So last week Nexon disclosed that it made $874 million in investments of it's $1.5 billion across the 4 following companies; Hasbro INC, Konami Holdings, Sega Sammy Holdings and Bandai NAMCO holdings.
A little backstory to those of you are unfamiliar. Nexon was founded in South Korea in 1994. It developed and published a few games, Nexus: The Kingdom of Winds, Elemental saga, KartRider, Shattered Galaxy and my personal favorite Maplestory! I played way too manty hours of MapleStory back in the day and bought way too many trading cards from Walgreens as well. Nexon relocated to Japan and they are a publicly traded company now on the Japan Stock Exchange.
Hasbro is an American conglomerate that makes a crap ton of toys. They make Monopoly, Star Wars toys, Power Rangers, Transformers toys, Oh and they bought Wizards of the Coast in 1999. If you don't know Wizards of the Coast were the end all be all of Trading Card makers, like the OG Pokémon Cards.
Bandai and Namco were originally 2 separate companies. They more or less merged back in the day to become a powerhouse. (Technically Bandai bought Namco). They are headquarter in Japan as well and have a $6.4 billion annual revenue making them the worlds largest toy company. If you hear Bandai Namco think of Dragonball Z, Gundam and Sailor Moon and you should understand why they are so rich. :)
Konami is a beast in it's own right as well. It is another Japanese company. They create trading cards, video games, anime, etc. Some of their IP includes Dance Dance Revolution, Silent Hill, Frogger, Metal Gear, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Suikoden, Bomberman. They were founded in 1969 as a jukebox rental company.
I know what you are thinking. "SegaSammy" I thought that was going to be Sega but that logo looks odd and what is "Sammy". Well have no fear, SegaSammy was born when Sega merged with Sammy Corporation. Sega was founded in 1960 as a slot machine company. Sega is of course behind titles such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Halo Wars 2 (via Creative Assembly), oh and the amazing DreamCast!
"TPL what does this have to do with anything" I hear you saying. Well besides the fact that all these companies have amazing IP under their belts, they are getting a cash influx which means that we should be getting more great games and toys and content from them.
