Recently, Square Enix communicated its objectives for the coming year and certain announcements will delight many. There will be something new for the studio!
As with every quarter, many companies publish their financial reports for their last three months, but also their objectives for the following months. These official documents are an opportunity to glean some interesting information concerning the future of certain games and studios. At the start of February, we have some good news thanks to this, first with Ubisoft which has shared its desire to release XDefiant before the end of March 2024. But it doesn’t stop there and Square Enix also has its share nice surprises with its own report.
Square Enix wants to change things!
The end of quarter report card for Square Enix is not the most successful they have seen. It’s not catastrophic at all, but a lot of the numbers are going down. However, the Japanese company is alert and plans to redress the situation! In its press release, the studio reveals that it wants to improve the quality of its games. To do this, they will reduce the share of games developed externally to increase that of those developed internally. This aims to achieve real AAAs over which they will have total control. Higher quality games created from A to Z at home will have the benefit of increasing the margin on them while ensuring more sales. These changes will take place next spring.
What explains these changes?
In this press release, we realize that several of Square Enix’s game categories are not achieving the expected profits. First, sales of mobile games are declining from year to year, despite the release of Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis in 2023, a software from the studio’s flagship license. Likewise, the figures for the MMO category are declining. Fortunately, Final Fantasy 14, the most profitable game in the saga, will soon have a new expansion in 2024: Dawntrail. It is Final Fantasy which has the best scores at Square Enix since the figures for the “HD Games” segment are on the rise thanks to Final Fantasy 16 (sold 3 million copies in one week), but also Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Series.
Thanks to this strong brand, we cannot say that the findings are alarming. Especially since the company seems rather stable since the figures are similar to those of last November. Overall, sales and profits declined by 2.6% from April 2023 to December 2023. Square Enix can be expected to make up for these losses with the release of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.