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

Xxain on 11 May 2022
Sogreblute said:
Kakadu18 said:

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.

It clearly says they co-own Dragon Quest. I would bet my next 10 paychecks that by being co owner, they have the first right to publish(Armor Project just can't go CAPCOM and start developing Dragon Quest 13). Also, it is common knowledge that Armor Project are lead developers and they choose grunt workers to handle actual development (Chunsoft, Heartbeat, Level 5, ext). 

For the sake funding, marketing and Publishing it is Square Enix. Never been anybody but Enix/ Square Enix .. other than those few times they made Nintendo publish western versions :). 



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Kakadu18 on 11 May 2022
Sogreblute said:
Kakadu18 said:

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.

Armor Project, Bird Studio and SE all three co-own the franchise.

In Kingdom Hearts' case they only own the original characters like Sora afaik. The rest is obviously Disney stuff.

Last edited by Kakadu18 - on 11 May 2022

Xxain on 11 May 2022
Kakadu18 said:
Sogreblute said:

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.

In Kingdom Hearts' case they only own the original characters like Sora afaik. The rest is obviously Disney stuff.

The Sora in SMASH series made the reveal that everything not Final Fantasy is owned by Disney, though SE does hold right to use the non FF/Disney characters.



Leynos on 12 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.

HoangNhatAnh said:

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:

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. 

WHy did MS want Fallout and Elders Scrolls when they were making Avowed and Wasteland/The Outder Wolds? Because why not?



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

Leynos on 12 May 2022
twintail said:
Leynos said:

WHy did MS want Fallout and Elders Scrolls when they were making Avowed and Wasteland/The Outder Wolds? Because why not?

Quite simply because GP needed (needs?) game content to continue making the service valuable to consumers. It's not rocket science my friend. 

I keep forgetting GP exists lol. In that case that just adds to why Sony would want TR. More games for their service.



Bite my shiny metal cockpit!

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HoangNhatAnh on 12 May 2022
Xxain said:
HoangNhatAnh said:

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. 

Yuji and Armor Project own Dragon Quest too, not just Square Enix.

Last edited by HoangNhatAnh - on 12 May 2022

Mnementh on 13 May 2022
NobleTeam360 said:

Yeah, I don't understand the "Sony is moving away from Japan" comments. To support this claim, there are two statements I always see, 1.) Sony shut down their Japan studio (which isn't true, as far as I'm aware they restructured it into Team Asobi), and 2.) they aren't sending as many consoles to Japan, why would they? Japan is a significantly smaller market than Europe and N. America for dedicated home consoles so why would Sony focus on what few consoles they ARE able to produce and send them to Japan over other regions?

It's their gaming output that is the best hint that Sony is moving away from Japan.

That include internal developments that are completely western centric. Nobody asks for big japanese oriented games, but Sony always had smaller games that at least in part target japanese audience like Patapon or Loco Roco. But even these smaller games aren't happening anymore.

That also includes treatment of japanese third parties with the stuff like extra hurdles like giving a text in english additionally to japanese for approval.



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PSwii60 on 21 May 2022

The only thing I care about is completely losing the chance of seeing Geno and Mallow again on Nintendo if this purchase actually happens.