Sony bites a chunk out of Square putting cross-platform gaming under spotlight
Will FFXI be cross-platform as Sony makes its mark?
As the financial markets opened today, it emerged that Sony Computer Entertainment has acquired a large percentage of legendary RPG specialist and Final Fantasy creator SquareSoft.
Sony is in the process of buying around 11.2 million shares from Square, a huge portion of the company that will result in a total investment of 14.9 billion yen or about $124 million.
This makes Sony Square’s second biggest shareholder, with about a 19% stake in the company. It has also emerged that Sony will pay only 1330 yen per share, which is around 18% less than the stock was valued at yesterday.
The news will ease the concerns of Square’s other shareholders, a disgruntled bunch of people not best pleased at the massive losses announced by the company following the huge spend and subsequent flop of the movie The Spirits Within, as we reported last week.
“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.
The new concern of the gaming world, and particularly Final Fantasy fans, is the future of Final Fantasy XI. The game was due to see a massive multi-platform roll-out, with Square implementing a dedicated online gaming forum for it, PlayOnline.
“We are not necessarily obligated to Sony, because of this deal. 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,” said Hisashi Suzuki, Square's president.
We will have to wait and see…
Sony is in the process of buying around 11.2 million shares from Square, a huge portion of the company that will result in a total investment of 14.9 billion yen or about $124 million.
This makes Sony Square’s second biggest shareholder, with about a 19% stake in the company. It has also emerged that Sony will pay only 1330 yen per share, which is around 18% less than the stock was valued at yesterday.
The news will ease the concerns of Square’s other shareholders, a disgruntled bunch of people not best pleased at the massive losses announced by the company following the huge spend and subsequent flop of the movie The Spirits Within, as we reported last week.
“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.
The new concern of the gaming world, and particularly Final Fantasy fans, is the future of Final Fantasy XI. The game was due to see a massive multi-platform roll-out, with Square implementing a dedicated online gaming forum for it, PlayOnline.
“We are not necessarily obligated to Sony, because of this deal. 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,” said Hisashi Suzuki, Square's president.
We will have to wait and see…
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