Square Enix might be looking to sell stakes in its studios citing focus towards Japanese titles

sportskeeda.com:

Square Enix surprised gamers after they outright sold two of their biggest Western studios earlier this year. Namely, Crystal Dynamics and Eidos, they are the developers behind Tomb Raider and the modern Deus Ex titles respectively.

The studios were acquired by Embracer Group, making the Swedish company one of the biggest publishers in all of Europe.

A recent internal conference call at Square Enix has revealed more information on this decision, courtesy of analyst David Gibson.

For one, it was revealed that the Japanese gaming behemoth chose to sell off Crystal Dynamics and Eidos due to fears that they were eclipsing the popularity of their in-house Japanese games.

There is more: they are also looking to sell stakes in their studios to ease resources, likely to allocate them towards the development of IPs they deem relevant.

This is part of a "Phase 2" push to diversify the capital structure for many of their studios. If this comes to fruition, it will leave many third-party companies open to investing in Square Enix i.e., they will have other investors helping out with the rising costs of game development.

With next-gen games being bigger and better than ever before, they also need equally big financial backing to be realized. In fact, it is suggested that current costs hover around the USD $840 million mark.

So, which studios could possibly jump at this opportunity? Gibson suggests Sony and Tencent are the likely candidates.

Sony is no stranger to expading their own portfolio, as was seen with their EVO acquisition and even that of Bungie, the developer behind Destiny 2. Tencent, on the other hand, has stakes in a variety of places, from Ubisoft to Riot Games.

Gibson had more to share, saying:

Furthermore, the Crystal