Square Enix announced its financial results for the first quarter of the fiscal year, including the first effects of the launch of Final Fantasy XVI.
According to the official documents, net sales for the whole company for the period between April 1 and June 30, 2023 were 85,669 million yen (up 14.4％ year-on-year), while operating income was 3,097 million (down 78.5％ year-on-year).
Speaking of the Digital Entertainment business, which focuses on video games and represents the lion's share of Square Enix's business, net sales were 62,375 million yen (up 16.4％ year-on-year) while operating income was 2,745 million (down 80.6％ year-on-year).
In the HD games sub-segments sales grew thanks to the launch of Final Fantasy XVI and the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters, but profit was down due to the amortization of development costs.
Net sales were down for MMORPGs (which is to be expected with Final Fantasy XIV being in the middle of an expansion cycle with Dawntrail coming next year) and for smartphone games, where new games were unable to offset the weak performance of existing ones. This left the HD games sub-segment to carry the day on its own.
It's worth mentioning, as usual, that lower profits year-on-year doesn't mean that the company is losing money. Profits are still in the black. It simply means that profits were lower than in the same period in the past fiscal year.
Looking at the number of units sold during the quarter (including digital downloads) including both HD games and MMOs, Square Enix sold 7.54 million copies of its games of which 5.33 million digitally and 2,21 million physically. This is considerably higher compared to last year's 4.28 million copies.
North America takes the lion's share of unit sales with 4.67 million units, followed by Japan with 1.94 million units, and Europe with 0.93 million units.
Interestingly, Square Enix expects the results for the full fiscal year to be higher across the board compared to the previous year, with net sales at 360 billion yen compared to 343.2, and operating income at 55 billion yen compared to 44.3. This outlook remains the same compared to what was announced during the previous session in May, hinting that today's results were likely approximately in line with what the company expected three months ago.
