logo square enix s headquarters in tokyo native name type public traded as tyo 9684 industry video games anime books and magazines motion pictures founded september 22 1975 ; 41 years ago 1975 09 22 enix september 1983 ; 33 years ago 1983 09 square april 1 2003 ; 13 years ago 2003 04 01 as square enix october 1 2008 ; 8 years ago 2008 10 01 as square enix holdings headquarters shinjuku tokyo japan key people yasuhiro fukushima honorary chairman yosuke matsuda president phil rogers ceo square enix europe president and ceo square enix inc. products franchises games revenue 214.101 billion april 1 2015 march 31 2016 1 net income 19.884 billion april 1 2015 march 31 2016 1 number of employees 3 924 as of march 31 2016 1 subsidiaries square enix group taito group square enix europe gangan comics website www.square enix.com square enix holdings co. ltd. kabushiki gaisha sukuwea enikkusu h rudingusu is a japanese video game developer publisher and distribution company that is best known for its role playing video game franchises which include final fantasy dragon quest and kingdom hearts . several of its franchises have sold over 10 million copies with the final fantasy franchise selling over 100 million and the company as a whole made over 150 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2014 . the square enix headquarters are in the shinjuku eastside square building in shinjuku tokyo and the company employs over 3800 employees worldwide . the original square enix co. ltd. was formed as the result of a merger between square co. ltd. and enix corporation on april 1 2003 . each share of square s common stock was exchanged for 0.85 shares of enix s common stock . at the time 80 % of square enix staff were made up of former square employees . as part of the merger former square president yoichi wada was appointed president of the new corporation while former enix president keiji honda was named its vice president and the founder of enix yasuhiro fukushima the largest shareholder of the combined corporation became its honorary chairman . the company owns the arcade gaming corporation taito best known for games such as space invaders bubble bobble arkanoid darius and lufia . square enix also owns game publisher eidos interactive which has been absorbed into square enix europe . square enix now publishes all of eidos s intellectual property and runs eidos s development studios . eidos was most well known for publishing the tomb raider hitman deus ex legacy of kain and thief series of games . contents 1 corporate history 1.1 square 1.2 enix 1.3 merger 1.4 acquisitions and subsidiaries 2 corporate structure 2.1 development organization 2.2 business model 3 properties 3.1 video games 3.2 game engines 3.3 online gaming 3.4 arcade 3.5 film 3.6 manga 3.7 merchandise 4 subsidiaries 5 references 6 external links corporate history edit square edit main article square company history square was founded in yokohama in september 1983 by masashi miyamoto after he graduated from waseda one of japan s top universities . at that time square was a computer game software division of den yu sha a power line construction company owned by miyamoto s father . while at the time game development was usually conducted by only one programmer miyamoto believed that it would be more efficient to have graphic designers programmers and professional story writers working together on common projects . 2 in september 1986 square spun off from den yu sha and became an independent company officially named square co. ltd. 3 after releasing several unsuccessful games for the famicom square relocated to ueno tokyo in 1987 and developed a role playing video game titled final fantasy which was inspired by enix s success in the genre with dragon quest released in north america as dragon warrior until 2005 . 4 with 400 000 copies sold final fantasy spawned multiple sequels over the years and became square s main franchise . 2 buoyed by the success of their final fantasy franchise square developed many other widely known games such as chrono trigger chrono cross secret of mana legend of mana xenogears brave fencer musashi parasite eve parasite eve 2 saga frontier romancing saga vagrant story kingdom hearts done in collaboration with disney interactive and super mario rpg done under the guidance of shigeru miyamoto . 4 by late 1994 they had developed a reputation as a producer of high quality role playing video games rpgs . 5 square was one of the many companies that had planned to develop and publish their games for the nintendo 64 but with the cheaper costs associated with developing games on cd based consoles such as the sega saturn and the sony playstation square decided to develop titles for the latter system . 6 final fantasy vii was one of these games and it sold 9.8 million copies making it the second best selling game for the playstation . 4 enix edit main article enix history enix was founded on september 22 1975 as eidansha boshu service center by japanese architect turned entrepreneur yasuhiro fukushima . 7 8 enix focused on publishing games often by companies who exclusively partnered with the company and is perhaps most famous for publishing the dragon quest series of console games developed by chunsoft . key members of the developer s staff consisted of director koichi nakamura writer yuuji horii artist akira toriyama and composer koichi sugiyama among others . 2 the first game in the famicom based rpg series was released in 1986 and would eventually sell 1.5 million copies in japan establishing dragon quest as the company s most profitable franchise . 9 10 despite the announcement that enix s long time competitor square would develop exclusively for sony playstation enix announced in january 1997 that it would release games for both nintendo and sony consoles . 11 this caused a significant rise in stock for both enix and sony . 12 by november 1999 enix was listed in the tokyo stock exchange s 1st section indicating it as a large company . 7 13 merger edit a merger between square and enix was in consideration since at least 2000 ; however the financial failure in 2001 of square s first movie final fantasy the spirits within made enix reluctant to proceed while square was losing money . 14 15 with the company facing its second year of financial losses square approached sony for a capital injection and on october 8 2001 sony corp purchased 18.6 % stake in square . 16 following the success of both final fantasy x and kingdom hearts the company s finances stabilized and it recorded the highest operating margin in its history in fiscal year 2002 . 17 18 it was announced on november 25 2002 that square and enix s previous plans to merge were to officially proceed with the goal to mutually decrease development costs and to compete with foreign developers . 19 as described by yoichi wada square s president and ceo square has also fully recovered meaning this merger is occurring at a time when both companies are at their height . 20 some shareholders expressed concerns about the merger notably square s original founder and largest shareholder masashi miyamoto who would find himself holding a significantly smaller percentage of the combined companies . 21 other criticism came from takashi oya of deutsche securities who expressed doubts about the benefits of such a merger enix outsources game development and has few in house creators while square does everything by itself . the combination of the two provides no negative factors but would bring little in the way of operational synergies . 22 miyamoto s concerns were eventually resolved by altering the exchange ratio of the merger so that each square share would be exchanged for 0.85 enix shares rather than 0.81 shares and the merger was greenlit . 23 24 the merger was set for april 1 2003 on which date the newly merged entity square enix came into being . 4 25 at the time of the merger 80 % of square enix staff were made up of former square employees . 26 as part of the merger former square president yoichi wada was appointed president of the new corporation while former enix president keiji honda became its vice president . 27 the founder of enix and the largest shareholder of the newly combined corporation yasuhiro fukushima was made its honorary chairman . 28 in july of that year the square enix headquarters were moved to yoyogi shibuya tokyo as part of the process of combining the two companies . 3 acquisitions and subsidiaries edit since its foundation square enix has acquired a number of companies as well as creating several subsidiary companies . to strengthen its wireless market square enix acquired mobile application developer uievolution in march 2004 though it was sold in december 2007 and the company instead founded its own square enix mobilestudio in january 2008 to focus on mobile products . 29 30 in january 2005 square enix founded square enix china expanding their interests in the people s republic of china . 3 in september of that year square enix bought the gaming developer and publisher taito renowned for their arcade hits such as space invaders and the bubble bobble series ; taito s home and portable console games divisions were merged into square enix itself by march 2010 . 31 in august 2008 square enix made plans for a similar expansion by way of a friendly takeover of video game developer tecmo by purchasing shares at a 30 percent premium but tecmo rejected the proposed takeover . 32 33 instead in february 2009 square enix announced a takeover deal for eidos plc the holding company for eidos interactive the uk based publisher of the tomb raider hitman deus ex thief and legacy of kain franchises along with its multiple subsidiary development studios which developed the games . 34 35 the acquisition of eidos was completed in april 2009 and in november the publisher was merged with square enix s european publishing organization to form square enix europe . 36 37 in march 2011 square enix founded another mobile development studio hippos lab followed by another in 2012 square enix montreal . 38 39 a third mobile studio was founded in indonesia in june 2013 smileworks but was closed in january 2015 . the latest subsidiary company to be created was shinra technologies a cloud gaming company but it was only in existence from september 2014 to january 2016 . 40 41 in 2015 square created a new studio known as tokyo rpg factory to develop what was then dubbed project setsuna . 42 43 corporate structure edit on october 1 2008 square enix transformed into a holding company and was renamed to square enix holdings . at the same time the gaming contents and publishing businesses were transferred to a spin off named square enix sharing the same corporate leadership and offices with the holding . 44 3 45 the primary offices for square enix and square enix holdings are in the shinjuku eastside square building in shinjuku tokyo . 44 46 development organization edit after the merger in 2003 square enix s development department was organized into eight square and two enix product development divisions kaihatsu jigy bu each focused on different groupings of games . 47 48 49 the divisions were spread around different offices ; for example product development division 5 had offices both in osaka and tokyo . 47 according to yoichi wada the development department was reorganized away from the product development division system by march 2007 into a project based system . 50 51 until 2013 the teams in charge of the final fantasy and kingdom hearts series were still collectively referred to as the 1st production department 1 dai ichi seisakubu . 52 53 54 the