Square Enix owns the Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts series
Microsoft has not yet completed its $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard, but is looking at other potential deals in parallel. And one of them can deprive Sony of very important exclusives for it. The point is that Microsoft is considering buying Square Enix.
Square Enix is a Japanese video game developer and publisher best known for its iconic Final Fantasy series. The team’s portfolio also includes the very popular Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts series.
Microsoft is considering acquiring Square Enix
The Final Fantasy series has been around for 36 years. As of May 2020, the cumulative sales of the 54 games in the series at that time exceeded 144 million copies on all platforms and brought the publisher $11.7 billion.
The bottom line is that quite a few games in the series have been PlayStation exclusives. For example, Final Fantasy XVI, released a week ago, is only available on PlayStation 5 and has already sold 3 million copies. If Microsoft buys Square Enix, the following Final Fantasy games will be on Game Pass. And even if they are simultaneously available on the PlayStation, Sony’s revenue will clearly sag.
For Microsoft, the Square Enix portfolio is an opportunity to strengthen its very weak position in the Asian market in general and in Japan in particular.
