Square Enix has revealed that it still plans to develop and release blockchain games for the 2023-2024 fiscal year and beyond. This comes from a statement from Yosuke Matsuda, President of Square Enix, in the Q&A section of the publisher’s latest Q1-Q3 2022-2023 financial report . This is the same report in which Square Enix admitted that Forspoken sales were “lackluster.”
Square Enix will still focus on blockchain games after Matsuda steps down as President
Matsuda was asked by investors on how Square Enix expects to meet year-on-year expectations and to achieve sustainable growth over the next two years. He responded by pointing to the publisher’s catalog of upcoming blockchain games:
Major title launches will not be concentrated solely in FY 2024/3. We have organized our pipeline so that we will have a good spread of new releases in FY 2025/3 and beyond as well. We also hope that you will look forward to the blockchain games we plan to launch in FY 2024/3 and thereafter.
This falls in line with Matsuda’s 2023 New Year’s Letter where he doubled down on blockchain, NFTs, and Web 3.0 tech, despite him being heavily criticized by fans for being out of touch.
This is likely part of the reason why the Board of Directors of Square Enix have proposed that Matsuda step down as President later this year, to be replaced by Takashi Kiryu. This change is “intended to reshape the management team with the goal of adopting ever-evolving technological innovations.”
