The Japanese company has taken a few hits lately, so it’s no surprise that their mid-term strategy has changed (we wrote about this recently).

Bloomberg editor Takashi Mochizuki summarized on Twitter what Square Enix had to say in its latest annual report. Final Fantasy XVI sales fell short of targets. The initial momentum was there, but projected for the fiscal year, the Japanese company’s expectations for Clive’s adventure were not met due to a lack of momentum. The last reported sales figure was 3 million copies, but no new figures have been released since then. Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth have also fallen short of expectations, but initial sales have not yet reached the target. They haven’t even told us how much has been sold so far! The initial sales of Foamstars are also low, and again we don’t know how many it has sold…

Square Enix is still confident that Final Fantasy XVI will reach its goal in the year and a half after its release, by the end of 2024. The sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth and Foamstars might not be too bad either. The Japanese company has reorganized its development teams: Square Enix now has five console teams and one smartphone team. The company has relied too much on individual creativity and will encourage the sharing of development know-how between teams, seeking the best balance between individual creativity and organizational discipline. Dragon Quest XII is still under development.

How did investors react? Shares were mostly sold, falling to the daily trading limit (6268 yen on Monday morning, 5268 yen in the evening, down 15.95%!). There are fears that the development schedule has become too empty and that Square Enix’s results will not be as good in the next few years due to a lack of strong titles. It should be added that the three games are PlayStation 5 exclusives, so it’s no wonder that Square Enix has switched to a multiplatform strategy, and if there had been Xbox Series ports, more revenue could have been generated.

It will be nice to get up from here.

Source: VGC,