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I'm proud to start off my "career", if you will, of News Coverage for RPGDot with some of the most groundbreaking news to the RPG community for some time now. Popular game companies Square - most well known for their Final Fantasy series - and Enix - slightly less famous, known mainly in Japan for their RPG series Dragon Warrior - are merging to form one game company, Square Enix Inc. The decision was made to combine company resources and technology, as well as the hope of turning higher profits.
The merger should be completed by April 1st of next year. Square's current CEO and president, Yoichi Wada, will head up this new game company while Enix's chairman, Yasuhiro Fukushima, will continue to serve as such. Former Square president and current chairman of the board of directors, Hisashi Suzuki, will serve as a part-time member of the new company's board of directors. Enix CEO and president Keiji Honda will become Square Enix's vice president. Any other changes in operation besides this are unknown as of this time.
The merger will not affect Square's close connections to Sony Computer Entertainment, however SCE's stock in the new company will be reduced to 8% (they currently hold 18.6% in Square). Also, the new company's headquarters will be housed at Enix's current location, placed conveniently in Tokyo's Shibuya district. There will also be no merger-related lay-offs.
The new company hopes to generate sales totalling $499.71 million U.S. dollars by the end of the next year (this would be almost a 30% increase in sales of the combined two companies), thereby becoming the world's 7th biggest game producer (measured by sales). To reach this ambitious goal Square Enix plans to release a massive amount of titles with the potential of selling more than two million copies worldwide. The company also plans to increase the sales of Enix's flagship series Dragon Quest/Warriot in North America, where the series has never been as successful as Square's Final Fantasy.
There are no plans to merge the two companies' most popular series, the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest/Warrior, as of this time. The combined sales of the two series' amount to a grand total of 72 million copies (Final Fantasy's equalling over 42 million copies and Dragon Quest/Warrior's equalling over 30 million copies) worldwide.
RPGDot will be sure to bring you more coverage on this merger as it becomes available to us. | | Source: RPGFan |
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Square and Enix Announce a Merger!
