Gaming publisher Square Enix holds the rights to historic franchises like Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Deus Ex and Tomb Raider. Despite this, however, it hasn’t all been smooth sailing and easy wins for the publishing giant.
As mentioned is this ten page PDF of their Consolidated Financial Results, while net sales increased by 4.2 percent, consolidated net sales by 8.2, and profits by 32 percent, they have attributed their HD operating loss to “weak additional sales of titles released in the previous year”, as of September 30th, 2019.
They certainly aren’t giving up on the HD game market anytime soon. It should be noted that they are currently hiring as this link to their Japanese website proves, to publish a “New IP title for HD console(s)”. Enclosed is a picture of the translated page, done thanks to Google Translate, which confirms this report. For those interested in applying internationally, you’ll be pleased to see that they want, “…experience in developing AAA titles not only in Japan but around the world.”
While the specifics are not yet known, Square Enix is not completely hopeless in the HD department. Last year’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider was a graphical masterpiece with its detailed jungles, atmospheric structures, and lively character models. It was a snazzy-looking game, even playing on your standard PS4 or XBox, and the game’s recently released Definitive Edition is well worth a look at. The same goes for the release of an expansion pack for their online MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV, which has seen an uptick in paid subscribers.
It is perhaps stellar titles like this that can attribute to their success, including the aformentioned franchises, that Square can stay so strong. Not to mention, the many other insanely phenomenal titles that are yet to come, such as the highly anticipated release of the remake to the 1997 PS1 classic, Final Fantasy VII, slated to be coming out March 3rd 2020, only on PS4.
