Square Enix does own Dragon Quest they only publish the games.

If Microsoft owned SE exclusively, they'd only be able to make games on XBOX360.  No more quick ports on the DS.  No more iphone games made in 3 months.  No more quickly made Wii games like Chocobo Racing or Dragon Quest Swords.  They'd pretty much be forced to make 'HD' games exclusively, thereby increasing production time.  No matter how much funding they got from MS.

And again, since the majority of their fanbase is in Japan, a country that hates the 360 even when major JRPGs are on it (Tales, Blue Dragon, etc.), it would be the same as killing SE.

Longer production time? You mean longer than Final Fantasy Versus XIII which will possibly release 6 years after being announced? Or maybe Final Fantasy XIII, which came out 3-4 years after being announced? Or maybe Final Fantasy Type-0, which will probably release 6 years after being announced and is on a handheld?

All of those are Square Enix's problems in a nutshell. Their handling of Final Fantasy, arguably their most famous franchise, has been horrendously awful this generation. Whether it's been "hey guys, here's a trailer for a game coming out, oh in about half a decade or so!" and not saying anything about said game for a couple of years other than the fact its still in production and showing another trailer, or the actual games that have come out, both of which have been piles of rubbish (XIII and XIV), Final Fantasy is an absolute joke right now compared to what it used to be. Nobody calls Square out on this because of love for a Final Fantasy game that was probably released 10 or more years ago without realizing that this company is not the same as it was then.

Enix owned the rights to Dragon Quest and Enix merged with Square.  SquareEnix now owns the rights to Dragon Quest in the same way they own Chrono or Mana.  This is why you don't see 'Revival of Mana' made by Brownie Brown and published by Nintendo or 'Chrono Break' made by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo.  And why Monoliths new game is called 'Xenoblade' instead of Xenogears or Xenosaga.

Sadly, if Yuji Horii wanted to break off and make Dragon Quest by himself or for another company, he wouldn't be able to.  And SE would NEVER give up one of the most solid money making series in the world.  WHat they need to do is help make the series more popular outside Japan so they can double their sales.  Its what they should have been doing for the last 10 years instead of putting all their marketing into only 2 main series.

With the exception of my not really being a S-E supporter anymore, I fully agree with this post. Go back to making quality JRPGs, and I'll be more inclined to buy. The problem I see is your last sentence. S-E has been developing the FF fanbase to demand pretty graphics, thus keeping the cost of the games much higher than it needs to be. So I'm more concerned that if they did cut graphics, they'd lose a fair amount of their current install base. Conversely, by continuing to throw money at graphics instead of the gameplay, they keep a lock on this base, since no other company is willing, or, in many cases, can even afford, to throw as much money at graphics as S-E. Thus, they keep the graphics-whore base, keeping sales high on what has been mediocrity for quite a while...

But isn't that the case though?  Doesn't Horii own Dragon Quest and Enix was just riding off of its popularity?  I mean I seem to recall reading here that being the case.  I mean the way Dragon Quest is handled it seems like Horii makes the final decision on the titles.  To further explain; Dragon Quest has been tied down to Nintendo these past few years I'm sure if Wada and his execs were in charge there'd be Dragon Quest on everything, hell even with the PSPs popularity so high in Japan right now I'm surprised not even a spinoff has been announced for it.

No, Enix owned (and now SE) the rights to Dragon Quest.  Yuji Horii did indeed create it, but Enix put up the money for its development, along with the games that followed.  That's why SE also owns the Mana and Chrono series.

But yes, Horii does have a pretty special setup where practically anything he wants, he gets.  But that's partially because the series has continued to increase in sales for every title since the first game.

Also, it is curious why Dragon Quest is only on Nintendo this gen.  But considering how well all the DQ games have sold, each over 1 million and DQIX selling 5.3 million, I think it was definitely the right choice.  Also, no one has said anything, but I'm pretty sure SE and Nintendo have a backdoor deal for the series.  Considering how Nintendo is advertising the series outside Japan and the whole exclusivity of the series.

We all aware by now how square-enix was down in profits from bad reviews and low sales of mind jack and also the final fantasy 14 mmo that bombed  that lead to cancel of several ips and also the exclusive they were working on for microsoft gun loco so  .........

My reason for starting this thread is this would it be better for square if microsoft were to own a majority of stake in square or have a buy out of them ??