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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Microsoft almost bought Square back in 1999

d21lewis on 02 February 2018

I don't know. I'd be cool with the idea of a "Square Replay".



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Aeolus451 on 02 February 2018

I'm glad it's not so easy to just buy your way into the console market. I'm glad that didn't happen.



Mr Puggsly on 02 February 2018
DialgaMarine said:
Johnw1104 said:
There's not really a chance Microsoft could buy EA, is there? They just seem too big.

EA gets justifiably crapped on 24/7 but that would be an enormous get for them, assuming it meant those license monopolies EA has came with it.

 I doubt it. One company can’t just buy another on a whim. EA saw a small bump in the road from BF2, and they pretty much recovered from that overnight. EA would have to be in a dire predicament to where they chose to either sell themselves or their shares for MS to even have the opportunity. Even if EA was willing to be bought, I seriously doubt MS isn’t going to fork out $40+ billion for something that isn’t a guaranteed high reward. Same story with them possibly buying Valve. Really, EA and Valve should be considered protected properties, given their huge pretense in the PC. MS buying them would pretty much give them a monopoly over the PC market, which is illegal. 

Plus on a side note with EA, they likely have several contracts going with Sony for years to put games like Madden, FIFA, and Battlefield. MS buying EA would still mean they have to honor those contracts, so why bother if it will change very little for Xbox? 

I think MS showed their interest in gaming isnt solely on Xbox. Their recent cloud service purchase wasnt just for Xbox, Minecraft continues to be multiplat. So IF they bought EA, I believe numerous IPs would remain multiplat. If anything goes Exclusive it would be core games like shooters, the unlicensed stuff.

It wouldnt be a monopoly IF MS bought Valve and EA. I believe GOG would thrive, Ubisoft and Blizzard sell their own content. I think Amazon sells digital games, not sure. I mean it would give MS a huge chunk of the market but it wouldnt be a monopoly on PC gaming or gaming in general.

I could argue the Apple Store, Google Play, and Amazon have bigger monopolies on their devices versus Windows.

Long term, if MS could actually buy any of thi stuff, I see the most value in Valve. Major IPs, they would own the PC gaming market, and Steam couldnbe the new face of Xbox. That would mean something to Steam users globally.



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gergroy on 02 February 2018
Johnw1104 said:
There's not really a chance Microsoft could buy EA, is there? They just seem too big.

EA gets justifiably crapped on 24/7 but that would be an enormous get for them, assuming it meant those license monopolies EA has came with it.

I’m sure most if not all of those licenses would have an out in the contract in case of a buyout.  



gergroy on 02 February 2018

Square needs to get gobbled up by somebody, they have released nothing but crap since they merged with enix. They need somebody to breathe some life into them!



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Xen on 02 February 2018
gergroy said:
Square needs to get gobbled up by somebody, they have released nothing but crap since they merged with enix. They need somebody to breathe some life into them!

Where have you been in the last five years?



IamAwsome on 03 February 2018
Teeqoz said:
Johnw1104 said:
There's not really a chance Microsoft could buy EA, is there? They just seem too big.

EA gets justifiably crapped on 24/7 but that would be an enormous get for them, assuming it meant those license monopolies EA has came with it.

I've read somewhere that the FIFA licence comes with quite a few stipulations that it has to be released on any viable platform or something like that. While "viable platform" is of course not clear cut, you'd have to be pretty far out there to not consider the PS4 as one.

Madden is the same way. It has to be on every "viable" platform, but there are loopholes to get around it. There was only one Madden game on the Wii U. Unfortunately the lack of competition has had an effect on quality. 



Guitarguy on 03 February 2018
Ka-pi96 said:
Too bad they didn't. Couldn't possibly have turned out was than the merger with enix did.

Lol it could be much worse actually.



gergroy on 03 February 2018
Xen said:
gergroy said:
Square needs to get gobbled up by somebody, they have released nothing but crap since they merged with enix. They need somebody to breathe some life into them!

Where have you been in the last five years?

Here, not enjoying anything square has made in that time...



Azzanation on 03 February 2018

Meh.. aside from FF7 and FF8, Square doesnt offer me much variety. Glad they didnt. Much rather there investments focus on companies with a big library of games like Rare.