Miyazaki Breaks Silence as Activist Investors Target Kadokawa Over the Elden Ring Deal

The gaming industry has a long tradition of investors looking at a wildly successful studio and deciding the real problem is that it is not making enough money fast enough. Oasis Management Company, an activist investor with a history of pressuring Japanese entertainment companies, has spent months quietly acquiring shares of Kadokawa - the conglomerate that controls FromSoftware. Their current stake sits at 13.76%, which makes them the single largest shareholder, surpassing even Sony's 11.01%. Their stated goal, laid out on a website called A Better Kadokawa, is to squeeze more financial value out of the studio behind Dark Souls, Elden Ring, and Armored Core VI. The immediate target is Kadokawa CEO Takeshi Natsuno, whose removal they are pushing for at the annual shareholder meeting on June 24. Hidetaka Miyazaki broke his silence on the situation this week with a measured but pointed response that every fan of FromSoftware's work should read carefully.

Who Is Oasis and Why Are They Going After Kadokawa?

Oasis Management is not some anonymous hedge fund operating in the shadows. This is the same organization that, back in 2014, tried to pressure Nintendo into releasing mobile games with a pitch that included the concept of charging players 99 cents just to make Mario jump a bit higher. That approach did not land with Nintendo's leadership at the time, and the company eventually moved to mobile on its own terms. Now Oasis has Kadokawa locked in its sights for a very specific grievance. The core complaint is that Kadokawa left serious money on the table by letting Bandai Namco handle publishing duties for Elden Ring in markets outside Japan. Oasis argues Kadokawa failed to capture the full revenue potential of a game that has now sold 30 million copies worldwide. From an investor's spreadsheet, that looks like a missed opportunity. From the perspective of anyone who followed Elden Ring's launch, that deal with Bandai Namco gave the game the global publishing infrastructure it needed to reach those 30 million players in the first place. Oasis is also calling for the ouster of CEO Takeshi Natsuno on broader performance grounds, arguing that the current leadership undervalues what Kadokawa and FromSoftware together are worth.

The Shareholder Vote and What Is Actually at Stake

Kadokawa responded on June 3 with a public statement announcing it will formally oppose the proposal to remove CEO Natsuno at the June 24 general assembly. That vote is still coming, and the outcome carries real weight. If Natsuno survives and keeps his position, the operational status quo at Kadokawa - including the creative autonomy FromSoftware currently operates with - stays intact for now. If Oasis succeeds in replacing the CEO, the uncomfortable questions come fast: Will the new leadership push FromSoftware to release games more frequently on a shorter cycle? Will they demand a voice in which genres or platforms the studio targets? Will they push to internalize publishing instead of working with established partners? Will they look at Elden Ring's massive revenue and expect the next FromSoftware title to match or beat it on a tighter schedule? None of these outcomes are guaranteed if the CEO changes, but activist investors who believe a studio is being underexploited have a habit of acting on that belief once they have the right people in place to support them.

Miyazaki Speaks: What He Said and What It Actually Means

Miyazaki's statement came through Japanese gaming outlet Denfaminicogamer, which reached out directly for his perspective as a developer inside FromSoftware. He was careful to say he could not address the specifics of the Oasis and Kadokawa situation in detail. What he did say, in clear terms: the studio can freely make the kind of games it wants to make without excessive interference, and he is satisfied with the creative environment there. He added that the most important priority for him and for FromSoftware going forward is maintaining that environment and keeping the focus on development. The part that will stick with fans for months is what came next. Speaking to players directly, Miyazaki confirmed the studio is working harder than ever to create remarkable games and asked everyone to look forward to both announced titles and titles that have not yet been revealed. That last line is a deliberate tease. FromSoftware has The Duskbloods heading to Nintendo Switch 2 and Elden Ring: Tarnished Edition on the same platform. Whatever else is in development, Miyazaki is confident enough to acknowledge it exists.

The Track Record That Makes This Worth Protecting

The community's reaction to this story was immediate alarm rather than indifference, and that reaction is justified when you look at what FromSoftware has built. Dark Souls did not just sell well - it defined a subgenre and produced years of imitators, none of which fully captured what made the original work. Elden Ring reached 30 million copies not on the back of a marketing budget or brand recognition alone but because the game delivered at a level that word of mouth could not contain. Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon revived a long-dormant franchise and reminded the industry that challenging, mechanically demanding games without handholding tutorials still have a massive audience willing to pay full price. These games share a common origin: a studio operating with strong internal creative conviction and minimal external pressure to conform to what the market supposedly wants. The fear is not that Miyazaki and his team will lose their skills overnight. The fear is that the conditions that made those games possible - autonomy, patience, the ability to reject focus groups and follow an artistic vision - will slowly erode under financial pressure from shareholders who are optimizing for something entirely different.

Why This Pattern Keeps Showing Up Across the Industry

The Kadokawa situation does not exist in isolation. Activist investors targeting media and entertainment companies has been a repeating story for decades, and gaming is increasingly attracting this kind of attention as studios become demonstrably valuable assets. When Embracer Group collapsed under its own sprawling acquisition strategy, beloved studios were shut down or sold off with very little warning. When Microsoft absorbed Activision Blizzard in the largest gaming acquisition in history, immediate speculation centered on which studios would survive the transition and how creative priorities would shift under new ownership. Japan has been somewhat insulated from the most aggressive forms of Western financial engineering, partly because of cultural norms around corporate governance and partly because key institutions like Sony, Toyota, and others have cross-shareholding arrangements that limit outside influence. Kadokawa does not have that same structural protection. Oasis getting to 13.76% and demanding a CEO removal is a different kind of pressure than anything FromSoftware has faced before, and it is happening right now.

What to Watch For After June 24

June 24 is the immediate date that matters. If Oasis fails to remove the CEO, the acute pressure drops and FromSoftware continues without disruption at the corporate level, at least for now. If Oasis wins, the next six to twelve months will reveal whether the new leadership intends to push into the studio's creative process or leave it alone. Miyazaki's statement is the right thing to say and it is credible given his standing and the quality of work the studio has produced. But statements from creative directors do not override boardroom decisions, and investors who believe they are owed a greater return tend to keep pushing until the numbers change or they run out of leverage. The best-case reading of this situation is that the June 24 vote goes against Oasis, Kadokawa stabilizes under current management, and FromSoftware keeps building what Miyazaki teased. The worst case is a scenario the industry has seen before, and it is not one anyone who cares about these games should want to watch unfold.