Today Square Enix published the transcript of its latest financial conference for investors and analysts, which happened behind closed doors last month after the announcement of the financial results for the quarter.
Within the transcript, there are a few interesting comments from (soon former) CEO Yosuke Matsuda about what we can expect from the Japanese publisher going forward.
Matsuda-san mentioned that the pipeline of games in development for the fiscal year that will end in March 2024 (the current fiscal year) and beyond is "extremely strong" including some games that have not been announced yet. Later during the Q&A session, he explained that the release of major games the publisher has in the works won't be focused only before March 2024 but the company has organized the pipeline to have "a good spread" of new releases in the following fiscal year (which ends in March 2025) and beyond.
They also hope that investors will look forward to the Blockchain games Square Enix plans to launch in the current fiscal year and beyond.
We also hear that the publisher plans to continue with its current multiplatform strategy.
Matsuda-san also admitted that reviews of Forspoken have been "challenging," however, the game "has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities" and this experience "will lead to improvement of development capabilities of other games in the future."
Unfortunately, its sales have been "lackluster" so there's a considerable downside risk to the earnings for the full year that ends at the end of this month and will be announced in mid-May. It "won't be easy" to achieve year-on-year growth in sales and profits.
Incidentally, in case you missed the news Yosuke Matsuda has voluntarily decided to step down from his position as CEO and leave Square Enix. He will be replaced by Takashi Kiryu.
