I think the message from other posters is pretty clear: Of course they could, but they won't (and they shouldn't).

MS could have purchased any of the big Japanese third parties years ago, but it did not. Instead it started up some new divisions and partnerships...maybe this is because MS thought that was all they'd need, but more likely it's because the cost is much more reasonable. By the same token, the other devs Microsoft has bought or worked with were mostly pretty small.  Rare is probably the biggest dev MS purchased, and look how that turned out (and I love Rare).

I think the idea that this would allow MS to win the generation is...questionable. 360 already has a much better lineup of RPGs than PS3 or Wii, and it's still performing dismally. Furthermore, Wii and DS have taken Japan by storm based mainly on the strength of new "casual" games - DS became #1 purely on Nintendo's products, Final Fantasy III was just the icing on the cake. If Square Enix supported PSP only, I think DS would still be winning.

Long story short: Square Enix doesn't have the influence it once did, and while Microsoft can technically afford it, it's still a lot of money to gamble...to quote "Bill Gates" on the Simpsons: "Oh, I didn't get rich by writing a lot of checks!"

yeah, by and large i agree with couchmonkey. Possible, but improbable

This is what I wanted my thread to be. Lousy title ruined it. ._.
Anyway, I think Microsoft could acquire S-E, but they should only do it if they plan on entering the console wars ext gen too, no matter how they do this gen.

Each share may cost ,say ,30 dollars .But ,those shares bring money to the share holder each year .So ,for the share holder to sell this share supposes not only the 30 dollars he spent on it but to lose forever the annual income the share offered .Thats why your analogy is flawed .Buying Square would be more costly .Of course ,there is always a determinate amount of money when the share holder says " of course this is more money the share is worth and would give me in 50 years !" and accedes to sell .

But things are more complicated .Some of these individual investors and financial institutions who have the shares are represented in the direction of the company .Their job is there .Selling the company to a foreign company may signify the demise of Square Enix ,specially if Xbox continued to sell poorly there .From a economic standpoint even if the money offered is more than the actual worth of the shares the direction can refuse to sell its shares because they know what it would imply .The company could still exist under MS wing but with its brand name and value totally destroyed and without the liberty to take another direction if they wish .Fortunately not everything in this world can be bought by money .

Bill Gates could buy Square-Enix out of his pocket. That dude has so much freakin' money its ridiculous.

From what I've read, american companies (or for that matter any foreign companies) have a hard time trying to buy controlling shares of japanese companies. It's likely that the japanese would just not accept any purchase offers from microsoft if it would mean giving them control, even if offered a lot of money.

Does anyone know how common foreign take-overs are in Japan?

edit: Apparently I forgot how to write proper engrish!

 Please tell me that you dont intend to work in stocks? Very few of the ppl that have shares in SE would have paid $30 dollars fo them. SE doesnt pay dividends on shares every year and when they do they are not always huge. an EXTREMELY SMALL number of private and public investors hold shares for 50 yrs or assume they have 50 yrs worth of growth value.  As I said, at least 77% of this company is held by parties that would place absolutely no patriotic or diplomatic value on them and would sell to Microsoft if they were offered a decent price.  Given that the price is high atm, perhaps an offer of $32-34 a share could even get sufficient shares to have voting rights

 It is true that Japanese businessmen and women tend to be very nationalistic, although less so now than ten years ago.  That said, 20% of this company is already owned by overseas companies, and a huge amount is owned by individuals and financial insititutions, not the sort of traditional owners you are referring too.  This is a publically traded company, if MS wanted to buy it (i dont think they do), they could

The only reason I could see Microsoft do this would be to hammer Sony. Imagine if MS bought out Square-Enix and the announced that FFXIII would not be comeing to the PS3. (I don't believe there is a contract that states that SE has to develope FFXIII for the PS3) And considering that this is the main francise for Sony, the PS3 would take a huge hit because of it.

This would only make sense for MS if they were only concerned with competing with Sony. (Which I believe is the case.)

Microsoft actually tried to buy SquareSoft back in 1999. SquareSoft would only offer them 40% of the company for 2.5 billion dollars which was shocking since all of SquareSoft wasn't even worth that much at the time.  I think it was because at the time they were worried about becoming an exclusive company to a future Microsoft console (the Xbox didn't exist at that point though but that's the only logical reason business analysts could come up with for why they wanted so much from Microsoft and why the deal fell through).  Later on SquareSoft approached Sony and sold 19% of the company to Sony for 125 million dollars (they needed money after their Final Fantasy movie flopped).

source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=dev&aid=374