Square Enix Plan On Bringing Back Old IPs While Making New Ones For The Future

Square Enix released their annual report for 2015, which provides us an in-depth look at how the company has fared thus far in the current fiscal year ending March 2016, along with plans for the future.

• Mobius Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest: Dokodemo Monster Parade both had strong starts, with the former being positioned as a strategic differentiator thanks to its quality that vastly exceeds that of conventional smartphone games. Its massive popularity has significant implications for how Square Enix will approach business going forward.

• In the MMO space, Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X have developed into stable earnings generators that underpin financial performance. In the fiscal year ending March 2016, Square Enix are working to retain existing players and to attract new players by offering expansion discs for both games.

• Dragon Quest Heroes and Final Fantasy Type-0 HD were two HD releases, with Dragon Quest Heroes having successfully added another layer to the series as its first full-fledged Action RPG. The demand for the HD version of Final Fantasy Type-0 was strong from European and North American fans, and with the inclusion of the playable Final Fantasy XV demo, it was proven a major success, selling over a million units globally.

• In part due to the hike in the consumption tax in Japan, Square Enix’s arcade games continue to face a challenging environment; however, thanks to their arcade an management, the segment was able to book operating income of ¥3.6 billion for the fiscal year ended March 2015. While they didn’t release any major new game system machines, titles such as Lord of Vermilion III and Gunslinger Stratos 2 contributed to sales.

• Square Enix’s business environment is undergoing major changes, as the sales of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are growing significantly—primarily in Europe and North America.

• Smart devices are also becoming more advanced and more commonplace, as they are seeing an evolution in where and how we enjoy digital content.

• Square Enix will revitalize some of their strong IPs in ways that meet the needs of the modern gaming market. For example, they’ll take an IP developed for earlier generations of game consoles and recreate it for the latest consoles, while also proactively developing versions for play on smart devices.

• Additionally, the company plan to explore possibilities involving VR (virtual reality) and other new platforms.

• They plan on having longtime fans relive past experiences with freshness that only the latest technology can provide, while also bringing in new costumers to enjoy the IP as though it were brand new. The idea is to not only optimize single pieces of IP for single platforms but also rolling out IP in a multi-dimensional manner to meet the needs of the modern market.

• Constantly generating new IPs and cultivating them are key business issues for any content provider, and same goes for Square Enix. They intend to strengthen efforts to sow the seeds of new content, and cultivate them constantly, as they pursue a variety of avenues to do so. This goes for a variety of platforms, including console games, smart device games, PC games, and comics, as all of those platforms are capable of giving rise to new IPs. For the fiscal year ending March 2016, Square Enix plan on working to ensure that these IP cultivation platforms give rise to new IPs to foster for the future.

• Square Enix considers a willingness to seek in other companies what they lack is a better approach to growing business in this age of uncertainty. That said, they will not rule out any possibility as they explore and execute collaborative initiatives ranging from joint collaborations with other companies to focus on a single product to business alliances of a wider scope.

• The regions marked in red show where the Square Enix Group has yet to enter. The Internet had made the world more connected, but the company plans on entering these regions for regional and individual tastes that remain a major determinant of preferences when it comes to different types of content.

• As far as net sales go, Square Enix’s digital entertainment consisting of console, PC, and smartphone games make up the most at 66.5% share of net sales, followed by 24.2% for amusement, or arcades; 6.9% for publications such as manga, books, and magazines; and 2.4% from the merchandising segment.