I know there was a thread on this yesterday but it got me interested and i decided to run some of the maths involved.  Most of the information present is based on my calculations and the last Financial Reports from Sqaure Enix and Microsoft.

Square Enix is made up of just over 110 million shares, which are currently worth about $30 US dollars each by my calculations.   This makes Square Enix a $3.3 billion dollar company.  Incidentally Microsofts shares currently seel for just under SE's, at around $28 a share.  The difference is, Microsoft is made up of more shares, and has a market value of around $261 billion according to Forbes and Microsoft's last annual financial report.

SE's net income was Just under $150 million last financial year, wheras Microsoft's was $12.5 billion, even with the warranty disaster of the 360.

12% of SE is owned by financial institutions, 41% by individuals and 'other' and 24% by foreign (outside of Japan) companies.  

Assuming that individuals foreign companies and financial institutions would sell to Microsoft if offered a decent price per share, it is theoretically possible for MS to purchase 77% of SE from these Stockholders alone.  It should be noted that Sony (which wouldnt fall into either of the above three categories) owns just under 9% of SE.

SO CAN THEY DO IT???

Financially speaking they can, but purchasing 50.1% of the company would probably cost much more than the $1.65 billion MS would have to spend to meet half SE's market value.  IT would probably come close to $1.8 billion or $2 billion to insure that enough investors sold. 

Realistically speaking however, I dont think Microsoft would do this, at least not in the next year or two.  Its just too much money to justify to MS's own investors when they havent even proven their entertainment division can profit.  Hypothetically, if the Xbox 360 started to make money consistently for the next year and SE's market price came down a little, it would become more likely.  Some believe that owning SE as a first party would guarantee an MS victory in this generation, making the purchase more than worthwhile, but even if its true its too hard to justify to shareholders at this price point.

What MS COULD DO is purchase enough shares (perhaps 15-20%) to obtain some voting rights, which would enable them to force many exclusives for the PS3 and Wii to go multiplatform. But then, even this could cost almost $800 million, and after Rare didn't do as well as they hoped at $300 million, is it simply just to much to ask?

Microsoft has practically bottomless reserves of cash though, because of its monopoly position with Windows and Office. In reality it could purchase any third-party game developer it likes, even Konami or Capcom; analysts say Microsoft is almost "willing" to lose $20 billion in the Xbox line.

Microsoft always acquires third-party technologies, puts a Microsoft stamp on them and sells twice as many. You know that touch-screen table? I bet it wasn't designed by Microsoft. Halo? It was a planned PC and Mac shooter by an independent company before it was acquired.

Yes Game-Boy i agree, and i point out that they financially COULD do it in my analysis. But what im asking you is do you really think they would? We know that they have been chatting to SE a lot lately and are frustrated that games like FF and KH continue to evade their console. Would they go so far as to purchase a voting share, or even a majority share in the company?

Will they NO, can they Yes. microsoft can pretty much do what they want.

You cant buy something that isnt in sale .There may be some thousands of shares on the market for the people to buy but most probably the current direction has big enough core percentage under control to avoid hostile takeovers .

Plus ,Sony has a share of Square Enix .

yh they cud i heard dat they were goin to buy Nintendo but they made xbox instead

I think they could buy them, but it would be plain stupid. Such a massive change for a company like S-E would destroy them. The most important developers would probably leave and found their own studios. In the end, Microsoft would have the franchises but not much more.

Could Microsoft literally afford to buy Square Enix? Yes, they could.

Would it make any sense at all? No, it wouldn't.

Would Microsoft's investors stand for a fresh $2 billion in losses for their H&E division which is associated with almost no short-term return and questionable long-term return? Absolutely not.

Microsoft is already under pressure to generate a single-year profit with their 360 division. They're going to do it however they can. Investors won't keep putting up with an entry into a new market if Microsoft keeps under performing even worse than expectations. Square-Enix is *not* even close to that valuable to Microsoft -- they don't have any games that approach the popularity of GTA, for example.

Further, Square-Enix could not be profitable under Microsoft. They require Nintendo hardware right now to generate a profit -- the DS is their primary income for the foreseeable future, and the Wii will be their #2.

 If you'd read my post Diomedes, you would have realised that over 77% of SE's shares are in the hands of individual investors, financial institutions and foreign companies, who would gladly sell if offered a high enough price.  Sony's share is under 9%, and unlike Microsoft, they cant afford to purchase a much greater share of the company.