October 8, 2001

Square Enix

18.6%/currently 8.25%

Videogames

Japan

¥14,900,000,000

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Sony_Corporation

It does say they would net 4,8 billion, so they will come out ahead. Because if we look at today's stock price of around 1.700 yen, they stand to receive in excess of 16 billion yen for this transaction.

Sell those shares before they drop even more.


Should have got ridden of those shares years ago

Double Doomed !

Nice little benefit there =)

IGN article from 2001 when Sony obtained it's stake in SE.

Sony Corp. announced today that it's purchased an 18.6 % stake in Square Co. Ltd., placing Sony as the second biggest share-holder in the giant software maker.

Sony's 14.9 billion yen ($124 million) capital investment is the first of its kind for Square, which always has developed games for the biggest and most popular hardware manufacturers over the last two decades.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Square developed exclusively for Nintendo systems (NES, Super NES, Game Boy), and then after Sony established its PlayStation in the 32-bit era, Square switches allegiances and commenced development exclusively for Sony's PlayStation (porting its games later to PC).

What makes this move most significant is that Square approached Sony. According to news reports out today, a spokeswoman for Square explained the firm had approached Sony last month about the capital injection. As Square previously announced, it is likely to post a 10 billion yen net loss for the year through March 2002, down from the 700 million yen profit forecast, and the firm also is looking to recoup approximately 16.4 million yen (about $137 million dollars) in production costs from the making of its Final Fantasy movie, which Sony also helped to produce.

Even more startling is that because the stock purchase, Sony doesn't own a controlling interest in Square (Sony's purchase makes it the second-biggest shareholder in the company), which permits Square, technically, to produce games for any systems, such as Nintendo's GameCube or Game Boy Advance, or Microsoft's Xbox. Apparently, Sony does not plan to prevent Square from contributing games to competitive system makers, a SCE spokeswoman said.

"We are not necessarily obligated to Sony, because of this deal," said Hisashi Suzuki, Square's president. "But we can gauge the situation in the future and offer software to the best selling hardware maker, and at this time there is no doubt that Sony is the best."

"Square has created a series of hit games for Sony, including Final Fantasy, and we expect that to continue, helping ensure a solid game line-up for our PlayStation game players,'' said a SCE spokeswoman. "Of course, we hope they will release attractive games to Sony, but we will not force them to. We believe Square plans to release its games to the most popular format," she said.

"Square is a splendidly creative game software maker with a brilliant history...and we are positive that they will make more and more great games for us in the future," said SCE President Ken Kutaragi.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2001/10/08/sony-buys-stake-in-square-2

Good, it was not worth it anyway. I've been bitching about it for years, that even though Sony had around 8% of shares and were the third or fourth biggest shareholder, there was still a lot of SE games that skipped Sony platforms which imo is crazy. So good riddance.

So everything is doomed. I wonder if the current internet infrastructure is strong enough to handle an exclusive Xbox FFXV.

Business is business, and 8% means jack when Fukushima and Miyamoto have a controlling interest in the company's day-to-day operations. Sony has done well to sell now, although had they thought of it a few months ago they would have made out with a much better income. Anyway, they do  get a needed cash injection, and the contracts will remain in place unaltered.

Exclusive games stay exclusive, multiplats as well, and what skipped Sony will keep skipping it in the future as well.

I guess they got to play FFXV...

Sony must be running out of things to sell lol.