Summary
- Square Enix opened a new store in Tokyo for merchandise from its popular game franchises like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
- The store features CDs, figures, hoodies, keychains, and plushies of iconic Square Enix characters.
- Despite a drop in stock value, Square Enix saw a growth in merchandise sales, driven by goods featuring key characters.
A new Square Enix store that features a diverse selection of merchandise based on some of the game publisher’s most beloved properties has opened in its home country of Japan. Goods that feature key Square Enix characters have sold well this year, according to the company.
Square Enix, which was formed in 2003 following a merger between SquareSoft and Enix, is one of the largest gaming entities in Japan, with the company currently boasting a total market cap of around 747 billion yen ($4.7 billion), according to data provided by financial analytics tracker MarketWatch. Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Kingdom Hearts are just some of the legendary game franchises owned by Square Enix and its many subsidiaries. Merchandise from these properties and more can now be obtained from a store that was recently built in the heart of Tokyo.
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The Square Enix Garden Official Goods Shop opened at the Shibuya Sakura Stage multipurpose complex on December 19, the Square Enix Official Goods Twitter account announced in a post. This store, which is part of the POP @P SPACE -SHIBUYA- area located on the third floor, features all sorts of merchandise, including CDs, figures, hoodies, keychains, pins, and plushies. Several sculptures of popular Square Enix characters, like Final Fantasy 7 main protagonist Cloud Strife and the iconic slime from Dragon Quest can also be found at the site.
Square Enix Garden Official Goods Shop Opens in Tokyo, Japan
Veteran Japanese game director Toshiyuki Itahana, the artist behind the character designs of Final Fantasy 9, as well as the series’ Crystal Chronicles and Chocobo spin-offs, revealed via a Twitter post that he visited the Square Enix Garden Official Goods Shop on its opening day. Those who want to check out the store like Itahana, who also worked on the critically acclaimed NieR: Automata, can drop by when it is open between 10 AM and 9 PM.
Square Enix’s lineup of 2024 releases includes Visions of Mana, Fantasian: Neo Dimension, Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven, and Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake. The company is set to launch the PC version of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, the second part of the Final Fantasy 7 Remake trilogy, on January 23, 2025. New remakes of the first two Dragon Quest games are expected to come out sometime in that year as well.
Around the time Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake came out in November, the value of Square Enix’s shares dropped by up to 12% at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company announced just days before the negative stock fluctuation occurred that its net sales between the start of April and the end of September decreased by 8.4% when compared to the figures from the same period last year. Overall operating income rose by 22.1%, however, with net sales and operating income from merchandise alone seeing a year-on-year growth of 14.7%. This merchandise-based growth was partly driven by brisk sales of new goods that featured key characters under the Square Enix umbrella, the company explained.
