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After four years, PlayStation no longer owns the Evolution Championship Series.
EVO hosted this announcement on their website:
SIE has sold its stake in Evo to NODWIN Gaming, a company backed by SIE’s parent, Sony Group Corporation.
SIE will become a new global sponsor of Evo through 2028, and will continue its commitment to the fighting game community through the PlayStation Tournaments platform and key products currently in development that appeal to fighting game players.
What Do You Mean PlayStation Owned EVO?
Sony announced they acquired EVO in 2021. However, they were never the sole owner. Instead, this was a joint venture with another esports company, RTS.
At the time, Sony claimed that fighting games that were not on PlayStation could still be part of the EVO main tournaments. In spite of this, none of the tournaments they hosted in the past five years had any such fighting games in those main tournaments.
Sony and RTS ran EVO Online in 2021, and EVO 2022 to 2025. Sony could boast that they hosted the biggest EVO in 2023, with 9,182 participants joining in.
What EVO Still Couldn’t Do With Sony
Fighting games face a strange dilemma in 2025. There is no question that the fighting game genre is the biggest and most successful it has been in terms of revenue and players. It’s also had the biggest and most successful competitive and esports community it ever had today.
But it’s also true that fighting games have been left behind by other games and genres, in esports and beyond. It’s one of many legacy genres left behind by the dominance of live service giants like Fortnite. But even in the eSports scene, EVO is far from a viable challenger to League of Legends’ Worlds and Counter-Strike’s Majors, in terms of viewership, revenue, prestige, etc.
We realize just spelling it out like this can be frustrating for fighting game fans and players. It’s fair to say Sony had ambitions to pull this off before today’s news.
What Does EVO’s Future Look Like?
NODWIN Gaming, who bought SIE’s stake in the venture, is an Indian esports organization that’s ran tournaments and events around the world. Sony Group, PlayStation’s parent company, is also invested in NODWIN.
RTS, PlayStation’s co-owner, still remains as part of the company. They also announced that Qiddiya has made a huge investment in RTS as well.
Qiddiya was already an EVO global partner before this announcement. One could say that EVO’s investors aren’t going anywhere.
Instead, it’s Sony Interactive Entertainment, AKA PlayStation, who’s stepping away from owning the eSports organization. This could be part of PlayStation’s moves to change their business. They just told investors they were also stepping away from a hardware focused business towards a platform engagement model.
We think it’s premature to ask if this means that Super Smash Bros. could return to EVO in the future. There are reasons Nintendo has stepped away from engaging with their franchise’s FGC and launching their own live events.
But maybe NODWIN and RTS, esports companies who already run esports for other games, have what EVO and fighting games need to take it to the figurative next level.
