Strong NieR: Automata Digital Sales Drive Profits Boost for Square Enix Among Lower HD Games Sales

Giuseppe Nelva February 6, 2018 3:23 AM EST

Yoko Taro's masterpiece NieR: Automata was cited by Square Enix as a driver of income growth for Square Enix's HD Games, despite less overall sales.

Today Square Enix announced its financial results for the nine months ended on December 31st, 2017. As you can see in the table below, all numbers are firmly in the black and show a considerable boost to operating and ordinary income.

A specific breakdown of results for the Digital Entertainment business, which is the segment including games, was also announced.

For the field that Square Enix defines “HD Games” (which is basically equivalent to console games) a decrease in the number of released blockbuster titles caused a decline in overall sales year-on-year, despite the launch of Dragon Quest XI for PS4 and 3DS and Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age for PS4. On the flipside, “strong high-margin download sales” of past games like NieR: Automata resulted in an increase in operating income.

In the MMORPG segment, the release of the latest expansions of Dragon Quest X and Final Fantasy XIV determined growth in both revenue and operating income both with disk sales and the increase of paying subscribers.

The performance of mobile games is also deemed strong, pushing both sales and operating income.

As a whole, the Digital Entertainment Business made Square Enix 143,574 million yen in revenue (with a 1.8% decrease year on year), and 36,378 million yen in operating profit, with a massive 66.9% increase year-on-year.