Why would Sony bother when they’re already getting everything without spending more to buy the publisher. Only way I see Sony stepping in is if someone else makes a play for SE.
If you like it then you better put a ring on it lol. Nothing is permanent, ask Nintendo.
It would be a big mistake for Square to sell to Sony. I feel like a large portion of their revenue are from switch games. I know FF14 is their cash cow at the moment, but Square Switch titles sell a ton and most likely perform much better than on Playstation consoles. I still stand by my statement that if Square is up for sale a larger party will outbid Sony
Nah.
It will be 2030 and people will still think that Sony is buying SE any day now
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Nintendo own Japan. They wont allow sony to acquire SE.
And as some people have mentioned in the past…with the IP rights…owning SE nets you a few dev studios and only 1 of the 3 major IPs in FF. Sony already locked down FF. So why bother buying them?
I dont think sony give a shit about games like star ocean and ff spin off games going to xbox. And the nintendo support would give them too much headache.
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Would MS working out whatever is needed to get Square’s smaller games but still ultimately being left out of getting FF (due to contracts) be satisfactory?
I feel like there are some who won’t be satisfied until specifically FF7R and FF16 are on Xbox and that nothing else matters.
For me I am not into the AAA FF games so I don’t care if they never get those. Just get the smaller games
Last year I bought more Square games than in any other recent year:
Live a Live (GOTY)
Valkyrie Elysium (haven’t played yet, seemed good enough for %50 off)
Stranger of Paradise (pretty good)
Star Ocean 6 (Still in the backlog, heard it’s good)
Harvestella (currently playing, it’s alright)
Not to me. I feel Microsoft giving any amount of money to SquareEnix to be unsatisfactory.
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The FF games are the least interesting thing in S-E’s stable for me right now, and it’s a little sad that it’s come to that.
There really is nothing to work out, though? SE choosing not to release (some) of their internal dev games on Xbox is not a problem that MS can realistically “solve”. They either will come around, or they won’t.
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Live A Live is great, but my favourite 2022 SE game — and my personal GotY overall — was Triangle Strategy. Can’t recommend that one enough if you like SRPGs.
Buy tri ace from square and give them a budget.
If MS hadnt bought Bethesda. Theyd have gone after more ezclusive jrpgs for sure. I think with starfield and ESVI exclusive…ms arent bothered by thr FF deals as much
Resonance of Fate 2. Lets go.
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Star ocean divine force under the low budget and meh story/graphics. Had a lot of good in it. The combat, movement all felt really good. With a higher budget and better writers that game would have been good.
Xbox needs Japanese content. They should get struggling studios like tri-ace and level 5.
Companies dont wait for other companies acquisitions to finish. They can do it anytime they want. Fb still is acquiring companies despite the meta within lawsuit. Sony biggest acquisition of all time was Bungie at 3 billion. It really depends on the companies size and willingness to take risk. Prime example is discovery acquiring WB and how much its hunting them.
Problem is Sony have been actively wanting to vent their oppositon to abk deal. So any public operation to acquire SE will hinder that
But i dont think Sony give a shit about acquiring a whole publisher.
Another big problem I see with buying Square is how much of their published games are outsourced. I doubt that happens anymore when they are owned by a platform holder. At that point you are just buying internally developed games: Final Fantasy (already locked down by Sony anyway), Dragon Quest (not allowed to make it exclusive because Horii will want it on Nintendo), and Kingdom Hearts (extremely doubt Disney will allow it to go exclusive).
You also get Team Asano games (HD2D) but considering all of those but OT2 (which is already half-outsourced because Acquire helps make OT) have skipped PS I doubt Sony cares much about them (also should mention that Triangle Strategy was co-developed by Artdink and Live a Live by Historia).
When we look at last year, the overwhelming majority of published SE games were outsourced and I don’t think these relationships continue under a platform holder, so by buying them you are significantly reducing their output. Add not even being able to lock down 2 of their “big 3” and it’s a bad deal to me.
The problem is that buying Square Enix does not do a lot for Sony. It is in essence a defensive acquisition. I suppose the biggest value add is Square Enix’s back catalog, which could be added to their Playstation Plus service. If Sony decided to do Day 1 games on their service, then I suppose it could be worth it.
Sony would be taking on the added risk of games failing while taking on all of the development cost and marketing cost. Historically Sony is a pretty risk adverse company, so that seems like a lot to take on for them, especially for little reward.
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I think if Sony felt that buying SE was a good investment for them they’d do it regardless of Microsoft right now. For one thing if the FTC puts Microsoft through the entire court process and there’s no relief from the supreme court they could be looking at late 2024 as a closing date (at least, that’s the worst case estimate I saw). That’s a long time to wait to make a move and would be a bit of an own goal on their part. Plus if SE did want to sell now would be the time to buy it - when Microsoft is not in a position to potentially outbid them. Hell, more than that if they had been planning on buying SE they could have worked with Microsoft and provided a united front to get SE through smoother, rather than potentially poisoning the well on future acquisitions. The other side of this is that Square Enix has a responsibility to their shareholders as well - not Sony’s shareholders. They’re going to be looking for the highest bidder and have no reason to wait for Sony on that.
I personally think Sony just isn’t interested in acquiring them or any publisher really, they’re not in the same position as Microsoft where they can make use of a publishers entire catalogue of content thanks to game pass. I think they’ll keep focusing on individual studios that fit the PlayStation brand.
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