Square Enix

Square Enix is a Japanese video game company that develops, produces, and sells video games, especially of the role-playing genre. The company formed in April 2003 as a result of a merger between former rivals Square and Enix, hence the name, Square Enix. The flagship franchises of the company are the Final Fantasy franchise and the Dragon Quest franchise, formerly held by the respective rival companies.

Negotiations started in earnest as early as 2000, when both companies were on a financial decline. Both companies ran into sustainability issues due to rising development costs and the largely untapped western markets outgrowing the native Japanese market for the first time. Square was in especially dire straits by stretching themselves too thin with subsidiaries. Negotiations nearly fell through in 2001 after the financial failure of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within made Enix wary of the merger. However, titles like Final Fantasy X, Kingdom Hearts, and the Dragon Quest Monsters series kept both companies afloat long enough to let the merger pass.

As part of the merger, former Square president Yoichi Wada was appointed the president of the new corporation, while former Enix president Keiji Honda was named its vice president. Yasuhiro Fukushima, the largest shareholder of the combined corporation and founder of Enix, became chairman.