Square Enix Wants More Original IPs
Company aims to double IPs with two original IPs from Tokyo and three from international divisions.
Square Enix has released presentation materials from its earnings briefing today. You can view the PDF here (PDF, English).
The slide to watch is this:
Apparently, the company is aiming to double its major IPs. Currently, it has six major IPs: Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest and Kingdom Hearts from Tokyo, Tomb Raider from Crystal Dynamics, Deus Ex from Eidos Montreal and Hitman from IO Interactive. It's aiming to have five more original IPs, two from Tokyo, one from Eidos Montreal, one from IO Interactive and one from Wimbeldon.
What this means is not totally clear just looking at the slides, so we'll have to wait for possible clarification once reports come in from the company's briefing later tonight.
Square Enix's plan for the future also calls for becoming more "network centric." This involves strengthened download content for console titles, digitalizing of catalog titles, and revitalization of major MMO titles (presumably centered on Final Fantasy XIV).
Other slides of note show a huge drop in game sales for the previous year, and the expectation of continued drops to come:
For the previous term, the company unit sales dropped from the 26.66 million unit high of 2012 to 16.85 million. Japan was the biggest market with 6.49 million units, down from the 11.70 million of the year prior. Europe and North America followed, both also down significantly from the year prior.
In 2012, Square Enix expects these numbers to fall even further, totaling 14.5 million units split 5.3 million for Japan, 5.1 million for Europe and 4.1 million for North America.
Meanwhile, the company's investments in North America and Europe increased more than Japan. Going from 2010 to 2011, Japanese investment increased from 10.3 billion yen to 11.5 billion yen. North America and Europe went up from 5.7 billion yen to 8.4 billion.
Loading comments. If comments don't load, make sure Javascript is on in your browser.