Japanese game developer and publisher Square Enix is looking for business partners in Europe and the U.S. to aid it in publishing and marketing efforts.

Square Enix Senior VP Michihiko Sasaki said that the popular maker of the Final Fantasy series only gets 10 to 20 percent of its total annual sales from outside Japan. The great majority of the income is generated within its homeland.

"We need to seek co-operation with a US publisher, we need local content," Mr Sasaki said 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."

Square Enix is known for its popular Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, it looks for western business partners is to balance Japanese sales with international figures. It want to raise the figure to 50 percent in the next three years. This will prove to be a challenge because western audiences generally take on action titles more than RPGs.

Square Enix also trying to strengthen its presence in online games, where operating margins areoften as high as 40 percent compared with 20 to 30 percent for traditional packaged media.

News Original From: Financial Times

click picture for next page

click here for full image