That’s absolutely brilliant 
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Haha, pure gold.
This is great news for those IP’s
Square Enix are the most detestable company out there right now. Not even EA or Activision would shit on their franchises and studios the way SE does. Fucking rodent of a company. Constantly coming out to the media about how these games are underperforming despite some of them being really good and the ones that aren’t good is entirely the fault of SE’s bastardised greedy Marketing vision. Never even bothered to acknowledge some of the good work these studios did.
Part of me wants FF16 to flop big time. This company needs to go under. They have so many great IP’s that I hope they get bought out.
They created all these western studios and have ran them to the ground. They had a few hits with the early TR games but as a whole these IP’s and studios have been mismanaged.
And don’t think its just the western IPs either. Lets take a look at FF15 and KH3…yeah enough said.
Fuck this company. The odd great game here and there(like a Dragonquest XI or FF7 remake) won’t save them.
YOu say exclusive BC but a lot of those games were only on Sony systems. So most of them are exclusive by default
The studios are barely turning profit with 4 million in sales and GP money. That’s what they are using to determine their worth and it’s not a good situation. CD’s profit margin was 3.6% in 2021
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This whole “Square Enix is streamlining themselves for an acquisition” stuff is silly talk to me. If this is what was happening then they would have axed the Manga and Amusement divisions… Not shiny Western IPs that would be very attractive for MS and Sony.
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If they stop having these ridiculously mismanaged development times and rocket high budgets, then these titles won’t have to sell 10+ million copies to make a profit.
Kingdom hearts 3 announced in 2013 (pre production probably in 2012) released in 2019
Final Fantasy 7 remake announced in 2015 (pre production probably started in 2014) released in 2020.
Final Fantasy 15, who the hell knows what happened with that train wreck. It was like a 10 year dev cycle. Announced in 2006, Nomura went nowhere with it, he pushed it off onto Tabata, they basically rebooted it. Released in 2016.
I think they need a complete restructuring of game development and management, because what they are doing is just not financially viable.
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And remember REmake 7 was half a game almost. I beat it in 25 hours and it has fuck all post game content compared to just about any FF game.
FF16 is just asking to flop big time. Fair enough you’ve got Console exclusivity for a year most likely…but to not release this game day and date on PC? Suicidal and I can’t wait for that Oh it underperformed crap…but we all know they’ll never say that about a Sony exclusive. Just their multiplats.
FF7 remake as an epic exclusive too. How much did Epic pay for that exclusivity? BEcause IT sure as hell can’t be more than what Remake would have done on Steam?
Theyre just a shithousery company top to bottom.
I’m skeptical Sony will open their coffers to outbid MS on these franchises tbh.
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Interesting, I was just thinking today Microsoft might buy Crystal Dynamics.
Does anyone have the full list of all the IP’s that Embracer has acquired via this acquisition? I know the obvious ones but anyone have a list? I think the number was around 50 or so but doesn’t include Sleeping Dogs (damn you SE), Outriders (smh) or Just Cause (ugh).
Embracer said they expect the first AAA release from them within two years so if I had to guess, I would say the next Tomb Raider game will be Fall/Holiday 2024.
My thoughts are SE might be breaking up the company and we could see the sale of the Eastern part of SE and the non-gaming parts too. Now lets say MS was looking to purchase SE to obtain some Japanese studios, it may make sense to sell off the Western division for anti-trust reasons. Buying the Japanese side alone in a smaller deal shouldn’t raise any red flags (maybe). If Sony were involved I’d imagine they’d want the whole thing, but maybe MS is offering a better deal on the Japanese side alone. I suppose Tencent or another company could be involved here also.
Sony and MS not picking this deal up just tells me there are other things in the works for both of them.
Sit tight folks, we aren’t done.
watching game forum goers overreact and deeply analyze every errant thought from a insiders, “insiders,” influencers, and youtbers is hilarious.
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I mean Sony is literally already offering manga and is looking to buff up on that since they own the biggest anime/manga platforms. Also why would they not want SE’s cinematic studios?
The only thing SE has that Sony might not be interested in is their stake in the arcade business with Taito, but I imagine they could do a lot with that.
I do wonder if this comes down to Square’s mismanagement rather than the studio itself. I saw no advertising for the new GOTG game at all yet it got a 84 Metacritic and won loads of awards (it is a brilliant game). The only thing I saw from Square was them shitting on the studio.
Both CD and Eidos typically release brilliant games, I suspect Avengers only turned out the way it did because SE forced them down the GaaS model. The actual campaign parts were really good.
4m sales would typically be seeing a profit, though the fact it only sold 4m to begin with is the issue.
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Square kept Sleeping Dogs? Very disappointing.
If Sleeping Dogs didn’t have anything to do with Crystal Dynamics or Eidos there isn’t really any reason they’d have let it go
Most of the reactions I see here and elsewhere seem focused on the IP and whether it was worth it, but only a few people seem to discuss what seems to me a more valuable commodity: developers.
Everywhere I turn I hear how there’s a drought of developers, how there’s tonnes of openings at various studios, how talent retention is a real problem.
Well, $300 million for access to 1100 employees seems a decent deal to me. I feel like it might’ve been worth that without any IP at all.
Now, if the rumblings are true about debt and other reasons for the true cost perhaps being closet to a billion… Well, then perhaps not. And it seems pretty likely to me that something along those lines is probably what caused all the usual suspects to apparently not be all that interested.
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I guess Embracer couldnt come up with an extra $50K…
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I know I’m late to the party here, but having slept on this for a bit…I’m not convinced we have the whole story here. Something’s missing. Something doesn’t seem right.
I don’t know what that means, of course.
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