Square Enix now moves almost nine out of every ten copies of its games as a download, and that shift has delivered the Japanese publisher its most positive financial report in years.
Digital unit sales climbed from 5.83 million to 8.19 million year on year over the past six months, accounting for 89 percent of all copies sold. Physical sales slipped in the same window, easing from 1.09 million units to 1.01 million.
The digital growth came from ports of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth on Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox, alongside the summer release The Adventures of Elliot. Boxed editions still find buyers, but their share of the total keeps shrinking.
The result was enough to lift the company's forecast for the rest of the fiscal year, from 298 billion yen to 310 billion yen. A modest raise on paper, though a meaningful one for a publisher that has struggled in recent years.
Attention now turns to Final Fantasy 7 Revelation, arriving April 8 and the first entry in the trilogy to launch across multiple platforms at once. That multi-platform strategy follows Rebirth falling well short of Remake's opening sales.