Do you think Square Eidos will buy Obsidian?

[Pietras]

So everybody knows Obsidian is developing Dungeon Siege 3 for Square Eidos. Do you think this partnership may end up with a buyout eventually? Personally I wouldn't be surprised at all. Square's obsessed with 'stretching to the West' and while Eidos got them a strong base, they're developing mostly action titles. Obsidian is a hardcore western RPG house, something that I think would look highly attractive for Square as an addition to its current studios, especially core Square jRPG divisions.

[Pietras]

Flop thread?!

[theBlackman]

Do I care? NO!

[Poor Bison]

Can't see this ending well...

...but on topic, Obsidian have worked with many publishers and developed many titles of franchises handed to them by other developers before, this will likely be no different. They've worked with BioWare, Bethesda, SEGA, and now Square Enix.

They are in a good position, Obsidian, I doubt they'd be willing to turn down other developers that they have built a reputation with in favour of becoming a part of Square Enix.

Square Enix knows that they need to balance JRPGs with Action games and Western-RPGs, as you say, but they may realise that simply buying Obsidian isn't the way to do this. When it comes to it, based on sales, action games sell alot better than most RPG games do anyway (I base that statement entirely on top sales figures for the Xbox 360 and PS3) so I think, for Square Enix Europe, they should stick to action-based developers for the moment unless they strongly believe that buying Obsidian would allow them to dip their fingers properly into both JRPGs and Western-RPGs and that having a cut of Western-RPGs would truly be worth buying Obsidian for.

And with all due respect to Obsidian, I think Square Enix could find a much better developer to partner with to do such a thing. (Basing that off the fact that KoTOR 2 and Fallout: NV were not as well honed as the games that came before them, from BioWare and Bethesda respectively).

Also, OP, please don't bump threads like that. You may have noticed that this forum isn't particularly fast, as you may be used to on other forums. We are quite an easy-going and methodical bunch, but we do enjoy a good thread when they pop up Your thread would have been picked up sooner or later most likely, you have to give these things time

[Kinvaras]

"Square eidos"?

[KoolKat]

I second TBM's comment.

There are just so many companies buying out other companies these days, that I've given up trying to keep up with them all.

As long as there are still good games and other products in the world and of course, these forums remain in existence, it's not really worth getting bothered about.

[Pietras]

Originally Posted by Poor Bison

...but on topic, Obsidian have worked with many publishers and developed many titles of franchises handed to them by other developers before, this will likely be no different. They've worked with BioWare, Bethesda, SEGA, and now Square Enix.

They are in a good position, Obsidian, I doubt they'd be willing to turn down other developers that they have built a reputation with in favour of becoming a part of Square Enix.

The question is, are they really in such good position? For a new studio, yes, they were because they could work with anyone which allowed them to get lots of recognition by working on big IPs form other devs. But at what cost? Each time they've worked on someone else's tools, under someone else's rules. As a new studio they weren't at the position to negotiate much stuff like deadlines which obviously resulted in often buggy products. Unstable working environment ain't good for any studio. At this point, they don't really need to work with everyone, they're already known. What they need is a good partner with $$$ that will give them enough time to polish their games. Square Eidos' perfect for it and they're perfect for SE's vision of expanding of further to the west.

Originally Posted by Poor Bison

Square Enix knows that they need to balance JRPGs with Action games and Western-RPGs, as you say, but they may realise that simply buying Obsidian isn't the way to do this. When it comes to it, based on sales, action games sell alot better than most RPG games do anyway (I base that statement entirely on top sales figures for the Xbox 360 and PS3) so I think, for Square Enix Europe, they should stick to action-based developers for the moment unless they strongly believe that buying Obsidian would allow them to dip their fingers properly into both JRPGs and Western-RPGs and that having a cut of Western-RPGs would truly be worth buying Obsidian for.

And with all due respect to Obsidian, I think Square Enix could find a much better developer to partner with to do such a thing. (Basing that off the fact that KoTOR 2 and Fallout: NV were not as well honed as the games that came before them, from BioWare and Bethesda respectively).

Such as? BioWare's already under EA, so no buy on this one. Bethesda is under ZeniMax which is on its own shopping spree so no chance SE could buy them either (not to mention rumor going around ZeniMax wants to buy Obsidian). After BioWare and Bethesda ,Obsidian is the 3rd most well-known and experienced wRPG developer and frankly, there's really no one else SE could even consider. Certinately no one that could rival BioWare/Beth scale-wise.

Originally Posted by Kinvaras

"Square eidos"?

Stole it from Kotaku