Japanese Tech Giants Sony and LINE Join Forces in Blockchain Deal

Sony's blockchain division is bringing Japanese social media giant LINE into the web3 world, with plans to adapt several popular mini-apps onto Sony's Soeneium network, the company announced Wednesday.

LINE reports approximately 200 million active users across its platform, and the agreement will bring four LINE-based games, or "mini-apps," to Soneium: Sleepagotchi, Farm Frens, Puffy Match, and Pocket Mob. The integration is meant to facilitate features like in-game rewards and purchases.

Soneium is mainly managed by Sony Block Solutions Labs, a joint program between Sony and Singapore-based Startale Labs. SBSL envisions the collaboration as a way to "transcend boundaries, allowing users to experience the benefits of web3 without friction," according to a statement shared with CoinDesk.

"LINE has built a strong presence and integrating successful mini-apps into the Soneium ecosystem is a next step toward making Soneium more accessible," said Jun Watanabe, chairman of Sony Block Solutions Labs. "We believe this collaboration will drive engagement and adoption in ways that were previously difficult to achieve."

Soneium went live in January, and at the time, the team said that they hoped to bridge web2 users into the web3 space. The blockchain is a layer-2 on top of Ethereum that uses Optimism’s OP Stack technology. It currently ranks as the 15th largest layer-2 network by total value locked, according to L2 Beat.

Read: Sony’s Layer-2 Blockchain 'Soneium' Goes Live

CORRECTION (Mar. 14, 14:28 UTC): After this article was published, the Sony team clarified that their relationship with LINE should be characterized as a “collaboration” rather than a “partnership,” which carries a different legal connotation in Japan.