Square Enix Details its “3-Year Reboot” Plans for Game Development and Business Growth

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According to its latest financial report, Square Enix has shared details about its strategies in game development and expanding income sources in the future. Key aspects of their plans include establishing a new research and development (R&D) department focusing on AI-driven development tools, and consolidating control over upcoming games under one roof. The company anticipates that these initiatives will take approximately 3 years to implement, with this period being referred to as a “3-year reboot for long-term growth.

The plans detail that Square Enix has overhauled its internal game development structure. Upon assessing their game production process, they have shifted to a new system where each studio’s management team will oversee the progress of large-scale titles. A diagram in the fourth page of the report demonstrates this change, showing how one studio might work on a major release concurrently with an MMO, while another could focus solely on console games, and still another could specialize in mobile games. All these studios fall under the same umbrella of franchise development management.

Under this fresh plan, Square Enix has highlighted their increased vigilance towards halting projects that appear to be moving too slowly according to their expectations, while simultaneously pouring additional funds into projects requiring a bit extra care in terms of fine-tuning and enhancement. This strategy aims at producing games with higher quality while ensuring efficient utilization of their development resources.

In line with its strategic long-term objectives, Square Enix continues to emphasize its strategy of releasing games across multiple platforms instead of launching exclusives on a single platform and later making them available on others, similar to the PS5 and subsequent PC release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. This approach has proven beneficial for the company, as it has reported increased sales from making its games accessible on PC.

For the upcoming fiscal year, Square Enix anticipates earning approximately 41 billion yen in operating income. To put this into perspective, the company reported earning 40.5 billion yen this fiscal year, indicating a slightly conservative projection. However, the company expects lower net sales compared to the fiscal year 2025, with an estimated decrease from 324.5 billion to 280 billion. Despite the drop in projected net sales, the operating profit is expected to increase, with a forecast of around 28.7 billion yen, up from 24.4 billion yen in FY 2025.

Earlier discussions suggested that the company would move towards releasing their games on multiple platforms instead of being console exclusive, following the underwhelming sales of prominent titles such as Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth. In simpler terms, they announced in September 2024 that they will be adopting a multiplatform strategy to make it easier for more customers worldwide to access and enjoy their popular franchises and AAA titles, even those from their back catalog of HD games.

Earlier this year, Square Enix experienced some changes within its board of directors, and it was revealed that the producer of Final Fantasy 14, Naoki Yoshida, would no longer hold a position on the board. Although both the company and Yoshida were relatively quiet about the reason at the time, an interview with Dutch publication NRC in 2023 hinted that his decision might have been self-made. In this interview, he expressed, “I don’t want to be on the board. It’s much more enjoyable for me to simply create games.

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2025-05-14 15:02