Sony buying Square Enix after buying Bungie ( one live service machine) does not make sense, because go against Sony's occidentalization and live service focus. It´s easy for sony to fund the project AAA with some acquisition studios ( Luminous and other AAA Square Studios producers) and not entirely Square Enix. Sony doesn´t have an incentive to buy all Square Enix, and believes, neither wants to spend the high price ( Sony is not Microsoft and doesn´t have infinite money to do this).

In this scenario, Nintendo buys Enix and the Asano team seems more logic, but it´s crazy too. 

Always the second silly comment. Why do peeps always think Just buy Enix! Guys that it is not how it woooorks lol. There is no Enix, There is no Square. Those companies were dissolved over 20 years ago. When companies do the fusion dance, the previous forms of the company dissolve. They don't exist anymore(of course the license and logos ares still owned for legacy sake). SE is not split into Enix side or the side. Nooooo. They dont have 2 offices where Enix guys sit and Square guys sit. They don't have Square bathroom and Enix bathrooms. They don't have Enix lunch table and Square table. My gawd.

Example: SEGA bought Atlus then somebody buys SEGA but for some fukin reason does not want Atlus. They can separate these entities because they exist as two entities, but if SEGA and Atlus fused to SeAtlus, Sega nor Atlus exist. Everything is under the new brand.

One easy way you can tell this whole thread is bullcrap is that no one is even remotely talking about SE's MMO business, and that is by far the most lucrative part of their whole business.

No, they setting themselves up for other companies buying stakes in their studios.

Why would Disney or Armor Project decide to change anything about their relationship with SE because of a buyout? Not like the IP's did spend a considerable amount of their lifetime on PS consoles only anyways. Hell, Enix willingly left Nintendo consoles in the past to go exclusive to PS. What would be the trigger after all this time?. You dont specifically know the bindings of KH and DQ agreement anyways. So they idea they can judge leave when they wanted is a assumption. I highly doubt either the KH or DQ SE ownership gives then the ability to just say... bye. Pretty amateur business decision by Enix/SE. 

My issue is that it does feel they trimming down however i wonder how much that will affect the company and buyout once or if it happens.

I would say the biggest evidence for Square Enix trying to sell was selling Edios for so cheap. With how hot acquisitions are, selling them for a measly 300 million screams "we're cleaning up the balance sheet for a sale." There was no good reason to not hold out for more.

I have my doubts of Sony buying them. With SE's current market cap, Sony doesn't have the cash to buy them outright (this is before considering a premium they'd have to pay). They'd either have to do a cash/stock deal or get debt. To address the comment question in the thread of "why would Sony buy SE", well, it's a few reasons. First, Sony needs something to respond to Microsoft. For one, it keeps Final Fantasy and other titles off Game Pass and keeps them on Sony's system. It also looks good to investors. With Microsoft buying Bethesda and now Activision, it at least shows the investors that Sony wont get totally locked out of the market.

The other big reason is to take back RPGs from Nintendo. See, there are a few titles that are "key" titles. Fans of a genre will buy the console if it has the Key title on it which results in more games of that genre on the system. If Call of Duty is on a system, then shooters will come to that system because thats where all the fans were. Halo was a key FPS title which is why the XBox and 360 was the place for shooters. Final Fantasy has been this for RPGs. The SNES was the RPG king until Sony took the crown. Nintendo took it back when Final Fantasy 3 game to the DS. By locking a lot of RPG series off Nintendo, Sony will be the defacto place for them. By the by, Sony is doing this already with Fighting games buy buying up EVO.

I don't think they want to be bought out tbh. SE just seems to react very slowly to their own blunders, so they think that by cutting off their entire Western focus/division, that they'll stay afloat without any sort of full on buyout.

If I didn't want to be bought out completely, I'd focus on trimming the fat, but in SE case they seem to be wanting to trim off the entire Western IP type of "fat".

I still think it's a huge mistake for then to just cut off Western IP's. All they had to do was make what people actually wanted and not trying to goof shit up half the time (or worse, making them live services with loaded MT's).

They can totally go back to square one and focus on only Jap IP's they own, but Capcom and Sega seem to be doing fine with both Western and jap IP's under their belts, so SE cutting the fat from their body is still making them look stupid. If two other Jap publishers can do good on two fronts, there's virtually no reason why SE can't.

besides, even if there was a possibility that they'd be bought out, it certainly won't be from the likes of a Western company, since Japanese law prohibits a total buyout of Japanese companies from the West.

You are right. It doesn't any sense. Why would a big name, GLOBAL publisher reduced itself to strictly a Japanese based publisher? They would be making themselves less competitive. Answer: The publisher that is most certain to buy them does not their western studios. They have plenty.

You just added to the "This SE move makes no business sense" category. This only makes sense it they are preparing to be bought. Everybody else is expanding. SE is doing the reverse, because ... they no longer need to worry about being a global publisher.

Tag this one to cleanup later. Was on my phone at work and I did not that post clear enough.