Million said: @sc94597 I'd agree that Sony aren't powerfull to the extent that they could decide what platform a game should be released on or what content it should have , but you still can't deny that Sony would have an influence in major decision making , they won't be succesfull in influences SE to do something un-profitable but I'm sure they're share in SE will come in useful in certain situation.

 Yeah I guess you may be right, but then SE would most likely listen to the others too , and if the others disagree with sony(lets say the largest) who do you think SE will listen too more? I would think it would be better for sony to pursuade the others if they wanted a decision to be made. I would say that is somewhat influential, but nothing too major.  

To put this topic to rest:

If 8% meant ANYTHING, then DQIX would not be on the Nintendo DS. Nor would the DS have 3X the development support of the PSP.

I read in an interveiw with a ps3 programmer on the crystal tools on 1up.com that sounded like although square and enix are one company, that they each make their own decisions. Dont know how true that is though.

Ds- ff3
ff4remake
dragon quest 4-6?
dq 9
ff tactics ds
world ends with you
KH ds


PSP- FF7CC
FF1 remake
FF2 remake
KH psp
FF dissidia
FF war of the lions

Those were off the top of my head so im sure i missed abunch but it seems pretty spread out across the board. Agian I mentioned that SE may be one but both have freedom to do which one chooses, which is why the "square side" focuses on the psp while the "enix side" tends to go with ds. Just a theory. Of course this theory is based off that interview I read which could have been mistranslayed or i simply misinterted what he meant.

8% is a nice chunk of a company, but not enough to influence any decisions.

How does Sony benifit from owning a large amount of shares in SE?
Do they get some of SE's yearly profit?
Or are they just investing money in SE, in the hope that one day they can buy SE?

@ naz

If we go by that logic, why doesn't SE put all their games on DS?

(and. That 3X is a little exagerrated. Dontcha think?)

Soriku said: It doesn't matter, 8% isn't going to let you decide anything and I doubt influence anything. Now if they still owned 20% then things might be different.

 Shareholders, no matter how small the amount of stock they own have voting rights and do influence the decisions of the company. Of course if you have 10 shares of SE your vote is really going to be meaningless, but they still count. Crap I have some 50 shares of some huge companies and they are always sending me shareholder info and asking me to vote on stuff. If the votes amount to 50.01%, then that's the direction the company will go for. 8.6% is not close to 50.01% but it is significant in a company as big as SE. 

 

naznatips said: To put this topic to rest: If 8% meant ANYTHING, then DQIX would not be on the Nintendo DS. Nor would the DS have 3X the development support of the PSP.

 Because Sony voted PS3 development and the others voted DS? 8.6% is very significant in a company that big, I can only wish I had 8.6% voting power on a big company.

 

Devilstation said: 8% is a nice chunk of a company, but not enough to influence any decisions. How does Sony benifit from owning a large amount of shares in SE? Do they get some of SE's yearly profit? Or are they just investing money in SE, in the hope that one day they can buy SE?

 They get dividends and gain distributions, and the value per share shot up the roof when the two companies merged, so even though they had less of a percent on the company (thus less voting power), they had a lot more money values for their shares.  

 

dabaus513 said: I read in an interveiw with a ps3 programmer on the crystal tools on 1up.com that sounded like although square and enix are one company, that they each make their own decisions. Dont know how true that is though. Ds- ff3 ff4remake dragon quest 4-6? dq 9 ff tactics ds world ends with you KH ds PSP- FF7CC FF1 remake FF2 remake KH psp FF dissidia FF war of the lions Those were off the top of my head so im sure i missed abunch but it seems pretty spread out across the board. Agian I mentioned that SE may be one but both have freedom to do which one chooses, which is why the "square side" focuses on the psp while the "enix side" tends to go with ds. Just a theory. Of course this theory is based off that interview I read which could have been mistranslayed or i simply misinterted what he meant.

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=&console=DS&publisher=Square+Enix&genre=&keyword=&order=Last+Updated

http://vgchartz.com/games/index.php?name=&console=PSP&publisher=Square+Enix&genre=&keyword=&order=Last+Updated

38 compared to 11. Some of the games for the ds being from SE's main series not as a remake or spinoff.  

naznatips said: To put this topic to rest: If 8% meant ANYTHING, then DQIX would not be on the Nintendo DS. Nor would the DS have 3X the development support of the PSP.

@Soriku:
Sony = 8% of shares

8% of shares = 8% voting power 

8% voting power = SOME influence

SOME influence > NO influence.

Also as I've stated before, 8% is plenty to get insider information from SquareEnix, meaning they know how SquareEnix makes their money and where that money is going. It's (Sony's 8%) certainly not enough to make any decisions but it's much more than what you're giving credit to.

As for the people saying Sony can buy out Level-5... It used to be correct during the Dark Cloud days, but not anymore. It's not so simple for Companies to just buy out 3rd party publishers, those publishers have to be willing to  be on the selling block. The 3rd parties have to be willing to give up their insider shares (which are not availible to the public), otherwise the buyer can only have a percentage of the float. If things were so easy, Microsoft would have bought out many high profile 3rd parties already.