Square Enix may sell ‘stakes’ in its remaining studios

Earlier this year, Square Enix shocked us all with the sale of its biggest western studios and historic IP like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex in a $300M deal. It seems that this was just phase 1 of a restructuring within Square Enix. Phase 2 will reportedly see the publisher selling off additional studios, or opening them up for investment with the goal of funnelling more resources towards its Japanese studios. 

Industry analyst, David Gibson, who listened in on Square Enix's recent quarterly earnings call, noted that the publisher plans to review its roster of studios and begin selling off stakes on those businesses. This would then allow Square Enix to push more resources towards its Japanese titles.

Given recent rumours around Square Enix and Sony, it is expected that this will open up the door for Sony to obtain a decent stake in Square Enix and partner more closely with them going forward. Other potential suitors for investment include the likes of Tencent and Nexon.

As IGN points out, Square Enix still has four Creative Business Units, which are the core Japanese studios that develop Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts, as well as a few other games. Square Enix also owns Luminous Productions, which is currently working on Forspoken, Tokyo RPG Factory, which works on smaller JRPGs like I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphere, and finally, there is also the London Mobile studio.

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KitGuru Says: From the sounds of it, Square Enix is shifting to double down on Japanese games moving forward, which could end up being a good move.

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