Square Enix Raises Its Forecast as Digital Sales Hit 90%: Half-Year Profit Up 42% on FF7 Rebirth Ports and FFXIV

Square Enix just had a really good six months, and it's telling everyone the year will be better than it thought. On November 11 it reported sales up 21.9% and operating income up 42.2% for April to September, then raised its full-year forecast. The big story under the hood: almost 9 out of 10 of its games are now sold as downloads.

Published November 11, 2026, afternoon ET. All company numbers from Square Enix's own results, slides and forecast notice. Yen figures; At about 160 yen per US dollar (Nov 11), 1 billion yen is roughly 6.25 million dollars.

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The numbers

What drove it

Square Enix splits its business into a few chunks, and the games side (it calls it Digital Entertainment) did the heavy lifting. That part's sales went from ¥73.0 billion to ¥97.6 billion, and its profit from ¥20.0 billion to ¥32.8 billion. Square Enix credits three things:

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• New releases. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth came to Nintendo Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S and PC, and The Adventures of Elliot: The Millennium Tales launched too.
• Old games still selling. Catalog titles, meaning games that are already out, sold more than last year. That's cheap money for a publisher, since the game is already made.
• Final Fantasy XIV. More people came back to play after the next expansion was announced.

On phones, Dissidia Duellum Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest Smash/Grow helped. The arcade side (Taito) and comic books were up too. The only part that went down was merchandise, and that's because last year had a one-off royalty payment.

Digital is basically everything now

This is the bit I find most interesting. In the first half, Square Enix sold 14.87 million units of its console, PC and MMO games. 13.35 million of those were downloads and only 1.52 million were boxed copies. That's about 90% digital, up from about 86% a year ago, and downloads alone were up about 56%.

For a publisher that's great. No discs to press, no shipping, no store taking a cut of a box. It's a big reason profit jumped faster than sales. For us it means the physical copy is slowly turning into a collector thing. Square Enix still does them (Elliot got its physical version a month after the digital one), but if you like having the box on your shelf, grab it while it's around.

The raised forecast

Back in May, Square Enix expected ¥298 billion in sales and ¥49 billion in operating income for the year ending March 2027. Now it says ¥310 billion and ¥59 billion. Operating profit forecast went up about 20%. Its reason, in its own words: strong first-half performance, "particularly in the Digital Entertainment business." The dividend stays the same.

One honest catch: the first half already made ¥38.8 billion of that ¥59 billion. So the forecast means the second half is expected to be a bit weaker than the first. That's normal for a company that front-loaded a couple of big releases, but it's worth knowing before anyone gets carried away.

What's coming next

Two big dates are already up on Square Enix's own store. Final Fantasy XIV: Evercold, the expansion behind that MMO bump, comes out February 23, 2027. And Final Fantasy VII Revelation, the last part of the Remake trilogy, launches April 8, 2027, with pre-orders open. That second one lands just after this financial year ends in March, so it isn't part of the new forecast. Final Fantasy XIV also just came out on Switch 2.

What about the stock?

Square Enix trades in Tokyo, and the results came out after the market there closed. On Wednesday the stock finished at ¥3,168, down about 1.1% from Tuesday (Yahoo Finance), so that move happened before anyone saw the numbers. The real reaction comes when Tokyo opens Thursday morning, which is Wednesday evening in North America. We don't do predictions, so we'll leave it there.

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What it means for gamers

More money coming in from ports and old games usually means more ports and more old games. Rebirth on Switch 2 and Xbox clearly worked, so don't be surprised if more of the back catalog shows up on more systems. And a healthy Final Fantasy XIV going into its next expansion is good news if you play it.

If you're on Switch 2, it's also a decent time to look at the console itself, since Square Enix is clearly backing it.

FAQ

Did Square Enix raise its forecast?

Yes. Full-year operating income is now expected at ¥59 billion, up from ¥49 billion, and sales at ¥310 billion, up from ¥298 billion.

How much of Square Enix's game sales are digital?

About 90%: 13.35 million of 14.87 million units in April-September 2026.

What games drove Square Enix's results?

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on Switch 2, Xbox and PC, The Adventures of Elliot, catalog titles and Final Fantasy XIV.

This is news, not financial advice.