Japanese publisher's £9.39 million buyout of 29.35 million shares puts it in control of more than one third of financially lagging British publisher.
Two weeks ago, Japanese publisher Square Enix stunned the game industry by announcing that it was making a takeover bid for Eidos Interactive. Facing all but certain financial doom after disappointing sales of Tomb Raider: Underworld, the board of the British publisher, previously known as SCi Entertainment, unanimously urged its shareholders to accept the £84.3 million (around $121.76 million), 32p ($0.46) per-share bid.
On Monday, Square Enix announced that two major Eidos shareholders had accepted the 32p-per-share offer. Pioneer Investment Management Ltd. sold 27,349,341 shares, and Insight Investment Management unloaded 2 million shares. For the combined 29,349,341 shares, representing about 11.13 percent of Eidos' issued stock, the Final Fantasy XIII maker paid £9,391,789 ($13.52 million).
The dual purchase puts Square Enix much closer to acquiring majority ownership in Eidos. Including its own holdings, the company now has "irrevocable undertakings to vote in favor of the (buyout) resolution" from holders of 84,947,489 Eidos shares, or 32.23 percent of the company's voting stock. It also has a letter of intent from holders of a further 8,919,628 shares comprising approximately 3.38 percent of Eidos shares, putting its total control at 35.61 percent of the company--still 14.40 percent short of having majority control.
ok so as someone who has never liked any of the FF games (purely because turn based anything is slow and feels like a chore) and as someone who loved assassins creed/hitman because stealthy assassinations are awesome this is a sad sad day. make tomb raider into a stealthy steal and assassinate game and there is a hit, oh wait her breasts would get in the way of the laser system lol.
honestly, square enix has made many games that i wouldnt even rent...oblivion and fable 2, as well as other smaller titles are just more enjoyable than the same formula again and again.
Well, at least now they will be called S.E.E. wich is kinda cool. Aside from that, Eidos has had games with great stories and same goes for S/E, so maybe we'll get some really nice RPGs out of this.
Does this mean next Tomb Raider and Hitman games will be turn based epic adventures that are replicas of all the clones that Square Enix has made for years? Or maybe I'm just an ignorant out of touch shooter fan that believes that the reason Tomb Raider sales are down is because gamers get tired off buying Tomb Raider once a year with a big DLC purchase in between each new retail release and yet no significant changes are being made. It like these Tomb Raider games are just being reskin and release with intent to sell DLC. BTW I like Square Enix because thay put thought and time into the production of their games. They have not subscribed to the American game company's belief that a franchise must be rerelease every year in order to be successful and profitable. Hopefully Square Enix's influence can revive the many beloved Eidos franchises.
I hope everything will work out for Square Enix. I hope they will still keep making Final Fantasy games.
This move makes me wonder about a Hitman RPG game... yeah! I don't agree either. I do hope that the acquisition will bring a better name and more stability to the Eidos franchise and will aslo flourish in better and more innovative gaming solutions. Tough times require tough measures... the gaming industry was not going to be exempt of the challenges that the world economy is facing and this is a great opportunity for a change and some fresher and newer ideas.
what i wonder is if se will allow these foreign developers to work on japanese titles or will they just do their own things and have markets in both west and east fronts
I think this is Squenix answer to Capcom, which seems to be doing much, much better, in the west than they are. Lets hope it works for them.
If the buyouts continue, in the end we're going to be stuck with very few developers, which could be bad or good, either the games could get more creative since everybody's going to be filthy rich and have enough money to take risks or they could go the way of Nintendo and EA before them, making casual games and remakes till they suck the life out of they're fans.
@ The bunch of people saying "WTF? Buying Eidos?!": Square Enix's goal is to expand their market to the west, in this case, to Europe. Buying a western company would bring a number of western titles to their portipholio, therefore making Square Enix more popular in this side of the Earth, probably as popular as they are in Japan. "Why Eidos?" you ask. Well, it's obvious, with Eidos almost shutting their doors, it's clear that it would be easier for them to buy a copany near bankruptcy with great fanchises under their name.
Square Enix and Eidos needs this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcZVlOPcbjU&feature=channel_page
*sigh* SquareEnix hasnt been paying attention to making new original JRPGs, but would rather concentrate on weak spinoffs and remakes. Their rpgs are losing the "Squaresoft" charm and out of the blue they are trying to acquire Eidos. Eidos? Eidos?? Eidos??! Im definitely starting to lose hope, patience, and loyalty. Yes I will continue to purchase SE games but only sticking to FF franchise. This gives me one more reason to love ATLUS.
......sigh! why doesn't square enix spend money on remaking Final Fantasy 7 with graphics compareable to Advent Children? They spend money on a company who is losing its grasp on developing video games. Eidos seems stuck in the past and hasn't been ready to move to the next evolution in interactive entertainment. Everyone is changing the way the make video games.... everyone seems to be growing in the way of game concepts, game design and story. yet for some reason Eidos really seems stuck in the past..... Square Enix in my opinion just wasted alot of precious money for what have could be spent on a better project.
lol, square is smart if they own eidos it means that they wont have to pay to have there games sold in the uk since they own a business that is establish there already that was part of the reason they did that square ea deal though it gone sour. things should prove interesting if they do get eidos
Wow! I'm really excited about where Square is going! First, working with Gas-Powered Games on Supreme Commander 2, now Eidos? For better or worse, the future is certainly going to be interesting!
Wow, looks like we are going to see an Asian Lara Croft in the next tomb raider. If we r lucky enough we may even get some English subtitles. LOLZ!!
So...I predict an anime-style Tomb Raider with RPG elements, unbelievable gravity-defying action, especially hair, random battles, and bigger cleavage...I dunno about you guys, but sign me up for that!
No there won't be a Tomb Raider RPG but I hope for better Tomb Raider games in general. Crystal Dynamics just needs money and they can make a 8.5-9 TR game.
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