Business & Finance Sony Close to Acquiring Crunchyroll

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik

Sony is in talks about acquiring Crunchyroll, an anime streaming service founded in California in 2006 from AT&T's Warner Media for a reported price of around 900 million dollars. Cruncyroll has over a thousand anime shows, 200 East Asian dramas and 50 manga titles including some original content and an estimated 70 million users. Sony already owns Funimation (which itself courted controversy recently over censoring its content) and is looking to broaden and unify its many media brands including film, television and animation properties.
 

gral

Well-known member
This explains why Horrible Subs ended. The only way it could exist was if it had either passive assent from Crunchyroll or was a branch of it. When Horrible Subs 'suddenly' closed its doors in the first days of November, I knew it had been given an order to shut down. Now we find out why.
 

Argent

Well-known member
Maybe Sony will improve Crunchyroll streaming. While not bad sometimes the ad breaks just freeze things when using my table. I don't have this problems on Prime or on Demand so it is not my tablet snice those both running at higher definitions. Overall fixing it involves restarting the app so that a different ad comes up and is just annoying.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
I am worried, as now Sony pretty much has a monopoly on the localization of anime in the West. They own Crunchyroll (largest streamer and translator of anime in English), FUNimation (second largest streamer, also largest dubber, also largest distributor of Blu Ray boxes), and Aniplex (which does all of the movies). It is well known that Sony is being converged, with their games division (which might be considering a different company) having moved their headquarters to California and has been censoring Japanese games. FUNimation also been messing with their localizations, as well as has done some rather devious things such as acquiring the exclusive rights to localize Interspecies Reviewers... and then refusing to localize it, so they just sit on the license so no one in the West can see it.

I guess the next frontier for Sony is to start trying to invest in the anime market by going to the source and trying to get on the production committees. I think Tencent is also trying to do that, as they've been going around buying up shares in anime studios.

Just hope that anime doesn't become watered down over the next 20-30 years.

Maybe Sony will improve Crunchyroll streaming. While not bad sometimes the ad breaks just freeze things when using my table. I don't have this problems on Prime or on Demand so it is not my tablet snice those both running at higher definitions. Overall fixing it involves restarting the app so that a different ad comes up and is just annoying.

I recommend using VRV (bundle that includes Crunchyroll for pretty much the same price). IIRC the developers of the Crunchyroll player stopped updating the CR player to develop the VRV player. I've never had problems with the VRV player (in fact it's the only anime streaming player that I haven't had a problem with, either on my computer, my phone, or my Roku TV). Also, if you have a VRV account, you can also log into Crunchyroll and read manga, as if you were subbed to CR.
 

SuperS4

I'll put something witty here eventually.
Meh, I'm not too worried about this. Maybe now they'll axe that dumb witch show CR was making. The one that's been in development for like, 3 years now? *Checks wiki* yup, started development in 2017. I'm pretty sure they iced the thing because of all the controversy.

And now? Honestly wouldn't be surprised if Sony goes "WTF is that? That's not anime. We won't put that shit on CR/Funi"

*digs deeper* Huh, so apparently Funimation only bought Crunchyroll. Leaving Otter Media, who was the the Distributor(and owned Ellation Studios who was developing it), a seperate entity still owned by AT&T. Meaning, that show won't show up on CR at all outside of Sony/Funi deciding to buy the rights to it; which I highly doubt they'd be interested in it.

Because for all the cries of "Sony=Censorship!", its a lot less prevalent in their anime then it is in Video Games. Largely because the Video Games is now in the US, and has made the dumb idea that they must follow "western" ideals, ignoring that they're catering to the notFans. But that's neither here nor there.

At the end of it, I'm not concerned. If it means I don't have to see the stupid spice show thingy show up on the news page I'll be happy. And we get access to more anime, that's a win in my books. Since IIRC, Funi had the broadcast rights to Gundam and a few other big name shows. I'll be glad to have them back in the catalog. If they bring them over to CR. Hopefully it's not a "you need to have a membership for both" kinda deal. I don't even mind if the fees go up a bit if it gives me access to both of them.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Love to see the centralization of all corporate power and media

definitely nothing bad happens

Maybe if you were talking about Anime that operates in the United States perhaps but be fair, AT&T selling to Sony isn't exactly a centralization. Merely a transfer.

Or a redistribution if we're being cheeky about it. :sneaky:
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Well it looks like Sony purchasing Crunchyroll from AT&T has in fact triggered a Department of Justice AntiTrust investigation in regards to the anime market.

 

Argent

Well-known member
Well it looks like Sony purchasing Crunchyroll from AT&T has in fact triggered a Department of Justice AntiTrust investigation in regards to the anime market.


I guess it will come down what Amazon and Netflix has as market share.

As it stands Crunchyroll is the only pure anime streaming service. But most streaming services have a selection and there is lot of none Soney owned traditional anime on T.V. too. So even with Sony having Fumnation I doubt that this will kill the deal.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Censoring is a definite concern but the Antitrust thing in and of itself doesn't make sense to me. AT&T owned it before and they own Warner Media which is a way bigger streaming and media library then even Sony.

And when you consider how Amazon owns like 80% or whatever of all book sales in the US, I somehow doubt Sony even comes close to controlling distribution of 80% of all anime in the US. Netflix has a big library all on its own and I'm sure there's other spread on other platforms as well.
 

prinCZess

Warrior, Writer, Performer, Perv
I don't see the antitrust case going anywhere. While Sony's already big and CR getting bought up makes them bigger, there are other operations running about and licensing/distribution of media seems an odd one where small companies can still compete (Animeigo and Sentai Filmworks coming to mind). Dunnow if there's any comparable anime-centric streaming services that won't be Sony-owned with CR going under them, but as mentioned Netflix and maybe others have it as a subcategory to their media empires...and, honestly, anime has to be up there with porn for things that get illegally streamed on the internet despite copyright.

Does make it concerning when Sony seems to be transitioning to more US-based as a company, more censorious of things released in the US, and Funimations own shitty treatment of things in that regard.
 

Val the Moofia Boss

Well-known member
I've been concerned just because of Sony's proclivity to censor what it's been localizing.

They've already been sorta doing that with FUNimation, whose writers continue to change scripts to incorporate SJW and American specific rhetoric (that's going to be really dated in 10 or 20 years) and does things like licensing the rights to a show, and then never localizing that show and just squatting on the localization rights so no one else can legally localize the show and see it in English.

Also, don't forget how Sony* has been treating Japanese games, which get heavily censored, even in Japan (like Senran Kagura having to pretty much cease as a franchise), while TLOU2 and LIS2 have sex scenes (anime tiddies bad, western sex good?).

*IIRC the Sony that owns FUNimation and the Sony that owns Playstation are two subsidiaries of the overall Sony super corporation or something.
 

Undertone

Active member
Regardless of the outcome, it's clear that CR and Funi's bigness is having knock-on effects. For those who want to vote "none of the above" and take a bit of cash to a smaller outfit, there are still a couple options with decent streaming.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
Censoring is a definite concern but the Antitrust thing in and of itself doesn't make sense to me. AT&T owned it before and they own Warner Media which is a way bigger streaming and media library then even Sony.

And when you consider how Amazon owns like 80% or whatever of all book sales in the US, I somehow doubt Sony even comes close to controlling distribution of 80% of all anime in the US. Netflix has a big library all on its own and I'm sure there's other spread on other platforms as well.

Amazon built its way to high market share.

There are much more serious consequences if you try to buy up companies to get a high degree of market control, which is what Sony did. If you're buying companies the needed burden of proof and market control levels for anti-monopoly/anti-trust laws to kick in drops.
 

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