Who Owns Square Enix?

The company traces to two separate businesses. Enix began in 1975 when Yasuhiro Fukushima founded Eidansha Boshu Service Center, which evolved into a game publisher renamed Enix in 1982. Enix struck gold in 1986 with Dragon Quest, created with designer Yuji Horii and artist Akira Toriyama, which became Japan's most popular RPG series.

Square was founded in 1986 by Masafumi Miyamoto as a computer game division of a power line construction company. It nearly folded until Hironobu Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy, released in 1987 as a last-ditch project, became a hit and gave the company a franchise that has since sold more than 200 million copies.

Through the 1990s the two companies were Japan's fiercest RPG rivals. Square built Final Fantasy into a global brand on the original PlayStation, while Enix kept Dragon Quest dominant at home. The rivalry ended in 2003 when the two merged, forming Square Enix on April 1 of that year.

The merged company expanded aggressively. It acquired the arcade operator Taito in 2005, the British publisher Eidos Interactive in 2009 for about 84 million pounds, bringing Tomb Raider, Hitman, and Deus Ex under its roof, and built a western publishing arm in London and Los Angeles. It also grew its manga publishing business and its Amusement arcade operations.

The 2010s and 2020s brought restructuring. The company sold its western studios Crystal Dynamics, Eidos-Montreal, and Square Enix Montreal to Embracer Group in 2022 for $300 million, refocusing on Japanese development. It released Final Fantasy XVI in 2023, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth in 2024, Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake in late 2024, and Final Fantasy Tactics: The Ivalice Chronicles and Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake in 2025. A multi-year medium-term business plan running through fiscal 2027 is reshaping the portfolio toward fewer, larger projects.