Today Square Enix posted a transcript of the latest financial results meeting hosted in Tokyo, and it included interesting information from CEO Yosuke Matsuda.
First of all, we learn that the primary purpose of the sale of most of the company’s western assets was a reorientation of the company’s portfolio, including a step-up of online games for the North American and European markets. On top of that, Square Enix retains ownership of the Just Cause IP and a new game is in development.
“Our materials provide an overview and details of the Transaction, but I note that its primary purpose was a reorientation of our portfolio. We especially revisited our studio and title portfolios from the perspective of stepping up our offering of online titles that we develop for the North American and the European market. We want to focus on creating new titles that align with our strategy, including ones that leverage new IP. The JUST CAUSE franchise will remain our IP, and we are at work developing a new title in the franchise.”
Matsuda-san also clarified that the proceeds from the sales will not be utilized to fund new investments in the NFT and Blockchain fields. They will instead be used on the development of core games and “solid IP.” INvestment in NFT and Blockchain will be funded via other means.
“Rather than using the proceeds from the divestiture in new investment domains such as NFT and blockchain, we intend to use them primarily to fund our efforts to foster solid IP and to enhance our development capabilities in our core Digital Entertainment segment.
Our intention is to undertake fund raising efforts for our new investment domains separate from those for our core business, and we are considering various possibilities, including potentially establishing a CVC.”
The CEO admitted that multiple HD Games (single-player games for consoles and PC) haven’t done so hotly in recent years, but teased multiple games belonging to existing IP featuring “high-level of quality.”
“We have to admit that multiple HD game titles released in the past two years have struggled in terms of their performance. Meanwhile, our content production account includes multiple new titles leveraging major existing IPs, and we are developing them to a very high level of quality. We plan to release information on each of those titles going forward as developments warrant.”
Lastly, he clarified that, despite what was mentioned above, the focus for the overseas market won’t be exclusively on online games, but they’re a key area of interest.
“We will not necessarily be focusing exclusively on online titles, but they do represent a key area of interest for us going forward, and we intend to develop titles that offer greater scalability and flexibility.”
