Square Enix saw a 29.9 per cent drop in profits to $53 million after releasing no new games during the three months ending June 30th 2018.

Sales meanwhile fell 20.2 per cent year-on-year to $409 million. The publisher's digital entertainment arm, which includes its mobile games, saw a revenue drop of 26.5 per cent to $292 million.

Shaky ground

A slowdown was expected due to the lack of releases, but it appears that across the board titles weren’t performing as well as expected.

Square Enix noted that the performance mobile and browser games launched in the prior fiscal year had fallen below expectations and failed to generate additional revenue on top of existing hits like Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius.

The publisher also made reference to “the lack of the lump-sum payment of a license fee that we had received in the same period of the previous fiscal year".

It's possible that this could refer to a deal with MZ to release mobile 4X strategy game Final Fantasy XV: A New Empire, which soft-launched in April 2017 and released globally shortly after.

The title is thought to have made $380 million to date, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.