Enix (company)
| Enix Corporation
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| legal form | Kabushiki-gaisha (joint stock company) |
| founding | 22nd September 1975 |
| resolution | April 2003 |
| Seat | Tokyo , Japan |
| management |
Keiji Honda , President Yasuhiro Fukushima Founder and CEO |
| sales | 22 billion yen (2003) |
KK Enix ( Japanese 株式会社 エ ニ ッ ク ス , Kabushiki-gaisha Enikkusu , English Enix Corporation ) was a Japanese manufacturer of computer games and a publisher , which was founded in 1975 as Eidansha Boshu Service Center . In 1982 the company changed its name to Enix - a combination of ENIAC (one of the first computers) and the mythical phoenix bird . In 2003 , Enix merged with Square to form Square Enix , and net sales that year were nearly 22 billion yen.
Products
One of the most important games from Enix is the role-playing game series Dragon Quest ( Dragon Warrior in the USA ), the success of which in Japan is only achieved by the Final Fantasy series of the former competitor Square. In the United States, only the first four parts appeared for the Nintendo Entertainment System . Only the seventh part was released worldwide for the Sony PlayStation . In Europe at least offshoot of the series were playfully at Pokémon ajar Dragon Quest Monsters games published.
Unlike its competitor Square, Enix is less of a developer and more of a publisher , leaving the development of the games to smaller, independent companies. For example, Enix published various action role-playing games for the SNES , including Actraiser , Illusion of Time and Terranigma , all developed by Quintet . The Star Ocean series of tri-Ace is also distributed in Japan by Enix, as well as the series Valkyrie Profile . However, Enix usually left the releases of these games outside of Japan to Nintendo and Sony.
The Dragon Warrior games were among the most popular role-playing games for the NES, but role-playing games were only a less profitable niche genre on consoles, which is why Enix withdrew from the western market for a long time. It wasn't until the PlayStation era that the genre became mass marketable with Final Fantasy VII from competitor Square, which encouraged Enix to release the seventh part of their most famous series in the USA . However, Dragon Warrior VII could not repeat the enormous success of over four million units sold in Japan in the USA: The disappointingly simple presentation put off too many buyers.
These difficulties in gaining a foothold in the western market were the decisive motivation for Enix to merge with Square in 2003 . The relationship with Square was already friendly before that, and when Square got into financial difficulties because of costly prestige projects like the commercial flop Final Fantasy: The Powers Within You, a merger was agreed. Enix benefits from this merger primarily through Square's know-how in the areas of computer animation and online games as well as the brand names known in the West .
Web links
- Official website (multilingual)
- Enix at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Game software firms Enix, Square to merge on April 1 . In: The Japan Times Online . November 27, 2002, ISSN 0447-5763 ( japantimes.co.jp [accessed March 1, 2019]).
- ↑ a b Square Enix: 2004 Annual Report (PDF; 878 kB) . August 6, 2004
- ^ Nintendo Life: Review: Star Ocean (SNES). April 9, 2009. Retrieved March 1, 2019 (UK English).
- ↑ Patrick Faller: PS4's Star Ocean Remaster Offers The Same Graphics Settings As PC. In: GameSpot. December 4, 2017, Retrieved March 1, 2019 (American English).