, Square Enix disclosed its performance for the period between April and September 2023, revealing intriguing insights into the sales of the latest entry in its flagship franchise, Final Fantasy 16. Despite the PS5 exclusive game's commendable sales, it wasn't sufficient to offset the company's declining profits, primarily due to high development costs and advertising expenses.
FF16, a key contributor to Square Enix's "digital entertainment" revenue during the said period, witnessed a robust sales performance. The game's success, along with that of the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series, contributed to an increase in overall sales compared to the same period in 2022. However, this surge wasn't enough to counterbalance the lower sales in other segments. But, before we all go ahead and point at the usual suspects, specifically, Forspoken, which had launched earlier this year and received negative reviews that eventually resulted in the closure of its developers, one of the areas Square Enix struggled was in the MMO space. Apparently, Final Fantasy 14's profits saw a decrease during this time. Consequently, the overall profits of Square Enix declined in comparison to the previous year, underscoring the challenge of balancing development costs against revenue generation in the gaming industry.
