Square Enix saw strong sales from a number of titles last quarter including FFVII Remake, Trials of Mana, and Dragon Quest Walk. The company recently provided its financial results for the first quarter of the Fiscal Year Ending March 31, 2021.
Like many other companies during the first quarter of FY2021, Square Enix saw a big boost in sales and profit during the months of the COVID-19 lockdown, most notably in the Digital Entertainment segment. The company booked net sales of 87 billion yen, up 33.7 billion year-over-year. Operating income was 24.5 billion yen, that’s up 17.4 billion yen compared to the same period last year. However, Square Enix did book 2.226 billion yen from temporary closures of amusement facilities due to the pandemic.
The Digital Entertainment business segment saw the biggest increase with 74.3 billion yen in net sales. For comparison, the first quarter for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2020 was at 37.1 billion yen. An increase of 37.2 billion yen just doubles its performance from the same period last year.\
Digital Entertainment
It comes as no surprise that FFVII Remake saw strong sales in Q1 2021, but Square Enix also noted that Trials of Mana performed much better than expected.
In the MMO sub-segment, Square Enix saw growth in subscribers for both Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X, with an overall increase in net sales and operating income.
In units sold by region, Japan was the best-selling region with 1.34 million units sold during the quarter. North America and Europe weren’t that far behind with 1.17 million units in physical copies sold. The biggest takeaway here is that digital sales continue to help dominate sales coming from North America and Europe with a whopping 2.33 million units. In Japan, on the other hand, 0.84 million units sold digitally. As expected, all regions saw a big increase in digital sales.
Lastly, games for smart devices and PC browsers saw year-over-year growth in sales and profits. Square Enix noted Dragon Quest Walk, War of the Visions: Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, and Romancing SaGa Re;univerSe as the standout titles.
Fortunately for Square Enix, this more than makes up for the big losses reported from subsidiaries Tokyo RPG Factory and Studio Istolia earlier this month.
