Microsoft spent more than $60 billion to acquire Activision Blizzard some time ago, which should be the largest acquisition in the history of the game industry, which also caused a huge earthquake in the entire industry. This is actually a typical case of the integration of the game industry in the new era, hardware manufacturers are no longer satisfied with the launch of the host, but want to acquire game software manufacturers, to make their game ecological chain tend to be complete, but also attract more players to buy their own products.
Sony is not as rich as Microsoft, but since the old rival Microsoft has such a big hand, Sony is naturally not willing to fall behind, before the acquisition of "HALO" and "Destiny" a series of well-known games Bungie, is a small test, after all, the acquisition amount is not exaggerated, and now Sony finally has to sacrifice a big hand. Before someone broke the news that Sony will acquire a game software manufacturer with a very high reputation in the world, everyone once thought that it could be compared with Activision Blizzard, that is, EA, Ubisoft and other few manufacturers, and now it seems that this manufacturer seems to be more well-known than we thought, which is the Japanese veteran game manufacturer Square Enix.
In fact, Sony has made a lot of recent moves, first of all, the PlayStation Plus subscription service is layered, and then Sony said that it plans to acquire more game studios. Bungie's acquisition scale is only an appetizer for Sony, and now Sony has set its sights on large game developers, and sources have revealed that Sony is preparing to acquire Square Enix, but due to the large amount of money involved and the high risk, it is still more cautious at this stage. Compared with a rich lord like Microsoft, Sony is far inferior in financial resources, so the acquisition must be more careful.
In fact, the relationship between Sony and Square Enix has always been very good, before Square and Enix have merged, Square used the "Final Fantasy" series to send Sony's PS console to the throne of the host brother, and after that, Square Enix has a number of products exclusive on Sony's PS host, contributing inexorably to Sony's position in the console industry. And when Square lost money because of the "Final Fantasy" movie version, Sony also bought nearly 20% of Square's shares, which is a blessing in disguise, so the two companies have long had a different revolutionary friendship.
According to the available information, if Sony acquires Square Enix, it will also maintain its previous strategy and will not let Square Enix's work be exclusive on the PS platform, which is the same attitude as Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard. After all, in this era, even the monopoly of a well-known game will not bring greater sales to the console, not to mention that Sony Microsoft has its own well-known game development studio, monopoly will only hurt players, but also reduce the sales of the game, adding risk to revenue and profits. In addition, Sony has also begun to pay attention to the PC game market, and has placed many first-party games on the PC platform, such as "God of War 5", so the game studios and software companies acquired by Sony will also adopt a multi-platform strategy in the future.
In addition, Square Enix seems to have made a series of moves recently, the company for three hundred million using Eidos Montréal, Square Enix Montréal and Crystal Dynamics, these overseas studios to sell together, including "Tomb Raider" such well-known IP as the sale, which is somewhat surprising. It is not easy to say whether this will be related to the recent acquisition rumors, but Shi Ai's own original IP has been retained, and this part of the players do not have to worry.