Square-Enix revealed that it still plans to develop and publish blockchain games for the 2023-2024 fiscal year and beyond. This comes from a statement by 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’s sales were “lackluster”.
Square Enix will continue to focus on blockchain gaming after Matsuda steps down as chairman
Investors asked Matsuda how Square Enix plans to meet year-over-year expectations and 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 focused solely on the 2024/3 financial year. We have organized our pipeline to have a good distribution of new releases in fiscal year 3/25 and beyond as well. We also hope you look forward to the blockchain games we plan to release in fiscal year 2024/3 and beyond.
This coincides with Matsuda’s 2023 New Year’s Letter, where he doubled down on blockchain, NFT and Web 3.0, despite being heavily criticized by fans for being out of touch.
This is likely one of the reasons why the Square Enix board proposed that Matsuda step down as chairman at the end of this year, to be replaced by Takashi Kiryu. This change “aims to reshape the management team with the aim of embracing ever-changing technological innovations”.