Sony will be selling off all of its shares in Square Enix, the company has just announced.
The sale will take place within the next few days, as Sony has "come to an agreement with SMBC Nikko Securities Inc., one of Japan’s three largest brokerage firms, for the transfer of 9,520,000 shares they had in Square Enix," Siliconera reports.
The expected value of the transfer is approximately 4.8 billion yen, which is about $47 million. This will be added to Sony's first quarter profits of 2014. We'll know the full value of the sale tomorrow.
I wonder what sort of impact this might have on the future of Sony's relationship with Square Enix. After all, franchises like Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts have traditionally found their home on PlayStation hardware, but now will be coming to Xbox One as well.
