Whereas Capcom had a fantastic 2024 fiscal year with record-high profits, Square Enix has not enjoyed the same level of success. In fact, it’s reported its profits are down by nearly 70% (69.7% to be exact) compared to the previous fiscal year. As such, Square Enix is committing itself to a new business strategy, which includes a greater focus on multiplatform releases.
In a presentation shared on May 13, Square Enix outlined a plan it’s calling ‘Square Enix Reboots, and Awakens,’ with the goal of achieving long-term growth over the course of three years. Among its key pillars, it highlights shifting to a multiplatform strategy, something the company intends to “aggressively pursue” and will cover PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo, and PC platforms. While Square Enix has launched plenty of multiplatform games in the past, it is known for limiting certain titles to specific platforms. In just the past 12 months, it launched Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth as PlayStation 5 exclusives.
It sounds like Square Enix has decided this approach isn’t in its best interests any more, and it would now rather get its games on as many platforms as it can. Some of its former platform exclusives have made the jump to other platforms after launch (for example, the first Octopath Traveler was a Nintendo Switch exclusive but was later ported to PC and Xbox), but Square Enix’s new strategy could also mean more simultaneous releases. So, no more time-limited exclusives either.
Square Enix may also be considering bringing older titles to other platforms since it wants to “build an environment where more customers can enjoy our titles in regards to major franchises and AAA titles including catalog titles.” It doesn’t provide any specific examples, but it’d be nice if this means the likes of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth and its predecessor, Final Fantasy 7 Remake, can make the jump to Xbox.
Making games more widely available seems like a fairly obvious solution to making more money. However, Square Enix also mentions wanting to focus on quality over quantity, which suggests it’ll reduce its output. So, Square Enix games will come out less frequently, but they’ll ideally be of high quality and more readily available to a wide audience.
Square Enix certainly needs to do something different if its HD games division isn’t turning a profit. Net sales were overall up compared to the 2023 fiscal year thanks to FF16 and FF7 Rebirth, as well as Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince and continued sales of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster collection, but operating losses grew due to “higher development cost amortization and advertising expenses.”
In its fiscal report, Square Enix also reconfirmed it lost nearly $141 million in cancelled projects. It had said it expected this back in April, but Square Enix has now explained precisely why these projects were scrapped. Essentially, it found them to be “incompatible” with its new strategy for growth and how it intends to develop HD games going forward. Again, it didn’t name any of the cancelled projects, but it’s likely these were unannounced titles rather than anything Square Enix has listed on its release schedule.
