Latest Square Enix Financial Report Shows Final Fantasy XIV a Bright Spot in Lull In Midst of Three-Year Plan

If you felt like Square Enix was touch-and-go in its impact on the games industry in 2024, chances are you’re not wrong. The Square Enix financial report for the back nine months of 2024 has painted a picture of lower sales than last year, and the beats about its biggest sellers—and the lack of big sellers—are about what one would expect. 

Given how long it takes to make a video game, we aren't seeing much of the “aggressive” multiplatform strategy that it announced last year, with a mix of AAA titles and mid- to small-size games to prioritize efficiency and profit. Once that's in full swing, Square hopes to see its numbers go up. For now, though, we have a mix of classic types of titles and releases from Square.  

Overall, both sales and profit went down for Square, respectively 3.5% and 7.7% drops. Its “Digital Entertainment,” which is to say the core video game segment of the company, saw a 9.9% drop in operating income. There was a similar drop last year overall, too, despite its AAA games, what they call "HD games," doing far better in 2023. 

It’s been known for a few years that Final Fantasy 14 has become the whale of Square Enix revenue, and it seems it was no different this summer. Despite the controversy over its story’s quality, Square explains that, unsurprisingly, Dawntrail brought the game’s sales and revenue up year-by-year. It definitely helps that an expansion’s launch not only brings new story content, but retains its more “hardcore” players as they clear its higher-end content for a few months. 

Otherwise, sales were generally lower than expected throughout the back half of 2024. Despite the releases of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, it was apparently hard to outdo the likes of Final Fantasy 16, Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster. Even the director of Rebirth explained at one point that sales were lower than usual, despite the hype behind the game. 

At the end of its summaries, Square explains that it plans on “no changes to consolidated full-year forecasts for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2025.” This means that the corporation’s three-year plan to push that multiplatform agenda is still a go.