Sony's Pivot to an 'IP and Technology Company' — A Benchmark for Korea's Content Industry

$100M into Cosm, 21M Crunchyroll subscribers, a seat at the Letterboxd table — the blueprint for monetizing IP across layers, without a general streaming platform

Sony has no Netflix, and no Disney+. The only Hollywood major that never built a general-purpose streaming platform is nonetheless becoming the company that extends the life of content furthest outside the platforms. Instead of delivering a film or an anime once and moving on, Sony moves the same IP through subscriptions, theaters, immersive spaces, live events, and fan communities — generating revenue from it again and again.

The deals of the past month trace the outline of this strategy sharply. Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) invested $100 million in immersive venue company Cosm and entered the bidding for Letterboxd, the film community with 30 million members.

Before that, anime streamer Crunchyroll passed 21 million paid subscribers, and in 2024 Sony acquired dine-in cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse. Four businesses that look unrelated are, in fact, answers to a single question: “How many times, and where, can one IP be sold again?”

While streaming competition has hardened into a scale game demanding enormous production and subscriber-acquisition costs, fandom spending is expanding beyond the screen. Fans pay for premium screenings, in-person experiences, merchandise, and community. Rather than chasing the size of a general platform, Sony chose to multiply the touchpoints where fans pay directly. Its experiment — binding hardware and content, theaters and immersive technology, and fan data into one revenue structure — poses a pointed question to a Korean content industry that has built global fandoms yet hands much of the resulting revenue to foreign platforms.

Extending the Life of IP, Instead of Building a Platform

Sony’s choice was not to build a new general streaming platform. It was to redesign the revenue structure so that the film, TV, game, music, and anime IP it already owns is consumed longer, and in more ways, across physical and digital space.

The strategy was formalized as the Sony Group’s long-term “Creative Entertainment Vision.” At the corporate strategy briefing in May, Sony Group CEO Hiroki Totoki reaffirmed the vision and laid out a direction of maximizing IP value across physical and digital spaces through technology.

Sony Group’s “Creative Entertainment Vision” page, headlined “Create Infinite Realities” — connecting multi-layered worlds where physical and virtual realities overlap. (Photo: Sony Group)

Behind Sony’s ability to execute this strategy is a distinctive combination of assets. Games centered on PlayStation, music, film and TV, and anime sit inside one group — alongside image sensors and content-production technology.

Sony intends to add AI to this mix, linking content production, distribution, and fan experience into a single value chain. Its strategic partnership with Bandai Namco Holdings likewise goes beyond anime co-production, aiming to expand together across global distribution, merchandising, and fan communities.

The executive translating the group’s vision into SPE’s businesses is Ravi Ahuja, who took over as CEO in January 2025. His role does not stop at running the film and TV studios. He also oversees broadcast networks, Crunchyroll, the offline experiences business, and entertainment technology — SPE’s principal fan touchpoints.

Ravi Ahuja, Chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, oversees motion pictures, television, Crunchyroll, experiences, and entertainment technology. (Photo: Sony Pictures)

The acquisitions Ahuja has led point toward the same structure. UK producer Bad Wolf brought production capability; the majority stake in “Peanuts” brought globally extensible long-term IP; Alamo Drafthouse brought a physical touchpoint for selling experiences directly to fans. The assets look different in kind, but the acquisition criterion is consistent: expand the IP Sony directly owns and its fan touchpoints at the same time.

The Economics of Deep Fandom, Proven by 21 Million

Where Netflix serves every genre to as many people as possible, Crunchyroll concentrates on the fans most likely to spend on anime. What Sony chose instead of a general streaming platform was vertical streaming — converting the depth of a fandom, rather than the breadth of a user base, into revenue.

Crunchyroll, acquired from AT&T in 2021 for roughly $1.175 billion, passed 21 million paid subscribers at the end of March 2026, up about 25% from 17 million a year earlier. In January it also shut down ad-supported free viewing entirely — reorganizing the business around fans who actually pay for content rather than growing headline numbers with free users.

Crunchyroll President Rahul Purini called the 21 million paid subscribers proof of “the passionate, global community” that has embraced anime as mainstream entertainment. The number means more than subscription revenue. Crunchyroll is becoming Sony’s anime hub — distributing titles on the strength of viewing data and extending fan spending into theatrical releases, games, merchandise, and events.

Crunchyroll with posters for “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” and “Fate strange Fake.” Crunchyroll extends fan spending into theatrical releases, merchandise, and events on the strength of viewing data. (Photo: Crunchyroll)

Anime also served as Sony Pictures’ line of defense in the financials. For the fiscal year ended March 2026, Sony Pictures revenue was roughly flat at about $9.9 billion. Reported operating income fell 11% to $687 million, weighed down by a one-time, non-cash impairment from winding down VFX unit Pixomondo and by lower non-anime theatrical revenue.

Strip out the Pixomondo factor, however, and the flow reverses. Driven by Crunchyroll’s growth and increased TV series deliveries, adjusted operating income rose 11% to $858 million (JPY 132 billion) — up 13% in yen terms. A paying anime fandom offset the volatility of the traditional film business.

The same fandom moved in theaters. Sony-distributed “Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle” earned $354 million, rewriting the box office record for an anime film, and “Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc” added $118 million.

In general releases, “GOAT” took $183 million, “28 Years Later” $151 million, and “Anaconda” $135 million.

Sony Group as a whole grew revenue 4% to JPY 12.5 trillion, with operating income up 13% to JPY 1.45 trillion. Crunchyroll is not a business that swings the entire group — but it shows most clearly the revenue structure Sony is aiming for: secure a genre fandom through subscription, then widen its spending across distribution, theaters, games, merchandise, and events.

The next expansion region is Asia. At APOS 2026 in June, Purini named Taiwan and Korea as high-affinity markets, with localized services launching in Taiwan this summer and in Korea within the year. For Crunchyroll, Korea — where the anime audience is growing at a 32% rate — is not simply a new-subscriber market. It is a proving ground for the Sony-style vertical strategy of connecting an already-formed, intense fandom to paid subscriptions, theatrical, and commerce.

IP Steps Off the Screen — From Alamo to Cosm

The next growth space Sony chose is not another online platform but physical places audiences travel to. Theaters become fandom hubs, game showcases become live events, and giant dome screens let audiences experience sports and films as if they were on site. It is a strategy that expands content from something you watch into something you step inside.

Turning Theaters Into a Fandom D2C Platform

The first base is Alamo Drafthouse. Sony acquired the dine-in cinema chain in June 2024 — the first time in roughly 75 years, since the Paramount decrees, that a Hollywood studio has directly owned a theater chain. With the deal Sony created “Sony Pictures Experiences,” elevating offline fan experience into a standalone business area.

Alamo is North America’s seventh-largest theater chain, with about 10 million annual guests and 4 million loyalty program members. For Sony, which has no general streaming platform of its own, it is a D2C channel — a place to meet the audience that consumes its content directly, and to accumulate purchase and taste data.

Announcing the deal, SPE CEO Ravi Ahuja said the studio “believes strongly in engaging entertainment fans outside the home in fun and distinctive ways” — and pointed directly at Crunchyroll. The judgment was that Alamo’s playbook of marathons, director and cast Q&As, and genre programming, which has built a loyal audience, fits anime fandom. Crunchyroll-distributed films had already grown from a few hundred screens to more than 2,000.

Screen count is not the only reason Alamo matters. Where an ordinary theater sells seats and showtimes, Alamo commercializes the experience around the film — combining themed menus, merchandise, special screenings, and creator meet-ups to reconstruct a single title as an event. It is a fandom revenue structure that does not end at the ticket price.

Wonderverse in Chicago, an IP experience space, and the “Wheel of Fortune LIVE!” tour, which moved a game show onto the stage, started from the same strategy (currently on pause). They are experiments in extending Sony’s IP beyond screened content into food and beverage, live performance, experiences, and commerce.

The opening poster for Wonderverse in Chicago — an experience space built on Sony IP including “Ghostbusters,” “Jumanji,” and “Bad Boys.” (Photo: Wonderverse)

A PlayStation Showcase Becomes a Theatrical Event

Alamo is also being used as a testbed connecting different businesses inside the Sony Group. On June 2, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) live-screened its PlayStation showcase “State of Play” at Alamo theaters in six markets — New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas, and Raleigh.

A game-reveal broadcast that anyone can watch free online was turned into an event fans gather in theaters to watch together. Admission ran on a refundable food-and-beverage voucher, with a themed menu tied to the program. The structure gives audiences a communal experience, theaters F&B revenue and new visits, and PlayStation high engagement and a live read on fan reaction.

The two companies had previously collaborated on a “Ghost of Yōtei” popcorn bucket and a samurai-film screening series. As game IP flows into merchandise, film curation, and theatrical events, PlayStation and Alamo have begun to share the same fandom.

Alamo CEO Michael Kustermann said that as “the lines between gaming, film, and live events continue to evolve,” there is enormous potential in new theatrical experiences for passionate fan communities. For Sony, Alamo is not merely a theater chain but an offline platform where film, game, and anime fandoms meet.

The PlayStation “State of Play” theatrical event announcement at Alamo Drafthouse — the first time the game showcase played in theaters. (Photo: Alamo Drafthouse)

$100 Million Into Cosm — a ‘Stadium Business’ Without a Stadium

Exterior of a Cosm venue. Sony Pictures Entertainment led Cosm’s Series C round with a $100 million investment. (Photo: Cosm)

If Alamo is a business that redesigns existing theaters as fandom spaces, Cosm is a technology that changes the format of the theater itself.

In June, SPE led Cosm’s Series C round with a $100 million investment. It is a strategic minority stake, but the fact that Ahuja joins Cosm’s board makes it more than a financial investment — a deal that opens the door to combining Sony’s content with Cosm’s immersive exhibition technology.

Cosm’s “Shared Reality” uses a 60-foot (18-meter) wraparound ultra-high-resolution dome screen to make audiences feel they are standing in the middle of a stadium or concert hall. A physical arena cannot admit tens of thousands more people — but Cosm sells remote audiences a courtside or cage-side view. It is a business model that digitally replicates the scarcity of a physical seat.

The company launched in 2020 with the acquisition of computer-graphics and digital-projection company Evans & Sutherland. After Hollywood Park in Inglewood and Dallas, it opened its third venue in Atlanta in June. The Atlanta facility opened on June 5 with a ceremony attended by CEO Jeb Terry and a screening of Game 2 of the NBA Finals, then opened to the public five days later.

Game 2 of the NBA Finals on the dome screen at Cosm Atlanta’s opening preview — a courtside view that merges into the seating bowl. (Photo: Cosm YouTube)

Expansion is fast. The fourth and fifth venues open in Detroit this September and Cleveland early next year, with international locations previewed.

Selling ‘Being There’ Before the Content

The investors gathered around Cosm reveal the nature of the business. The 2024 round of $250 million drew sports-industry figures including former Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry and Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert. The asset they saw was not new sports content but a technology for reselling the atmosphere of existing games in more places.

Cosm screens marquee events in immersive format under broadcast partnerships with the NBA, UFC, ESPN, and others. With dynamic pricing that adjusts to demand, tickets for popular events sell for up to $100 per person. In April, the LA venue live-screened WWE’s “WrestleMania 42.”

A UFC bout live on Cosm’s dome screen. The audience gets a view as if seated beside the octagon. (Photo: Cosm)

Films are reworked the same way. With Warner Bros., Cosm converted “The Matrix” and “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” into immersive dome formats, and “Harry Potter” will also screen at the new Detroit venue.

The likelihood of Sony’s film, anime, and game IP joining this structure is high. PlayStation game worlds could expand onto the giant dome; Crunchyroll anime, concerts, and sports content could be reworked as immersive events. Sony’s $100 million is less an investment in one venue than a preemptive stake in the distribution technology for reselling its IP in a new format.

The Audience Experience Becomes Content Again

Cosm does not run its venues as broadcast rooms alone. What fans experience on site — and whom they meet — becomes new content.

At a recent UFC 327 screening, the company invited fan-favorite striker Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson to the venue. Audiences watched the fight together, then interacted with the athlete directly, and Cosm produced a behind-the-scenes video with a host and released it on its own YouTube channel.

Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson at the Cosm venue during the UFC 327 screening. Cosm produced the fan meet-and-greet and behind-the-scenes footage as its own content. (Photo: Cosm YouTube)

A single live broadcast cascaded into tickets, food and beverage, a fan meeting, and social media video. The audience consumes content and becomes part of the next piece of content at the same time. Cosm’s Shared Reality does not stay inside the dome screen — it reconnects the venue with the online community.

Immersive Space: From Experiment to Market

Immersive entertainment is no longer at the technology-demo stage. Combined with proven IP, it is moving into a business that generates real ticket revenue.

“The Wizard of Oz,” newly produced with AI for the Las Vegas Sphere, has sold 3 million tickets and passed $400 million in revenue since its August 2025 debut. Sphere’s next project is a new version of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in 2027. IMAX, the flagship operator of the giant-screen format, is drawing acquisition interest from multiple parties on the back of box office growth.

Grand View Research projects the venue-centric location-based entertainment (LBE) market to grow from $7.4 billion in 2025 at a 28.5% CAGR to $25.9 billion by 2030. Research and Markets projects $23.94 billion by 2030, and Precedence Research $87.5 billion by 2035.

Forecasts for the broader immersive entertainment market — including VR, AR, games, and live performance — reach $410–470 billion by 2030. North America accounts for more than a third of LBE revenue today, but the fastest-growing region ahead is Asia-Pacific, at around 30% annually.

This is also why Sony placed Alamo and Cosm in the same portfolio. Alamo turns existing theaters into hubs for fan community and commerce; Cosm replicates the atmosphere of stadiums, films, and concerts in other cities. One secures the space where fans are met directly; the other supplies the new technical format sold in that space.

What Sony sells is no longer just one film or one game’s broadcast rights. It is the economics of place — making the same IP experienceable again in theaters and domes, at live events and in communities.

Location-Based and Immersive Entertainment Market Outlook

Note: Each firm defines the market differently — LBE, immersive displays, VR/AR content, theme parks, live performance, and games are included to varying degrees — so the figures should be read as indicators of growth direction rather than compared directly.

Asia’s Other Experiment — TV Asahi’s Tokyo Dream Park

The move by broadcasters to extend IP into physical space is taking shape in Japan as well. The leading case is Tokyo Dream Park, the entertainment complex TV Asahi is building in Ariake, Tokyo.

The core of Tokyo Dream Park is not opening broadcast studios to the public. It is building a permanent IP platform that connects TV programs, music, sports, anime, and live performance to exhibitions, live events, food and beverage, and merchandise. Instead of airing a program once inside the schedule, the broadcaster can extend the life of its content into a space where fans visit in person, stay longer, and spend more.

On the strength of that appeal, Tokyo Dream Park passed 1 million visitors just 108 days after opening.

The facility is designed as a complex hub combining performance and event spaces at its center with studio functions, exhibition and experience facilities, and commercial and F&B areas. Its distinguishing feature is the ability to rotate public tapings, fan events, concerts, sports viewing, character exhibitions, and pop-up stores through a single location.

Rather than a theme park tied to a single IP, it is closer to a modular entertainment platform that rotates the many IPs TV Asahi owns or licenses on a seasonal basis.

Tokyo Dream Park is also notable as a shift in the revenue structure of Japanese broadcasting. With the growth limits of traditional advertising revenue now unmistakable, it is an attempt to convert the broadcaster’s programs, talent, characters, and sports rights into admissions, live performance, food and beverage, and commerce.

Sony’s Alamo and Cosm and TV Asahi’s Tokyo Dream Park start from different places but point in the same direction.

Alamo turns existing theaters into fandom hubs; Cosm replicates the atmosphere of stadiums and films in other cities; Tokyo Dream Park converts a broadcaster’s programming assets into a permanent physical business. All three models are strategies to own not the content itself, but the places and ways in which fans meet it.

From ‘Ratings’ to ‘Visitor Revenue’

The lesson of Tokyo Dream Park for Korea’s broadcasting and content industry is direct. In a structure that measures a program’s performance only in ratings and ad revenue, the economic life of an IP collapses the moment the broadcast ends. With a permanent space, by contrast, ended programs, characters, music, and sports rights can be resold as exhibitions, performances, pop-ups, and experiences.

Korean broadcasters and content companies should likewise consider permanent hubs that rotate multiple IPs continuously — beyond drama sets or one-off pop-up stores. Connect K-pop concert films and fan meetings, drama and variety-show experiences, virtual artists, games, food and beverage, and merchandise in one space, and a single visitor generates several kinds of revenue.

The change Sony and TV Asahi demonstrate means the unit of performance in the content industry is shifting. The important question is no longer only how many people one title reached — but in how many places, for how long, and in how many ways that IP can generate revenue again.

Owning the Fan’s Taste — the Letterboxd Race

Letterboxd, the film review-and-logging platform. Sony is in early acquisition talks alongside Netflix, Paramount, and others. (Photo: Letterboxd)

If Crunchyroll captures the fan’s viewing time and Alamo and Cosm monetize the fan’s in-person experience, Letterboxd’s asset is the fan’s next choice. Not only what someone has watched, but what they want to watch next, what they recommend, and which actors, directors, and genres they consume together — all of it accumulates in reviews, ratings, and watchlists.

SPE is reported to be participating in early talks to acquire Letterboxd. No deal has been finalized, and Sony has not been selected as a preferred bidder. Majority owner Tiny, a Canadian holding company, is exploring a sale through investment bank LionTree at a reference valuation of roughly $250 million.

The potential bidders reportedly include not only Sony but Netflix, Paramount Skydance, private equity firms RedBird Capital and TPG, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. That studios, streaming platforms, private equity, and a social media founder are interested at the same time signals that Letterboxd is being valued as a strategic data asset, not merely a film review site.

Founded in New Zealand in 2011, Letterboxd today counts more than 26 million users worldwide. When Tiny took its 60% stake in 2023, the company was valued at about $50 million. If the $250 million now in circulation becomes the actual deal price, the valuation will have risen fivefold in roughly three years.

Member count alone cannot explain that price. Letterboxd’s real value lies in the high-density taste data film fans leave voluntarily. Where a streaming platform knows what was played inside its own service, Letterboxd shows — across theaters and platforms — what people want to watch next.

Ratings and reviews capture the reaction after viewing; watchlists indicate future demand. User-made lists reveal connections between titles, and following actors and directors traces the migration paths of fandoms. How many watchlists a film lands on before release, and in which countries and age groups interest is accelerating, can serve as leading indicators for release scale, marketing timing, and special-screening regions.

The ‘Discovery’ Stage of Sony’s Portfolio

Why Sony is interested in Letterboxd becomes clearer when connected to its existing businesses.

Letterboxd sits at the earliest stage of that chain — discovery and interest. It is the touchpoint that captures what fans care about before they buy a ticket or a subscription.

If a particular anime film is drawing strong advance interest on Letterboxd, for example, Sony can surface the related series on Crunchyroll, expand the theatrical release, and program marathons or director Q&As at Alamo. Over the longer term, titles with strong fan response can inform decisions about reworking content for immersive spaces like Cosm.

Letterboxd would be a standalone revenue business and, at the same time, data infrastructure that raises the efficiency of Sony’s other revenue layers. Crunchyroll, Alamo, and Cosm look like separate businesses — but combined with Letterboxd’s taste data, they form one loop running from a fan’s discovery to subscription, viewing, and in-person experience.

The Moment a Community Becomes a Transaction Platform

Letterboxd is already expanding beyond logging and rating into direct transactions. In December 2025 it launched the Letterboxd Video Store, an on-demand rental service centered on independent and art-house film. Instead of discovering a film, saving it to a watchlist, and moving to another platform, users can complete viewing and payment inside the service where the interest arose.

That means Letterboxd’s business model need not stop at advertising or paid membership. Connect rentals, ticketing, special screenings, merchandise, and fan events, and a taste community becomes the starting point of film commerce.

If Sony acquires it, Sony Pictures Classics’ independent and art-house films, Crunchyroll’s theatrical anime, and Alamo’s curated programming could be connected directly to Letterboxd users’ tastes. The fan community would function not as a marketing target but as a demand-forecasting system informing distribution, programming, and product development.

The Conflict of Interest That Comes With Ownership

Letterboxd’s greatest asset, however, is also its greatest risk. The platform’s influence rests on users’ belief that they evaluate films freely, outside the interests of studios and streaming services.

If a major studio acquires it, concerns that recommendation algorithms, search results, popularity rankings, and editorial content could favor the owner’s films are unavoidable — the same criticism that surrounded Rotten Tomatoes under NBCUniversal.

If, after a Sony acquisition, the perception forms that its own titles get boosted or competitors’ content is treated unfavorably, users may log and review less. The volume and reliability of the very data Sony sought would fall with it.

The key after any acquisition, then, is designing independence rather than exercising ownership: running recommendation algorithms and editorial authority independently, clearly labeling commercial relationships with the owner’s titles, and transparently disclosing the scope and consent procedures for user data. The real winner of the Letterboxd race may not be the highest bidder, but the owner fans continue to trust with their taste.

The Benchmark Sony Leaves for Korea

Korea’s content industry cannot copy Sony’s strategy outright. Sony is a singular company holding PlayStation, music, film and TV, anime, image sensors, and content technology in one group.

But the question Sony’s portfolio raises applies directly to Korea: after Korean-made content is consumed worldwide, who owns the touchpoints where those fans pay — and the data generated along the way?

Korea Makes the Content; Platforms Own the Fan Relationship

K-dramas and K-pop have reached global audiences through global platforms. But many production companies and IP holders, in exchange for production budgets, supply fees, and some licensing revenue, leave viewing data, search histories, payment relationships, and community activity with the platforms.

Korea makes the work — but which scenes are replayed in which countries, which characters drive merchandise purchases, and which fans are waiting for the next season are known more precisely by foreign platforms. Global reach has widened, but ownership of the fan relationship has not followed.

Sony does not solve this with yet another general platform. It secures, stage by stage, the decisive touchpoints where fans pay and leave data: owning the anime fan’s subscription relationship at Crunchyroll; selling tickets, food and beverage, and special-screening experiences at Alamo; entering the immersive-format and premium-space market through Cosm; and, at Letterboxd, reaching for the stage where fan interest and taste first form.

The point is not to own every platform. It is to choose the touchpoints where IP value rises most, and to connect them with data.

Beyond ‘One Source, Multi Use’ to Multi-Layer Monetization of the Fan Journey

“One source, multi use,” long emphasized in Korea’s content industry, converts one original work into dramas, films, games, webtoons, and merchandise. Sony’s approach goes a step further.

It changes not just the format of the content but places revenue touchpoints across the entire journey — as fans discover a work, subscribe, watch, experience it on site, then log and recommend it again. It does not stop at making multiple pieces of content from one IP; it gives the same fan reasons to pay multiple times, at different moments and places.

In this structure the performance metrics change too. Beyond view counts and overseas sales, what matters is paid-fan conversion, repeat purchase rates, venue visits, revenue per member, and fan lifetime value per IP.

A K-Pop Concert Film Is Not ‘Last Year’s Show’

One of the assets Korea can commercialize fastest is its K-pop concert films and video libraries. Until now, concert footage has been consumed mainly as streaming content or special theatrical screenings. Remastered for dome and giant-screen, spatial-audio formats like Cosm or Sphere, it can sell premium tickets in cities actual tours never visit.

Combine artist video messages, fan meetings, limited merchandise, food and beverage, and local brand collaborations, and one concert can generate revenue repeatedly across many cities — not replacing the live show, but complementing the limited seats and geographic limits of a tour.

Korea holds competitive strength in large-format LED and displays, spatial audio, immersive content, and virtual production. It can therefore participate beyond content supply — in co-developing immersive formats, supplying systems, operating venues, and sharing global ticket revenue.

What matters is which layer to enter. Selling content alone yields one-off supply revenue; holding the format and exhibition rights yields repeat revenue across regions. Participating down to venues and ticketing adds audience data and F&B and merchandise revenue.

A Korean Letterboxd Is Not About Building an App

The lesson of Letterboxd is not that Korea should build a new film review service. The point is who captures the data generated as K-content fans discover, rate, recommend, and purchase.

K-content fandom today is dispersed across YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, Spotify, Weverse, Instagram, X, Reddit, and more. Producers and IP holders struggle to see the full fan journey in one view.

Rather than trying to move every fan onto one general platform, the realistic path is to secure vertical touchpoints where fans voluntarily leave high-quality data and pay directly — connecting viewing logs and ratings, registered interest in upcoming titles, ticket and merchandise purchases, filming-location and experience-space bookings, and membership and loyalty programs at the IP level.

As this data accumulates, producers can maintain the fan relationship even after supplying titles to foreign platforms — proposing sequels, concerts, merchandise, and tourism programs directly, and feeding the response back into production and investment decisions.

Companies Need Core Touchpoints; Policy Needs a Base for Experiments

The first task for Korean companies is not to build every distribution channel themselves. It is to distinguish, by the character of each IP, the touchpoints that must be owned.

For anime and webtoons, genre subscription services and communities may matter most; for K-pop, memberships and performance and immersive spaces; for dramas, fan communities and filming-location and tourism experiences. Each company must find the point where fans repeatedly pay the most and leave the most meaningful data.

Policy support also needs to expand beyond production budgets — toward testbeds where the production, exhibition, payment, and audience response of immersive content can be validated in real markets, and joint overseas venue ventures. Global format rights and revenue sharing, privacy protection, and standards for the portability and use of fan data must be designed alongside them.

One approach to avoid, however, is building large dedicated venues first and filling them with content later. The realistic path is staged: secure IP with proven drawing power and repeatable formats first, then move through touring exhibitions and existing theaters before expanding to permanent hubs.

The ‘Post-Platform’ Content Company Sony Is Modeling

Sony’s transition was not completed by one big acquisition. It secured a paying anime fandom through Crunchyroll, and built direct touchpoints for theaters, F&B, and events by acquiring Alamo. It invested strategically in Cosm to stake out immersive distribution technology, and at Letterboxd it is widening its view to the stage where fan interest and taste first form.

Seen one by one, the businesses differ — anime streaming, theaters, immersive sports venues, a film community. Placed along the fan’s path, they become one structure: a loop in which fans discover a work, subscribe, watch it in theaters, experience it in a space, then log and recommend it again.

That Sony owns no general streaming platform of its own is not necessarily a weakness. Instead of chasing Netflix’s scale, it supplies the IP platforms need — while directly securing the specialized touchpoints where fans pay more.

K-content has already reached the world’s screens and playlists. The focus of competition is now shifting from supplying content to more countries, to who designs and owns the structure that converts that interest into subscriptions, tickets, spatial experiences, community, and repeat purchases.

Sony’s portfolio — moving from hardware to content, and again to an “IP and entertainment technology company” — points to one conclusion. The content company of the future does not own only the work. It designs the path along which fans discover, experience, remember, and consume it again.

The question left for Korean companies and policymakers is equally direct. The global fandom is already secured. Which layer of the value that fandom creates will Korea own for itself?

Sources

· Sony Pictures Entertainment / Cosm press release, "Sony Pictures Entertainment Announces $100M Strategic Investment in Cosm" (June 25, 2026)

· Deadline, "Sony Pictures Entertainment Invests $100M In Cosm" (June 24, 2026) / "Immersive Entertainment Startup Cosm Raises $250M" (July 31, 2024) / "The Rocky Horror Picture Show Sets 2027 Run At Sphere As Wizard Of Oz Passes $400M In Sales" (June 16, 2026)

· TheWrap, "Sony Pictures Entertainment Invests $100 Million, Takes Minority Stake in Cosm" (June 24, 2026) / Cosm official YouTube, "Stephen Thompson at UFC 327" / "Cosm Atlanta Grand Opening — NBA Finals Game 2" (June 8, 2026)

· Deadline, "Sony Pictures Entertainment’s Sales Boosted By Crunchyroll As It Hits 21M Subs, But Profits Dip Due To Pixomondo Shutdown" (May 7, 2026) / Sony Group FY2025 results and corporate strategy briefing (May 8, 2026) / Variety, "Letterboxd in Sales Talks With Netflix, Sony, Paramount and Others" (July 10, 2026)

· Variety / IndieWire, "Sony Pictures Buys Alamo Drafthouse" (June 12, 2024) / Boxoffice Pro, "Alamo Drafthouse and Sony Interactive Entertainment Bring PlayStation’s State of Play Broadcast To Theaters" (May 20, 2026) / Rahul Purini remarks at APOS 2026 (June 16, 2026)

· Grand View Research, "Location-based Entertainment Market, 2025–2030" / "Immersive Display in Entertainment Market, 2030"

· Research and Markets, "Location-Based Entertainment Market — Global Forecast 2025–2030" / "Immersive Entertainment — Global Strategic Business Report" (Apr 2025)

· Mordor Intelligence, "Immersive Entertainment Market Size & Growth to 2030" / Precedence Research, "Location-based Entertainment Market Size to Hit USD 87.50 Bn by 2035" (Apr 2026)