Rumours had it that the Japanese publisher was to be drawn into the PlayStation family by Jim Ryan. Still, after selling its three western studios, Sony maybe even more interested in Square Enix.

Consolidation in the games industry continues, with Microsoft looking to acquire Activision Blizzard, Sony has pulled in Bungie, and Take-Two has obtained Zynga. Square Enix has sold the trio of Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montréal and Square Enix Montréal (and their IP) to Embracer Group. But Square Enix itself may be in the crosshairs, as perhaps hinted at earlier by Jim Ryan, CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Ryan said, “The critical success and the commercial success of the first-party games that we’ve been making has permitted us to invest heavily into content creation. We’re growing our studios organically, and we’re growing through acquisition. We acquired five studios in 2021. We’re in discussions with Bungie. And we have more plans.” Shortly after his statement, Jeff Grubb, writing for VentureBeat, and Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller also hinted that Sony could have a big fish on its hook soon.

Grubb stressed on Twitter, “OK, I’ve said this a thousand times, but there’s always someone who is hearing it for the first time: we never really hear enough to report on acquisitions with any certainty. Sony acquiring Square [Enix] was the big rumour, but I CAN NOT confirm that, and I continue not to know. Just as these things work, no one wants to talk to us about acquisitions because of prison. Someone was once going to tell me about Bethesda if I would have guessed it first, but I guessed like every other publisher under the sun and never said Bethesda. Anyway, now you know as much as I do. I believe that Square Enix is trying to best position itself for acquisition, but that doesn’t mean anything. These deals can fall through or get completely flipped on their head. That happens all the time.”

It makes sense, as Square Enix has several games as timed exclusives on PlayStation (Final Fantasy VII Remake, Forspoken), which would make Final Fantasy IP, for example, a trump card in Sony’s hands.

Source: WCCFTech