Sony sells SquareEnix shares. Loss of confidence?

Sony Computer Entertainment has sold all of its 9.52 million shares in Square Enix Holdings to SMBC Nikko Securities Inc, for around 4.8 billion ($47 million).

One way to look at it is Square Enix's poor performance of late having shaken Sony's confidence in them.

Source

Sony needs money and with that small a share % its not like they would have had a major say in Square.

So i think its simply just a normal sale without any other motives than "hey we have these and they are worth a few bucks."

^^ Yeah. Wholly possible given it happened out of the blue. Wasn't Sony in financial trouble? I wonder how the amount they make here compare to the hole they had to fill.

TBH it's not like what few shares Sony had were really giving them influence over Square Enix either way.

One thing I don't get though is 'why now'? Sony's financial troubles have been running for a while now, as has Square Enix's poor fortunes.

In fact Square Enix has actually been seeing a little recovery (according to the source). Sony selling the shares makes sense, but just as those shares start appreciating in value?

wonder what Microsoft will do

Wonder what this is going to mean for Square Enix's future.

@Lucky_Krystal: Well as long as we get Final Fantasy XV and a Kingdom Hearts out of it. I had a feeling things were bound to go downhill since Hironobu Sakaguchi left. But when one of the Eidos guys quit and left a statement saying Squeenix doesn't know what they're doing. Thats a nail in the coffin.

As a publisher they've been falling behind, limiting themselves to mostly the console market, and they couldve charged reasonable rates for the re-release, of their classics and mobile titles on various different platforms.

If they adopted a 'Valve Software, slightly more egalitarian approach to pushing software, and expansions, being not so intrusive with DRM and expanding their platforms and catalogs, and not trying to eat into Activision numbers with 'eidos and IO titles, but being unique, maybe things would've fared a little better for them.

Has Sony lost faith in Square-Enix?

I hope this won't affect Bravely Second.

Hmm...

Squenix has a tough road ahead of it, but I suspect the sale has more to do with Sony's problems than it does with Sqeunix's.