Square Enix reportes an impressive set of financial results

[luke_c]

Square Enix has reported an impressive set of financial results for the year ended March 31, 2010.

Company-wide net sales were up 41.7 per cent to 192,257 million yen ($2.1b / £1.4b), while profits jumped 50.1 per cent to 9,509 million yen ($102.9m / £69.6m).

The publisher said that Final Fantasy XIII, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels Of The Starry Skies, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days and Dragon Quest VI became new million selling titles during the 12 month period.

Net sales for Square’s game division increased 128.4 per cent year-on-year to 109,949 million yen ($1.2b / £805.2m), while operating income lifted 254 per cent to 23,814 million yen ($257.6m / £174.4m).

"We are pleased to announce results for the fiscal year ended March 2010 that achieve the highest net sales, operating income and recurring income since the merger in April 2003,” said Square Enix president Yoichi Wada. “Including flagship titles of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, we released five titles that became million-sellers - three of which shipped over three million units.

“During the year we also successfully acquired and integrated UK based Eidos with a goal of expanding our own powerful IP line-up and strengthening our business platform in North America and Europe. Furthermore, we were able to raise our ability to meet the rapidly changing operating environment by our streamlining of the group's headcount and asset levels.”

For the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2011, the wider company expects a 16.8 per cent drop in sales to 160,000 million yen ($1.7b / £1.2b), but a 26.2 per cent jump in profits to 12,000 million yen ($129.8, / 87.9m).

Source.

 

[waffle1995]

Square Enix needs to make more DS game.
Like a mmorpg for DS. which is impossibe without lots of lags

 

[FAST6191]

I would not mind seeing a breakdown between their self developed games and their publishing wing- watching many of the console releases they are doing fairly well as a publisher.

 

[Overlord Nadrian]

Square Enix needs to make more DS game.
Like a mmorpg for DS. which is impossibe without lots of lags

Most likely there'll be something like this when the 3DS is out, seeing it has more power and all.

 

[exangel]

mmorpg for ds would be amazing..

case one - Phantasy Star Zero - probably made the best of all the limitations imposed by the Nintendo DS, and I love it (I bought two copies) but after spending over a hundred hours playing this game I can't help but be irritated by one very simple flaw that isn't found in the Phantasy Star multiplayer games since Dreamcast PSO v.1 through Phantasy Star Universe: You can't use item menu while moving. it's just not possible, and all they needed to do was integrate touchscreen controls to do it.

case two - Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time - I don't understand why this game is so incredibly laggy when Phantasy Star Zero is fine. But then again, Sega designed PSO to be playable on a 56k modem, and to my knowledge Square never made online multiplayer games optimized for low bandwidth use.

limitations imposed by Nintendo - according to what i've read, Nintendo doesn't want people (or at least children) meeting strangers online, hence the friend code system. this would explain why it's not possible to directly communicate with anonymous players on the two games I mentioned above. only pre-set phrases can be used, which is good in one sense because that means they can integrate translation into the in-game communication, but makes it completely impossible to play with the same (anonymous) people by choice.

i can see multiplayer online gaming improvements in the future, but mmorpgs are going to be hindered or impossible to some degree unless nintendo's policy changes. and I don't see why they'd refuse to change that policy in favor of parental control and consumer choice if they want to tap the growing mmorpg market.