Sony is making a bid to buy Chinese games company Leyou Technologies, who currently owns a majority stake in Warframe developer Digital Extremes.
Sony wants to acquire Leyou Technologies, an overseas holdings company with a number of high profile IPs and developers attached to it, sources tell Bloomberg. The buyout would arm Sony with a plethora of major free-to-play breadwinners like Warframe, as well as other projects like the upcoming Lord of the Rings MMO.
Leyou is currently valued at over $1 billion, but Sony has deep pockets when it comes to gaming investments. The Japanese games giant earned over $18 billion from PlayStation gaming in 2019. Leyou's arsenal of licensed and F2P games would contribute greatly to these earnings and give Sony a more established foothold in the Chinese and global markets.
Leyou Technologies has a number of game developer subsidiaries including:
- Warframe game development studio Digital Extremes
- Splash Damage, who's responsible for games like the Halo: Master Chief Collection on PC as well as Gears Tactics
- Athlon Games, who published Samurai Shodown for SNK as well as every Leyou game
- Kingmaker responsible for F2P games for Chinese market
- Radiance Games, dev behind Civilization Online
