Taito to become owned by Square-Enix in March 2006

Less than four months after Square-Enix first expressed an interest in acquiring fellow publisher Taito, it has been announced that the deal will complete on March 31st, 2006.

On this date Taito will become a wholly owned unit, although the company will retain its name - which carries with it the heritage of Space Invaders, the game that started it all back in 1978.

Square-Enix - which was itself the result of a merger between Square Co. and Enix Corporation in 2003 - purchased a 93.7 per cent stake in the company earlier this year, buying up 346,689 shares. The publisher will now take over Taito via an equity swap, and from March 7th Taito will no longer be listed on the First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Although Taito has had success with videogame franchises such as Bubble Bobble, Rakugaki Kingdom and of course Space Invaders, today most of the company's revenue is earned through arcades, pachinko and karaoke machines. Year end revenue stood at 84.6 billion Yen (EURO 624.4 million) last year.