14 DAY TRIAL // Square Enix has released financial information for the fiscal year that ended on March 31 and both sales and profits went down for the Japanese publisher during that period. Overall sales went down by 8% to reach 135.69 billion Yen, which is the equivalent of 1.44 billion dollars.
Net income went down by more than 31%, while operating income was down by more than 42%, which is quite bad. Still, Square Enix is saying that the results are just a fluke and that during the next fiscal year, it will bounce back, with income growing by 136.8%, basically because of the release of the eagerly expected Final Fantasy XIII.
For the fiscal year that ended on March 31, the biggest seller for Square Enix was the Nintendo DS release of the role playing game Dragon Quest V, which broke through the 1 million barrier when it comes to sales.
It was a good seller on the Japanese market, where Square Enix releases its games first, and on the European and North American markets. Other titles that performed well are Dissidia and Crisis Core for the PlayStation Portable, Chrono Trigger for the Nintendo DS, which reached 790,000 units in sales, and The Last Remnant.
Square Enix is currently hard at work on Final Fantasy XIII, which is now set to be released for both the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The game should arrive in Japan by the end of 2009, apparently only for the PS3, while a worldwide release of both versions will take place in early 2010.
After the end of fiscal 2009, the Japanese publisher also made a pretty gutsy move by acquiring United Kingdom-based Eidos, which holds the rights to franchises like Tomb Raider and Hitman. Square Enix is saying that it sees the move as the first one in a plan to get more exposure in Western markets.