Square Enix selling their western division studios is good for both parties

gamepur.com:

Embracer Group has recently announced that it is acquiring Square Enix’s western division of studios, which includes Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal. What this means is that Square Enix will not be developing any 1st party games outside of Japan and will only be publishing a handful of western IPs moving forward. This has honestly been a long time coming, and even with the weak monetary gain of $300 million in the deal, this acquisition is a great deal for both Square and its former studios.

I’ve been following Square Enix’s business practices intimately for years, and the company is my favorite game developer, so it’s been obvious to me that the company has struggled over the past decade. Square has never really had a great connection with its western studios and was even having difficulties keeping up its good side with its own Japanese-developed titles like Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XV, and even more recently, Kingdom Hearts III. Despite the latter, the company has regained its footing, killing it with the vast majority of its Japanese titles by remastering or remaking older games for Nintendo Switch, as well as the masterpiece that was Final Fantasy VII Remake. That said, the western side has continued to be dragged in the mud. 

Square Enix has always had unrealistically high expectations for its western titles, including recent titles like Marvel’s Avengers and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy. But it’s not even just the western titles — it’s almost any game that it publishes that isn’t being developed internally. Babylon’s Fall was released earlier this year in a horrific state to the point where only a few hundred have played the game on Steam at its peak in the past month. Square