Sony is interested in Square Enix, says Eidos Montreal founder

That year, Embracer Group, the parent company of THQ Nordic, Koch Media and others, secured the services of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal by buying out the studios.

And not only that, but also more than 50 brands, including well-known franchises such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Thief, Legacy of Kain and more. All for the bargain price of $300 million.

What are the reasons?

According to Stephane D’Astous, one-time founder of Eidos Montreal, the reasons for this are the dwindling success of the respective games and studios, although “a lot of good people” would work there.

It was a gradual process over the years that ultimately led to Square Enix parting ways with it for comparatively little money. Or is there more to it than that?

More on the subject:

“Reading between the lines, Square Enix Japan wasn’t as committed as we originally hoped,” he says. “And there’s obviously rumors that with all this merger and acquisition activity, Sony would really like to have Square Enix in their ranks. I’ve heard rumors that Sony is really interested in Square Enix Tokyo, but not the rest. So I think that [Square Enix’ CEO Yosuke] Mr. Matsuda did it like a garage sale.”

To him, that explains the relatively small sum, considering Embracer paid around $1.3 billion for Gearbox.

“They have about 1,000 employees. Eidos has about 1,000,” says D’Astous. “They mostly have Borderlands and a few others, but Eidos has 5x more IPs, so why 4x less money? I guess not many important people were interested. And unfortunately that shows the value of Eidos’ potential is. ”