Mob?*

* Can you tell I've been getting bombarded with pro-Trump ads of late?

Re:

[xlsior]

Given that they already own Funimation, it seems like a bad idea to hand Sony a near monopoly within this particular streaming niche. Why don't we stop these monopolistic acquisitions *before* they happen for once?

1) Sony is throwing a billion more dollars at them than you are
2) Most people would have a hard time saying "no" to a billion dollar offer

Crunchy roll

[t4eXanadu]

Sony is getting ripped off paying $1 billion for a stale roll, I'll tell you what.

Re:

[rwagner76]

As well as the keep their web services up-to-date (their manga viewer on their website still requires Flash), you're not far off.

zippity do da

[AndyKron]

Fuck ya Crunchyroll! What the Hell is Crunchyroll and why can't I eat it?

I wonder if the Funimation anime will be back

[rsilvergun]

e.g. the stuff Crunchyroll lost after their deal expired. Still annoyed I can't buy the OG Tenchi Muyo OVAs without paying scalper prices. Kid is finally out of school and was gonna go on a minor anime buying spree to celebrate only to find out nothing's in stock.

Re:

[Coius]

my wife and I bought ours on Amazon. Pretty much all the ones i Cared to watched (original through Tenchi in Tokyo). Yes, I've seen the latest post about amazon web streaming on slashdot, but it was dirt cheap to watch. Incidently, I can actually download the episodes to my devices, so I can still keep them locally if you worry about that.

OK, but can they revive DramaFever?

[kriston]

OK, but can they revive DramaFever like how Rakuten bought Viki?

Demon Slayer = Kimetsu no Yaiba...

[SinGunner]

They're the same damn show. It's just the English and Japanese names.

Re:

[Artemis3]

Haha I just laughed when i read that /. entry:

Sony has Demon Slayer, and Demon Slayer....

Typical media mistake aside, I wouldn't like this because the streaming service would stop being neutral. Its as if Disney purchased Netflix, non Disney content would probably just stop.

So if Crunchy gets acquired, it may not just gain Sony's titles, it might actually lose everybody else's. I think it would lose value.

But, from fansubbing (without permission) Naruto and Bleach to being acquired by Sony, I'd say Dattebay