Rumor - Square/Enix to join Playstation Studios

Sony couldn't afford Square, they can't even afford to buy more than 1.8% of Kadokawa Corp

Nah. Can't say I really see this happening this gen or at all to be quite honest. Until Square is in dire need of cash, and their popularity falters; they will keep accepting that free timed exclusive money from each of the big 3 (Hell, maybe even from Epic Games now too), than selling off the company.

Others than nier ( which actually developed by Platinum) and FF7R ( a remake of old game), most of SE output is underwhelming last gen.

The Tomb Raider trilogy is a hit n miss by Crystal, FFXV suck, KH3 also suck. They let go hitman series and fortunately for the IO Interactive, hitman become hit after they are free from SE grip

@madrocketeer: Your number is wrong. Sony's market cap is close to 140 billion USD, a lot more than your suggested 40 billion USD. So yes they can afford to buy Square. But it won't happen, I think. Square has been in Sony's pants since PS1 and Final Fantasy 7, so why do anything?

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/SNE/

I'll believe it when I see it happen

To be fair, I used the more conservative equity estimate; i.e. assets minus liabilities. Market cap is value of traded stocks, and I always take the usefulness of any data from stock markets with a grain of salt.

Still, even if going by my rough math of 10% liquid assets to total assets tops, an 8 billion company is still quite a stretch for that budget, because you also have to account for things like pre-acquisition rush and shareholder compensation offer. For example, Zenimax's equity was valued around $3 billion, yet it was sold to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

Yeah I'd believe it when I see it it.

Square just put out one of the worst FF's with the worst character lineup i've ever seen with FF15 and they put out a remake of FF7 which wasn't at all faithful to the original's combat and which I bought in like 97 and beat back than I didn't pick this one up at all didn't look up my alley at all as a old school traditional JRPG FF7 fan.

If anything they prolly just pay them to keep certain games off the switch an xbox and thats it probably.

Can Sony even afford SE?

Another 4chan rumor mill

@Telekill: S/E is too big for Sony to buy.

LMFAO.

It would be a great addition but the question is can they really afford that kind of aquisition I think blue point are a better option.

Bro they just made a remake that sold half as many units as the original and dumped a truckload of money on deving and advertising it, there ff15 I dunno how much it sold but I bought a lot of final fantasy games and I didn't buy that one i bought FFT 6 times on different platforms I skipped the FF7 remake and FF15. They are not too big to be bought, and didn't there avenger game not do well either and other crap.

@dabear: that's not how this works.

Sony doesn't have enough cash/equity to buy S/E.

How much a company is worth is typically represented by its market capitalization, or the current stock price multiplied by the number of shares outstanding. Square Enix Holdings net worth as of February 15, 2021 is $7.98 billion.

Sony does not have the money to buy them. Really, if you think Sony and MS are on the same level as far as company size (considering MS bought Zenimax), you are a real sad fanboy. MS is worth $1,653 billion, while Sony is worth $45 billion.

I suppose they could take the risk and try, but buying a company that is worth almost 20% of your net worth is generally a bad idea.

Heck, Phony will be lucky if after this gen they aren't forced once again to start selling off their buildings just to stay afloat. ;o

Wait, do they still have any to sell? lol :P

Trash company besides Deus ex and we all know that went downhill this past game. Bethesda is way better in every way.

The market cap is important because stock can be issued for the acquisition! Sony is worth $145 Billion and can always kick in stock for the transaction (as often times happens), they don't have to literally take cash out of their bank accounts LOL. Part of the offer can be issuing SNE stock to square shareholders. If Sony were worth $10 Billion, then it would be a very dilutive offer. But with it being $145 Billion, using $5 or $10 Billion in shares wouldn't be hugely dilutive, it wouldn't be a big deal at all.

There's no question Sony could "afford" it, the question is would Square be worth $10 or $12 Billion or whatever they'd probably want. That is assuming they are for sale for a reasonable price at all. There might be far better bargains for Sony to look at if they just want IP (i.e. Konami, Platinum Games, etc).

No chance....

No they can't.

First off, they aren't worth $145b, they are worth around $46b. Market capitalization <> market value. Second, that does not mean they make $40b a year. They do not have enough spending capital to by a $7b company.

They'd have to merge, or take out a huge load - on a company that has had diminishing returns over the past few years. And, I doubt their share holders wouldn't accept that risk.

@dabear: According to https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/SNE/sony/cash-on-hand , Sony has about 44 billion USD cash on hand, which should be more than sufficient to buy Square. But again, it doesn't matter whether they can afford an acquisition or not. They are better off not buying Square.

Lol wtf are you talking about? Sony is currently worth about $140 billion.

They have about $ 22 billion in free cash. In otherwords yes they could buy Square Enix and still have plenty to spare.

Thanks for the info - I did not know that.