Sony signs NCSOFT partnership amid growing Korean ambitions

Sony added another strategic partnership after the signing of Shift Up

Marco Wutz | Nov 29, 2023

Sony signs NCSOFT partnership amid growing Korean ambitions /

It looks like Sony is on a signing spree in Korea: After entering a distribution agreement with Shift Up, the developer of Stellar Blade and Goddess of Victory: Nikke, the company signed NCSOFT up as a partner. NCSOFT is one of the biggest developers and publishers in Korea and recently showed off some of its upcoming games at G-Star 2023. It’s also behind the upcoming MMO Throne & Liberty, which Amazon Games will publish in the west.

“Under this partnership, NCSOFT and SIE will collaborate in various global business fields, including mobile,” a press release said. “The two companies are evaluating a range of potential opportunities with an aim to foster strategic synergy, leveraging NCSOFT’s technological prowess and SIE’s global leadership in the entertainment field.”

Sony and NCSOFT's logos next to each other. — Sony and NCSOFT have become strategic partners :: Sony / NCSOFT

Taekjin Kim, the CEO and President of NCSOFT, said that this “partnership with SIE is the beginning of our efforts to build various synergies together, utilizing both companies’ core competencies, technological capabilities, and expertise.”

Sony’s Jim Ryan, who is on the way out from leading the company, emphasized that this partnership with NCSOFT “advances our strategy to expand beyond console and broaden PlayStation’s reach to a wider audience.”

Earlier this year, Korean media reported about Sony’s push into the country’s gaming industry and its search for local allies, naming NCSOFT and Shift Up as potential partners – and both of these predictions turned out to be correct.

They aren’t the only companies the article tagged as possible partners for Sony, though, so the international giant’s signing spree may not yet have ended. According to this report, Sony also approached Lies of P developer NEOWIZ, Black Desert Online maker Pearl Abyss, and mobile game publisher Com2uS Studios. We’ll have to wait and see if these advances have borne fruit as well.

Published Nov 29, 2023

MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg