14 DAY TRIAL // Square Enix is the king of the Japanese role playing games and its biggest franchise worldwide is Final Fantasy, even if Dragon Quest seems to be the series dominating the Land of the Rising Sun. And now, the company has estimated that it will sell more than 6 million copies of the upcoming Final Fantasy XIII, which is set to be released on the PlayStation 3 from Sony, as usual, but also on the Xbox 360 from Microsoft.
A Reuters financial report GameSpot has translated shows that the Japanese publisher will bring in 277 million dollars in revenue, mainly on the strength of Final Fantasy. The game will be launched in Japan on December 17 only on the PlayStation 3. A worldwide release on both the PS3 and the Xbox 360 is planned for spring 2010, although no clear dates have been reported on.
At the moment, the biggest success of the year for Square Enix is Dragon Quest IX, which has sold more than 4 million units on the Nintendo DS in Japan and does not yet have a release date for other markets.
In 2009, Square Enix has been quite aggressive about expanding in the West while also aiming to dominate its home market. It bought British publisher Eidos, gaining a distribution arm on multiple markets, and is also collaborating with development studios like Gas Powered Games, which is working on Supreme Commander 2 for the publisher and Wargaming.net that has worked on the recently released Order of War, and Double Helix.
Final Fantasy XIII is set to amaze gamers on every level. It will have the complex story and archetypal characters of every good JRPG and complex battle mechanics based around party interaction and special attacks. It remains to be seen whether Western gamers will be as interested in what the game has to offer as Japanese players.