Square Enix Looking for Overseas Partner

Japanese RPG giant Square Enix wants a publishing partner in the U.S. or Europe to raise its relatively low overseas revenues, Square Enix's senior VP told the Financial Times. Michihiro Sasaki said the company wants this new business relationship to increase overseas sales to 50% of the company's total revenues, up from the 10% to 20% foreign sales make up currently. "We need to seek co-operation with a US publisher--we need local content," Sasaki told the Financial Times at the Tokyo Game Show. "Our strength is in role-playing games and fantasy titles, so it is a bit difficult to appeal to the US market." The agreement may be similar to the 1998 agreement between pre-Enix merger Squaresoft and Electronic Arts. Forming Square Electronic Arts in America and Electronic Arts Square in Japan, the agreement allowed the companies to share revenues off of publishing the other's titles in their respective territories. Though worried about the low global sales of the PlayStation 3, Sasaki said Square Enix was also interested in pursuing more online titles like the company's massively multiplayer Final Fantasy XI.