Japanese and RPG gaming monolith Square Enix has launched its newest monetary report overlaying the primary half of the fiscal yr that’ll finish in March 2023 – and as ever, the outcomes present an attention-grabbing have a look at the place the corporate is at proper now and the place it is going sooner or later.

In normal, the financials paint an image of a troublesome yr for Square Enix, the place gross sales decreased by 3.3% whereas prices soared by 10.6% year-on-year. However, the drop in gross sales has been offset to a big diploma due to overseas change positive factors because of the weak Japanese yen, the divestiture of studios like Eidos and Crystal Dynamics, and the success of MMO Final Fantasy XIV, with an uptick in subscribers leading to elevated income from that recreation alone.

Looking to the long run, the monetary report makes clear that regardless of public criticism of the corporate’s intention to assist and use it, Blockchain expertise stays key to Square Enix’s progress plans – which is particularly listed as a key element of the corporate’s ‘medium‐time period enterprise technique’. Along with strengthening the IP portfolio and optimizing the enterprise to cut back prices, one in all Square Enix’s major areas of focus for progress is in blockchain video games and leisure.

The monetary outcomes, primarily meant to tell traders within the firm, promise that the group plans to “discover [the] enterprise construction & earnings potential of NFT enterprise,” and “discover companies in leveraging public blockchains.” Also outlined are plans to arrange a brand new abroad entity with a deal with exploring video games and publishing geared toward international locations and markets with a widespread cryptocurrency adoption, together with exploring “token economic system operations”. 

All of Square Enix’s current monetary communications, together with its 2022 New Year’s Letter and extra lately launched Annual Report for 2022, have touched on Blockchain with a whole lot of hyped-up investor babble, with quotes like the next – which sums up the corporate’s pleasure fairly nicely:

“We have recognized AI, the cloud, and blockchain as focus funding areas below our Medium-Term Earnings Targets and Business Strategy. At current, we’re positioning the blockchain area as our most necessary focus and approaching our funding and enterprise growth initiatives accordingly.

Leveraging AI and the cloud in recreation growth primarily entails incorporating new technological developments into the gaming expertise. By distinction, the individuality of blockchain will not be purely technological. It lies extra in its philosophical features as represented by the idea of decentralization that underlies the blockchain mannequin.”

A big a part of it will see Square Enix put money into different blockchain-based companies as a stakeholder, with three new investments introduced in different blockchain firms (alongside two beforehand revealed blockchain investments listed within the report). While it isn’t listed in Square Enix’s report, Singapore-based blockchain firm Oasys lately introduced a partnership with Square Enix, apparently itemizing longtime Square Enix producer Yosuke Saito as “Director, Square Enix Blockchain Entertainment Division”.

Additionally, Square Enix can also be growing its personal crypto merchandise – similar to new recreation Symbiogenesis, which many followers have been crushed to be taught was not a brand new Parasite Eve undertaking simply weeks in the past. 

For Square Enix, progress is vital – and it is on the lookout for new areas to create that progress after experiencing a yr with a gross sales dip regardless of the discharge of a bevvy of conventional video games together with Star Ocean: The Divine Force, Valkyrie Elysium, Various Daylife, and Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. The forecasts within the report appear to counsel that Square Enix does not count on Forspoken or Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, each but to launch this fiscal yr, to reverse their gross sales fortunes.

Though not talked about within the report, Square Enix might be hoping the subsequent fiscal yr is best – with each Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth seemingly slated for the FY beginning in April 2023.