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Sony reportedly buying 19% of Square

Old 10-09-01, 08:05 AM
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Sony reportedly buying 19% of Square

This is from the GIA website (www.thegia.com). It connects to a Bloomberg news story. Word out of Japan is that Sony is going to buy a 19% stake in Square to offset losses incurred because off FF: The Spirits Within's failure. Sony will become the second largest stockholder in Square behind the Square founder.

As I said yesterday in the Oddworld thread, a lot of things are going to happen. I figured Sony would buy some or all of Square to keep them in their court. Expect more of these types of things to happen in the near future.
Old 10-09-01, 09:11 AM
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guess we won't be seeing very many square games for x-box or nintendo. Now if only Nintendo would buy a chunk of Sega.
Old 10-09-01, 10:04 AM
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If Sega goes, it will be going in pieces. Their different development houses seem to be behind different systems. Smilebit (Jet Set Radio) is behind the X-Box, Sonic Team (Sonic, Phantasy Star Online) is behind the Gamecube initially and AM2 is behind the PS2 (VF4 going to PS2). That is just 3 different teams and there are some that are going multi-platform (like Visual Concepts).

If Sega goes, the individual developing groups will go to different companies and there will no longer truly be a "Sega".
Old 10-09-01, 11:38 AM
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I'm guessing Final Fantasy X will help offset some of those losses for Square.

Honestly, couldn't they see that spending that kind of money on a film was going to go badly for them. Even Disney with all their clout had a hard time making money with Dinosaur.
Old 10-09-01, 11:47 AM
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The funny thing is that Sony is smart buying a chunk right now. the dvd release will help bring in a bunch of money and with upcoming games they will make money again. If they were real smart they signed an agreement giving them rights to buy the rest of the company.
Old 10-09-01, 04:27 PM
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Sony Buys Stake in Square

Sony Corp purchases 18.6% stake in Square, but leaves door open for competitors.

October 8, 2001


Sony Corp. announced today that it's purchased a 18.6 % stake in Square Co. Ltd., placing Sony as the second biggest share-holder in the giant software maker.
Sony's 14.9 yen ($124.4 million) capital investment is the first of its kind for Square, which always has developed games for the biggest and most popular hardware manufacturers over the last two decades.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Square developed exclusively for Nintendo systems (NES, Super NES, Game Boy), and then after Sony established its PlayStation in the 32-bit era, Square switches allegiances and commenced development exclusively for Sony's PlayStation (porting its games later to PC).

What makes this move most significant is that Square approached Sony. According to news reports out today, a spokeswoman for Square explained the firm had approached Sony last month about the capital injection. As Square previously announced, it is likely to post a 10 billion yen net loss for the year through March 2002, down from the 700 million yen profit forecast, and the firm also is looking to recoup approximately 16.4 million yen (about $137 million dollars) in production costs from the making of its Final Fantasy movie, which Sony also helped to produce.

Even more startling is that because the stock purchase, Sony doesn't own a controlling interest in Square (Sony's purchase makes it the second-biggest shareholder in the company), which permits Square, technically, to produce games for any systems, such as Nintendo's GameCube or Game Boy Advance, or Microsoft's Xbox. Apparently, Sony does not plan to prevent Square from contributing games to competitive system makers, a SCE spokeswoman said.

"We are not necessarily obligated to Sony, because of this deal," said Hisashi Suzuki, Square's president. "But we can gauge the situation in the future and offer software to the best selling hardware maker, and at this time there is no doubt that Sony is the best."

"Square has created a series of hit games for Sony, including Final Fantasy, and we expect that to continue, helping ensure a solid game line-up for our PlayStation game players,'' said a SCE spokeswoman. "Of course, we hope they will release attractive games to Sony, but we will not force them to. We believe Square plans to release its games to the most popular format," she said.

"Square is a splendidly creative game software maker with a brilliant history...and we are positive that they will make more and more great games for us in the future," said SCE President Ken Kutaragi.
Old 10-10-01, 01:23 AM
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Originally posted by ten41
Sony Buys Stake in Square

Sony Corp purchases 18.6% stake in Square, but leaves door open for competitors.

October 8, 2001


Sony Corp. announced today that it's purchased a 18.6 % stake in Square Co. Ltd., placing Sony as the second biggest share-holder in the giant software maker.
Sony's 14.9 yen ($124.4 million) capital investment is the first of its kind for Square, which always has developed games for the biggest and most popular hardware manufacturers over the last two decades.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Square developed exclusively for Nintendo systems (NES, Super NES, Game Boy), and then after Sony established its PlayStation in the 32-bit era, Square switches allegiances and commenced development exclusively for Sony's PlayStation (porting its games later to PC).

What makes this move most significant is that Square approached Sony. According to news reports out today, a spokeswoman for Square explained the firm had approached Sony last month about the capital injection. As Square previously announced, it is likely to post a 10 billion yen net loss for the year through March 2002, down from the 700 million yen profit forecast, and the firm also is looking to recoup approximately 16.4 million yen (about $137 million dollars) in production costs from the making of its Final Fantasy movie, which Sony also helped to produce.

Even more startling is that because the stock purchase, Sony doesn't own a controlling interest in Square (Sony's purchase makes it the second-biggest shareholder in the company), which permits Square, technically, to produce games for any systems, such as Nintendo's GameCube or Game Boy Advance, or Microsoft's Xbox. Apparently, Sony does not plan to prevent Square from contributing games to competitive system makers, a SCE spokeswoman said.

"We are not necessarily obligated to Sony, because of this deal," said Hisashi Suzuki, Square's president. "But we can gauge the situation in the future and offer software to the best selling hardware maker, and at this time there is no doubt that Sony is the best."

"Square has created a series of hit games for Sony, including Final Fantasy, and we expect that to continue, helping ensure a solid game line-up for our PlayStation game players,'' said a SCE spokeswoman. "Of course, we hope they will release attractive games to Sony, but we will not force them to. We believe Square plans to release its games to the most popular format," she said.

"Square is a splendidly creative game software maker with a brilliant history...and we are positive that they will make more and more great games for us in the future," said SCE President Ken Kutaragi.
I like how they word this. They are not obligated to produce games for Sony only. They just produce them for the best and Sony is the best

so it looks like as long as Sony is the number one seller Square games are on Sony exclusive. Since that will not change they will remain a Sony Exclusive. watch for more money flowing into Square and Sony buying a bigger share of Square. Sony knows Square games sell consoles for them and I bet they will move to keep it that way.
Old 10-10-01, 04:21 PM
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Hmm .... interesting. Say what you want about me, but I'd be kind of annoyed if Square did put the FF games on another system. The selling point for PS2 for me was Square. If they put their games out for every system, I feel like the PS2 was a "waste." BTW, by now, I expected a Square RPG to be released (besides Bouncer, which wasn't a true RPG). Doesn't even look like much is on the horizon either ... http://games.ign.com/developers/65.html
Old 10-10-01, 05:06 PM
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Was anyone suprised at how poorly FFTSW did? Man, that was a crappy show. Great CGI, but the rest (the actual movie) was just terrible.
Old 10-11-01, 01:29 AM
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Originally posted by RJainMJ
Hmm .... interesting. Say what you want about me, but I'd be kind of annoyed if Square did put the FF games on another system. The selling point for PS2 for me was Square. If they put their games out for every system, I feel like the PS2 was a "waste." BTW, by now, I expected a Square RPG to be released (besides Bouncer, which wasn't a true RPG). Doesn't even look like much is on the horizon either ... http://games.ign.com/developers/65.html
actually I expect that the main reason for this infusion of cash is to get the FFX game released. now with the short term money issues under control they can get this game done.

Trust me Square is not going to make a FF game for another system. they just have to say they are willing to do so to seem independent.
according to the link you provided they are releasing FFX in 1/2002 so only a few months away

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