Square Enix has revealed that it plans to "establish new studios" and acquire others, just a week after it sold Eidos Montreal.
Just last week, Square Enix announced that it was selling Eidos Montreal, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group for $300 million. Following that announcement, it also revealed that it was planning on putting some of the money from the sale into blockchain and NFTs.
Square Enix's recent financial report has now revealed that it plans to "establish new studios" as well as acquire others. This part of the presentation was spotted and reported by Axios' Stephen Totilo, who shared it on Twitter.
The financial report talks about how Square Enix plans to strengthen its IP ecosystem. One slide of the presentation says it plans to, "cultivate robust IP (including creation of new IP)" and "boost game development capabilities by establishing new studios, (mergers and acquisitions), etc".
Another slide of the report further shows off Square Enix's plans to get into blockchain and NFTs, saying, "accelerate launch and monetization of new businesses by moving forward with investments in focus fields (blockchain, AI, and the cloud)".
One slide of the presentation explains the sale of Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamics a bit more, saying that it was for "selection and concentration of company resources" in response to how the market is changing.
This news comes as a bit of a shock considering Square Enix just sold off some pretty big IPs and developers for only $300 million, a small amount when compared to other recent acquisitions.
Recent rumours have also implied that Square Enix might be getting acquired itself, but if it's planning on creating new studios in the next fiscal year, that rumour looks to be a little less likely.
All of this makes it seem like Square Enix's plans for the future are to focus more clearly on its Japanese studios instead of its overseas ones, although it did confirm in a statement that it would still be publishing some like Life is Strange.
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