The latest financial report for Square-Enix is out for the prior nine months of operation, and it’s not a great report for the company. Year-over-year, the company’s net sales dipped 4.8% and profits dipped 60.1%. The aggressive drop in profits came partly due to the closure and restructuring around Luminous Productions, a subsidiary centered around developing further content for Final Fantasy XV which Square wrote off as an extraordinary loss in 2018. (Remember, this is the technical use of the term “extraordinary loss,” wherein the company wrote off assets it was not expecting to lose.)
The bright side is that the company’s core releases did indeed sell well, and it appears to be planning to focus more heavily on releasing, expanding, and developing its existing properties. Final Fantasy XIV‘s operating revenue also decreased year-over-year, but that is attributed in the report to the fact that no expansions were released in 2018; the earning report makes it clear that the upcoming Shadowbringers release will likely mark another upturn. So it’s not a strong nine months of performance, but there’s reason to believe the next few months will be better.
