Square-Enix pledges to increase North American/PAL sales @ Gaming Target

Written by John Scalzo on September 28, 2007

News: Company wants 75% of sales to come from Europe and America.

Square-Enix has issued a statement declaring that they want to dramatically increase their sales revenue in North American and PAL territories. According to S-E, their sales numbers are currently split, with half coming from games sold in Japan and the other half coming from America, Europe and other territories. The statement was released as a response to an article about the company appearing earlier in the week in the Financial Times.

As a result of this information, Square-Enix understands that the foreign markets are much larger than the Japanese userbase. Because of this, they want to increase American and PAL sales to 75% of their total according to this statement:

"Our strategy to seize such opportunities is two-fold; (i) strengthen our own distribution channels developed by our local subsidiaries in these geographic areas, and (ii) diversify our content in accordance with user preferences in each area. Through these strategic initiatives, our initial goal within a time frame of three to five years is to raise our foreign sales ratio for console/handheld games from its current 50% level to approximately 75%. We shall continue our effort to better serve overseas markets," said Yoichi Wada, President and Representative Director, Square Enix Co., Ltd.

While S-E is currently developing The Last Remnant with non-Japanese gamers in mind, their release list still looks like business as usual. So if the fruits of this plan are centered around more content geared for western audiences, it may not be seen by gamers for a long time.

But Xbox 360 owners may latch onto the statement that S-E wants to "diversify our content in accordance with user preferences in each area" as proof that more games from the company will comes to their system. This statement will also no doubt fuel another round of "Final Fantasy XIII to the Xbox 360" rumors and possibly create new ones based around other major S-E franchises like Star Ocean, Kingdom Hearts and Front Mission. But it's hard to deny the statement can be interpreted that way.

Whatever the statement means, it seems likely that most upcoming Square-Enix titles will not stay trapped in Japan forever. And that can only be a good thing for gamers everywhere.