Square Enix Sees Record Year On Multimillion-Selling Titles

Five titles that sold over a million units helped drive Square Enix to a record high performance over the past fiscal year, with company sales rising 42 percent to ¥192 billion ($2.07 billion), while profits rose 50 percent to ¥9.5 billion ($102.8 million). The biggest seller was Final Fantasy XIII, which despite a mixed critical reception sold 5.5 million units to retail worldwide. The title's been out in Japan, where it is a PlayStation 3 exclusive, since December 2009, but didn't launch in the U.S. and Europe until March, where it released on PS3 and Xbox 360. Square Enix's fiscal year ended March 31, and FFXIII's unit sales were evenly distributed among the three regions. Dragon Quest IX was another heavy-hitter for Square Enix; although the DS title hasn't yet launched outside of Japan, it sold 4.2 million units to retail over the fiscal year since its launch last July. Through its acquisition of Eidos last year, Square Enix was also able to benefit from 3.4 million global units sold of critically-acclaimed Batman: Arkham Asylum. These successes -- plus about 1.5 and 1.3 million units sold of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days and Dragon Quest VI, respectively -- contributed to record high unit volumes, with Square Enix's total portfolio selling 26.66 million units globally. Like many game companies, however, Square Enix's presentation to investors stressed that it plans to transition more of its business online in the years to come, both via online games and digital business models -- its plan for the fiscal year ending March 2011 includes "Launch FFXIV," the franchise's next online installment. And despite the impressive performance of its owned IP -- and the new acquisition of marquee brands like Tomb Raider and Deus Ex via Eidos -- the company wants to strengthen owned IP even further to enter its next phase of growth following the merger.