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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Lets have a discussion: Multiple sources say SONY's next big grab is Square Enix.

Chazore on 09 May 2022
Kyuu said:

Yes Sony is going through similar investigations, hence buying Crystal Dynamics at this time could have been a bad move (for both Sony and MS). I'm assuming there wouldn't be as many complications with the FTC if the company in question is Japanese.

PC being a bigger player than it has ever been and the growing base of Japanese-game fans on PC will naturally compel SquareEnix to improve their support and optimization for the platform. SE's biggest game plays best on PC (FFXIV). And if we're counting ports, then PC is already THEE place to play SquareEnix games coz it keeps getting games that usually skip one or two of the 3 consoles. It's pretty much the only place where you can play almost any SquareEnix game. A notable advantage.

You'd think they would have been compelled years ago, even in recent years when Capcom publicly announced that they want to shift gears to PC more often, and SE didn't really pick up on that announcement as a message to improve their own quality.

Personally I feel like Capcom's improved far more than SE when it comes to their port quality and parity, while SE is now wanting to charge even more for late ports, doing exclusivity deals for one store only and focusing on Sony first, PC second, instead of Capcom's approach of PC/consoles being in the same league. We shouldn't be waiting years for a company as rich and as big as SE to do what Capcom is doing, with lesser budgets and power. 



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Vodacixi on 09 May 2022

If they keep making multiplatform games then yes. If not... no, thank you. It took ages for them to release their FF games on PC and other consoles, and even more time for KH. Let's not go backwards, ok?



HoangNhatAnh on 09 May 2022
Kakadu18 said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

Nin will get Koei Tecmo if necessary.

Koei Tecmo is a private company, they aren't gonna sell unless they're almost bankrupt.

I was replying to this line: "I forsee a future where all big 3rd party publishers of today will be exclusive to Microsoft or Sony".

the-pi-guy said:
Xxain said:

This could all be wrong but lets assume this is true: What are your thoughts on this? I prayed that our Japanese developers stayed out of this shit. I cannot foresee how this will positively effect our industry going forward. There are just some developers that I believe have no business being under one of the big 3 and SE is waaaay up there. I am curious to see what SE is going to get out of this. Maybe a deal like Bungie? I don't know why but there is something super slimy about SONY owing Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Kingdom Hearts. 

I would definitely expect the same games to stay on PC. Whether they remain on Switch/Xbox, is a lot harder to say. Kingdom Hearts probably because it is more entangled with Disney. 

Yuji Horii is the sole owner of the Dragon Quest series via his private company, Armor Project, which has an exclusive publishing contract with Square Enix. The series also sell best on Nin systems.



Kneetos on 09 May 2022
HoangNhatAnh said:
Kneetos said:

I forsee a future where all big 3rd party publishers of today will be exclusive to Microsoft or Sony
While today's indies will be the 3rd party games of tomorrow

Nin will get Koei Tecmo if necessary.

I thought nintendo said they are currently not interested in buying anyone after next level games

I think they also just bought land in order to expand their own studios for game development.

So unless something changes I don't think nintendo will buy up any studios from Japan, imagine the backlash if they did, yeah especially if its sega or level 5



Kakadu18 on 09 May 2022
HoangNhatAnh said:
Kakadu18 said:

Koei Tecmo is a private company, they aren't gonna sell unless they're almost bankrupt.

I was replying to this line: "I forsee a future where all big 3rd party publishers of today will be exclusive to Microsoft or Sony".

I know that.



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HoangNhatAnh on 10 May 2022
Kneetos said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

Nin will get Koei Tecmo if necessary.

I thought nintendo said they are currently not interested in buying anyone after next level games

I think they also just bought land in order to expand their own studios for game development.

So unless something changes I don't think nintendo will buy up any studios from Japan, imagine the backlash if they did, yeah especially if its sega or level 5

Only Koei Tecmo, they are very important to Nintendo.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/lets-look-over-nintendo-and-koei-tecmos-many-collaborations-on-switch.580670/



Xxain on 11 May 2022
the-pi-guy said:
Xxain said:

Why would SE sell off all those developers at such a dirt cheap price if they want to invest more in costly tech?

They supposedly have been trying to sell them off for a couple of years. There was even a rumor that Ubisoft was going to buy the wester branch.

And it makes sense, Square Enix has been throwing the western branch under a bus repeatedly for years. They've been disappointed with the performance for  years. Even Tomb Raider which was more successful than Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy ended up being.

And Tomb Raider isn't as relevant as it used to be.

Ok, but they still sold all of that for what is dirt cheap. Realistically they would sold them for as high possible as they recoup some that lost while getting rid of them. They could easily sold them 500 million.

HoangNhatAnh said:
Kakadu18 said:

Koei Tecmo is a private company, they aren't gonna sell unless they're almost bankrupt.

I was replying to this line: "I forsee a future where all big 3rd party publishers of today will be exclusive to Microsoft or Sony".

the-pi-guy said:

I would definitely expect the same games to stay on PC. Whether they remain on Switch/Xbox, is a lot harder to say. Kingdom Hearts probably because it is more entangled with Disney. 

Yuji Horii is the sole owner of the Dragon Quest series via his private company, Armor Project, which has an exclusive publishing contract with Square Enix. The series also sell best on Nin systems.

This is not true. Yoji Hori is the creator of Dragon Quest. Armor Project is development team behind Dragon Quest. Enix and now Currently Square Enix has always owned the rights to franchise. Man, this is Japan; no creator EVER owns their IP unless they self fund and publish. Ever. 

Leynos said:
the-pi-guy said:

I'm very curious as to how, and what business practices you're talking about?

Leynos said:

Has any of the acquisitions had an "insider" leak beforehand? The Closest I know of is Sony tweeting one early and then deleting it about Housemarque. Some may have forgotten but for a while Sony-owned 20% of Square until 2014.

Acquisitions don't tend to leak. It's a pretty good indication that this "leak" isn't based on fact.

A lot of times investors look at return on investment. The western branch of Square Enix was doing very poorly in that regard. So Square Enix can cut their western branch, and look like they have a higher return on investment. So they have fewer assets, but they look more appealing for investors.

True but I think Tomb Raider is an IP Sony would want if they did purchase SE.

What!? Why!? Uncharted is Tomb Raider. Why does SONY want another? Ignoring Tomb Raiders own quality issues one could make a fair statement that Uncharted played a big hand in Tomb Raiders drop in popularity. The Purchase of Square Enix for SONY is to lockdown FINAL FANTASY, DRAGON QUEST, and KINGDOM HEARTS and possible for SONY to have a strong Japanese developer to assist them on the Japanese front. PS5 ain't so hot out there. Dragon Quest alone would help PS5 if cant go anywhere else. 



Kakadu18 on 11 May 2022
Xxain said:
the-pi-guy said:

They supposedly have been trying to sell them off for a couple of years. There was even a rumor that Ubisoft was going to buy the wester branch.

And it makes sense, Square Enix has been throwing the western branch under a bus repeatedly for years. They've been disappointed with the performance for  years. Even Tomb Raider which was more successful than Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy ended up being.

And Tomb Raider isn't as relevant as it used to be.

Ok, but they still sold all of that for what is dirt cheap. Realistically they would sold them for as high possible as they recoup some that lost while getting rid of them. They could easily sold them 500 million.


This is not true. Yoji Hori is the creator of Dragon Quest. Armor Project is development team behind Dragon Quest. Enix and now Currently Square Enix has always owned the rights to franchise. Man, this is Japan; no creator EVER owns their IP unless they self fund and publish. Ever. 

Yuji Horii co-owns the copyright to the Dragon Quest franchise.

From Wikipedia:

Dragon Quest,[a] previously published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publisher Enix , with all of the involved parties co-owning the copyright of the series since then.



Xxain on 11 May 2022
twintail said:
Xxain said:

What!? Why!? Uncharted is Tomb Raider. Why does SONY want another? Ignoring Tomb Raiders own quality issues one could make a fair statement that Uncharted played a big hand in Tomb Raiders drop in popularity. The Purchase of Square Enix for SONY is to lockdown FINAL FANTASY, DRAGON QUEST, and KINGDOM HEARTS and possible for SONY to have a strong Japanese developer to assist them on the Japanese front. PS5 ain't so hot out there. Dragon Quest alone would help PS5 if cant go anywhere else. 

I agree that TR ain't a priority get for Sony.

But I doubt anything will help Sony in Japan. DQ / FF and KH are not nearly enough. It's not about the software (PS5 software is barely moving in Japan), it's about the console itself. As long Sony doesn't have a device that can become portable (like the Switch), they aren't ever getting a foothold in Japan again (unless trends change)

I'm just making guesses. I legit cannot see any reason why SONY would need to purchase SE. Creating a situation where if Japan wants to play Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts, they have to a PS5 is the only immediately obvious benefit. Even then though, I'm SONY is more worried about Microsoft than Nintendo, so how would this purchase help that battle? Maybe SONY has bigger plans for SE? Here is 100mil! Create a new global IP! Nevermind, they dont need to buy SE for that either. Hopefully the rumors are false. Any more downsizing though, and it will be obvious. 



Sogreblute on 11 May 2022
Kakadu18 said:
Xxain said:

Ok, but they still sold all of that for what is dirt cheap. Realistically they would sold them for as high possible as they recoup some that lost while getting rid of them. They could easily sold them 500 million.


This is not true. Yoji Hori is the creator of Dragon Quest. Armor Project is development team behind Dragon Quest. Enix and now Currently Square Enix has always owned the rights to franchise. Man, this is Japan; no creator EVER owns their IP unless they self fund and publish. Ever. 

Yuji Horii co-owns the copyright to the Dragon Quest franchise.

From Wikipedia:

Dragon Quest,[a] previously published as Dragon Warrior in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publisher Enix , with all of the involved parties co-owning the copyright of the series since then.

This is not well known, but you're right. Square Enix do not own Dragon Quest. Armor Project and Bird Studio co-owns the franchise. Horii is literally the one in charge and everything goes through him. He's the one who makes the decisions of who develops the games and the direction the games take. Fun fact, nearly all Dragon Quest games weren't made by Enix or Square Enix.

Square don't own Kingdom Hearts either, so 2/3 of their biggest franchises they don't even own.