14 DAY TRIAL // Square Enix, one of the biggest publishers in Japan, has announced that it has made a profit of 1.8 billion Yen, the equivalent of about 20.9 million dollars, for the first fiscal quarter of the current year, which ended on June 30.
These are pretty good results considering that for the same period of 2009 the publisher reported a loss of about the same size.
Sales are also up by about 10 percent, reaching 35.2 billion Yen, a sum that translates into 377.8 million dollars.
Square Enix does not rely on video games for all its business, as it also dabbles in sales of merchandise and publications but the big star for the company was the launch of Final Fantasy XIII, which arrived in March in both North America and in Europe.
The publisher did not talk about specific sales numbers for the Japanese role playing game, which suggests that the figures might be lower than it expected, but emphasized that Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 sold more than 1.25 million units since it launched in April.
Another title that sold well for the company was the Eidos published Just Cause 2, a game that appeared in March.
At the moment the company is working on Final Fantasy XIV, which will be built as an MMO.
Yoichi Wada, who is the president of Square Enix, has stated, “As we continue to strengthen our existing businesses in the second quarter and beyond, we are also vigorously pushing forward our mid- and long-term growth strategies of globalization, becoming 'network centric' and strengthening our own-IPs.”
As other publisher before it Square Enix acknowledges the fact that the Japanese video games market alone is not able to support its operations and will focus on delivering more experiences that are easy to pick up by Western gamers.
Similar statements were attached to financial reports by companies like Konami, SEGA and Capcom.