Sony sells all of its shares in Square Enix

Posted on Thursday 17th April 2014 at 19:47 by Stiltzkin (with credit to Fatman)

We're making a slight change from our usual game-focussed news postings today to give you a brief nugget about Sony and Square Enix finances. Wall Street Journal, eat your heart out:

Sony has announced that it has sold all of its 9.52 million shares in Square Enix to SMBC Nikko Securities, in a deal reportedly worth ¥15.3 billion. That's approximately $150 million, or £89 million. Sony has not given a reason for the sale; but it's reasonable to assume that this has been done as part of Sony's current financially-motivated reforms, which also include plans to sell off the VAIO computing arm and restructure its TV division. Sony hasn't been faring well recently, financially speaking, and the boost this deal will give to its fiscal report will probably please its shareholders.

There's no indication as yet that this will have any impact on Square Enix's output or the release platforms of its games. Sony's previous 8.25% stake didn't prevent games such as Final Fantasy XIII being released on rival platforms, so it's unlikely that PlayStation platforms will be losing out now either.

Source: Eurogamer, Forbes

Posted in: Square-Enix News, News from Japan

Written by	Stiltzkin
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Comments

fatman	Comment 1: 2014-04-17 19:59
	Sony certainly have a lot they can sell it seems. Hopefully this doesn't stop future Square games being on the Playstation Vita. There were a few exclusives on the PSP in the past, I'd imagine Sony being a major shareholder helped that happen.
Rangers51	Comment 2: 2014-04-18 17:43
	I happened to see Newegg's take on it show up in my Facebook feed last night: http://blog.newegg.com/sony-unloads-9-5-mi...pany-uncertain/ It's worth reading if for no other reason than to see how wild assumptions probably don't work in the context of reporting news.
fatman	Comment 3: 2014-04-18 20:01
	Crikey, that link paints a grim picture, makes it sound like Sony will be going out of business tomorrow! Saying they are falling behind in the console wars is a blatant lie, not sure who they think they're fooling with that one.
laszlow	Comment 4: 2014-04-19 17:25
	Sony lost over $1 billion last fiscal year, but most of that was from its failing TV and PC products; the PS4 is strong. Also, that stock investment dates back to 2001, when the PS2 was young, FF X had just released, and Square was really killing it. This unloading of stocks is 100% for Sony shareholders and has nothing to do with Square-Enix making games on Sony platforms; Sony needed to recoup some of those 2013 losses, and it sold a LOT of stock; not just in SQEX. Sure, Square-Enix's high-level employees won't like this, but it doesn't affect making games. Bottom line: this has nothing to do with Square-Enix and Sony's work relationship. Gamers are reading the headlines without understanding the situation, and blowing this way out of proportion.
Stiltzkin	Comment 5: 2014-04-19 18:15
	Pretty much exactly as Lasz says - a lot of people are reading into this completely wrongly. It is simply a fiscal move to appease shareholders. It's not gonna affect Squenix output in any real way at all, and nor is it any kind of alarm bell for either Squenix, Sony, or really their relationship together. I tried to put that across in the wording of the OP, but deliberately wanted to avoid stating what is technically (though almost certainly correct) conjecture as fact - something a lot of the games websites have done, and done badly by their lack of understanding.
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