Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Square Enix Co., creator of the ``Final Fantasy'' series of role-playing video games, offered to buy Tecmo Ltd. to bolster its game-software business.

The company will pay 920 yen per Tecmo share, 30 percent higher than yesterday's closing price, on condition it receives an agreement notice from Tecmo by Sept. 4, Tokyo-based Square Enix said in a statement today. The offer for the creator of the ``Dead or Alive'' video-game series is valued at 22.3 billion yen ($205 million), based on data compiled by Bloomberg.

Japanese game-software makers are following larger overseas rivals in seeking partners to share rising development costs as consoles from Sony Corp. and Microsoft Corp. offer higher- definition images, faster speeds and the ability to play via the Internet. Activision Inc. and Vivendi SA's Blizzard video-game division in July merged to create the world's biggest game- software publisher.

``A successful takeover bid would make up for Square Enix's weakness in'' fighting and action genres, Eiji Maeda, a Tokyo- based analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in an e-mailed comment today. Maeda has an ``overweight'' rating on Square Enix and doesn't cover Tecmo.

Tecmo jumped by its 14 percent daily trading limit to close at 806 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, its biggest gain since July 24, 2002. Square Enix rose 2.6 percent to 3,610 yen.

Tokyo-based Tecmo is considering its response to the offer and hasn't decided anything, the company said in a statement.

``A majority stake is necessary to realize group synergies, with 100 percent ownership being the ideal,'' President Yoichi Wada said at a news briefing in Tokyo today. ``Our offer is a friendly one and is an invitation for discussion on how to best proceed with the deal.''

Square Enix, formed in 2003 when Square Co. merged with Enix Corp., acquired Taito Corp., the Japanese arcade-game maker that created ``Space Invaders,'' in 2005. The company gets more than half of operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, from game software operations.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pavel Alpeyev in Tokyo at palpeyev@bloomberg.net; Mari Murayama in Tokyo at mmurayama@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 29, 2008 04:20 EDT