First details regarding the newly created company, Square Enix, have been released. The new company's CEO will be current Square President and CEO Yoichi Wada, while Enix's chairman Yasuhiro Fukushima will continue to serve as chairman of Square Enix. Former Square President and current chairman of Square's board of directors, Hisashi Suzuki will serve as a part-time member of the new company's board of directors. Enix COO and President Keiji Honda will become Square Enix's vice president.
The merger will not affect Square's close connections to Sony Computer Entertainment, however SCE's stake in the new company will be reduced to 8% (currently SCE holds a 18.6% stake in Square). The new company's headquarters will be housed at Enix's current location, placed conveniently in Tokyo's Shibuya district. There will be no merger-related lay-offs.
Performance-wise, the new company plans to generate sales totaling 61 billion yen ($499.71 million USD) by the end of the next fiscal year, thereby becoming the world's No.7 game producer (measured by sales).
There are no plans to merge the two companies' most heralded properties, the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series. The combined sales of both series' amount to a grand total of 72 million copies (Final Fantasy: 42 million copies, Dragon Quest: 30 million copies) worldwide.
A press conference will be held on November 29th to explain the details of the merge in-depth.
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Updated: 11.26.02 - 2:07 PM |
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| Chris Winkler |