• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Sony set to buy Square Enix

Excess

Member
They have more than $40B in cash not $3.3B
I just realized that Yahoo Finance reports in fucking Yen and in thousands. That's a big enough piggy bank, yeah. Never mind.

dmVZFBi.png
 

Kumomeme

Member
although square might be suit addition to Sony and also could help 'fix' their japanese 1st party output,

i rather square maintain as independent company, didnt belong to anyone, stay in middle, keep doing their things and keep growing.
 
Last edited:
If this happens (which it won't if we're being honest) this would cause a shitshow with Smash. Imagine if Sony removed what would be their IP from Smash... Oh boy.
I don't think they would. I bet both Sony and MS would love their characters in Smash. That's free publicity and advertising.

But, like you said, this isn't happening.
 

bitbydeath

Member
it would better to buy Ubisoft and make some sort of strategic partnership with SE.
Ubisoft has huge collection of games which pushing enormous numbers. plus they have some shooters and GAS games which could be useful to Sony for long run.
office space no GIF


I don’t see any valuable IP in Ubisoft aside from Rainbow Six and South Park. They’d need the biggest overhaul.
 
Another clueless person joins the discussion.

YES, Sony would pay a premium to buy Square. This happens with ALL acquisitions.

NO, they would not be paying a 100% premium like Bethesda, given that 7.5B of market cap is very unlikely to produce a discounted cashflow of 7.5B now when you reduce the userbase by around HALF. In the model that Bethesda can only release games on Xbox or PC, their projected discounted cashflow is probably closer to 3.5B.
Not that I believe the rumor, but Square probably is the one Japanese company that Sony wouldn't have to pay a premium for since their games really don't do well on the Xbox anyway.

Capcom and others tend to sell decently on Xbox on a relative basis, but Square is overwhelmingly Sony already.

Talk about clueless.
 

pratyush

Member
Don't want Sony and Microsoft to buy 3rd party studio. Make a new one with all your money. They already know what it takes to develop one.
 

Barakov

Member
Considering the source this is kinda.........ehhhh. Still there's been a bunch of rumors about this happening so it's possible, I guess. Then again this is supposed to happen on a Wednesday so I'm saying this isn't happening.
 
Not that I believe the rumor, but Square probably is the one Japanese company that Sony wouldn't have to pay a premium for since their games really don't do well on the Xbox anyway.

Capcom and others tend to sell decently on Xbox on a relative basis, but Square is overwhelmingly Sony already.
Very true but that also makes me think there is no need to buy them.
 

mhirano

Member
Guus, this is 100% true.
Sony move will be just after the release of Kingdom Hearts 4, FFVII Remake Last chapter and the last FFXIV DLC.
 
Last edited:

ToadMan

Member
Well, at least they got that part out the way in the last 23 years 🤔

Not really. While SE gravitate to the PS as a platform they aren’t working closely with Sony like say bluepoint or housemark are, or like insomniac and sucker punch were before acquisition.

That’s what I mean - Sony doesn’t collaborate closely with SE because it’s a publisher not a dev studio.
 

Yoboman

Member
For what it’s worth, Square Enix are also a manga publisher and own the likes of Fullmetal Alchemist so that could factor into Sony’s interest seeing as they are buying up everything anime and manga
 

Kerotan

Member
although square might be suit addition to Sony and also could help 'fix' their japanese 1st party output,

i rather square maintain as independent company, didnt belong to anyone, stay in middle, keep doing their things and keep growing.
But most SE games are on PS anyway and often exclusive. Sony wouldn't sell many more consoles by owning them.. Ff14 would still be on all platforms and it would still make sense to support pc and switch in certain cases.

IMO the only motivation to buy them is out of fear of rival players buying them. I'm pretty sure it Sony don't fear that they'll be happy to leave SE alone.
 

yazenov

Member
IMO the only motivation to buy them is out of fear of rival players buying them. I'm pretty sure it Sony don't fear that they'll be happy to leave SE alone.

Yes that's how I see it as well. They bought insomniac for the same reason, even though they were working closely with Sony. Bluepoint and Square-Enix is next on Sony's list IMO.

 

ToadMan

Member
But most SE games are on PS anyway and often exclusive. Sony wouldn't sell many more consoles by owning them.. Ff14 would still be on all platforms and it would still make sense to support pc and switch in certain cases.

IMO the only motivation to buy them is out of fear of rival players buying them. I'm pretty sure it Sony don't fear that they'll be happy to leave SE alone.

Yes that's how I see it as well. They bought insomniac for the same reason, even though they were working closely with Sony. Bluepoint and Square-Enix is next on Sony's list IMO.


You’re both reading his backwards.

SE are not a struggling company - they are profitable, have a decent chunk of cash in the bank and performing well. That means SE gets to choose their future whether as an independent publisher and studio group, or as part of a larger group.

If they’re up to merge with a bigger player they will be choosing who that is - if there is any truth to this rumour, it is SE making a decision to merge with someone because they feel that offers a strategic advantage, not a panic buy by Sony.

Public traded companies go through the M&A process with consent on both sides 99% of the time. It’s not like another company turns up and just chooses to purchase SE like it’s a lettuce with a price tag at the grocery store.
 

Kerotan

Member
Yes that's how I see it as well. They bought insomniac for the same reason, even though they were working closely with Sony. Bluepoint and Square-Enix is next on Sony's list IMO.

Exactly. I feel like everyone in the industry is now trying to panic buy. Sad state of affairs.

Blue point to Sony makes sense and nobody really loses.
 

Kerotan

Member
You’re both reading his backwards.

SE are not a struggling company - they are profitable, have a decent chunk of cash in the bank and performing well. That means SE gets to choose their future whether as an independent publisher and studio group, or as part of a larger group.

If they’re up to merge with a bigger player they will be choosing who that is - if there is any truth to this rumour, it is SE making a decision to merge with someone because they feel that offers a strategic advantage, not a panic buy by Sony.

Public traded companies go through the M&A process with consent on both sides 99% of the time. It’s not like another company turns up and just chooses to purchase SE like it’s a lettuce with a price tag at the grocery store.
If SE choose to merge can they separate from Sony at some point in future or would the 2 companies become one with a new name like Sony Square.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I always figured Sony was going to buy out one of the two either Square-Enix or Capcom. I wonder if it turns out that they do buy out Square-Enix. Will Sony make it solely exclusive PlayStation platforms and maybe PC? Or will do do what people are claiming that Microsoft will continue to share Bethesda games. This is going to be very interesting if true.
Yeah who knows what will happen or even IF it'll happen.

But one fact is that it'll be much easier (in terms of revenue and profit) for Sony to make SE games PlayStation exclusives than it would be for MS to make Bethesda games locked to Xbox.

SE games do not sell as much on Xbox anyway. But Bethesda does make a lot of revenue on PlayStation exclusives. Besides, PS5 will likely have a significantly bigger market share than Series X|S consoles once again this generation. This makes it slightly more difficult for Xbox to recover those dev costs without utilizing that PS userbase.

But who knows: anything could happen. We don't have the hard data. We're all just speculating.
 
I think it depends on how ms deal with Bethesda ends later this year cause they had to make a move in order to stay relevant to market otherwise it's a monopoly.
 

NahaNago

Member
I'll believe it when I hear or read the official announcement from Sony or Squareenix. That would be a soft counter to Microsoft's Besthesda purchase.
 
Learn to read instead of making a snarky reply.

What I'm getting at is that their market value is very close to their purchase value for Sony. It has nothing to do with Square accepting a shitty deal, and everything to do with Sony not overpaying.

In comparison, Bethesda which sells a ton of games on Sony platforms - Microsoft will have to essentially OVERPAY for something that isn't as valuable to their platform since the market value is based upon sales on Sony and Nintendo consoles, and now they very likely won't sell their games on those platforms.

This makes no sense. A company isn't going to sell at a discount to Sony...
 

THEAP99

Banned
I sadly doubt it. But with recent moves in the industry Sony probably is overdue for something major in terms of acquisition.
 

Same ol G

Member
The only reason this rumor started is beacuse sony fanboys can't handle that Microsoft bought Zenimax.
Now some finally are realising that they won't be able to play any of those games on their favorite plastic box they start this fake story.
Damn these people look like Trump, repeat a lie everytime and you start believing it yourself.
Oh yeah there's a word for that, DELUSIONAL

Also funny people think that Sony is all about Playstation, they're a big company that money is not for buying your favorite gaming studios they have more divisions.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom