Enix was a Japanese
video game publishing company founded in September 1975 by Yasuhiro Fukushima. Initially a
tabloid
Tabloid may refer to:
* Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism
* Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size
** Chinese tabloid
* Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size
* Sopwith Tabloid, a biplane aircraft
* ''Ta ...
publisher named Eidansha Boshu Service Center, it ventured in 1982 into video game publishing for Japanese
home computers such as the
PC-8800 series, the
X1 series, and the
FM-7. Enix initially found games to release by holding contests for programming hobbyists and publishing the winners, with the first titles appearing in February 1983. Enix continued to hold contests and publish the winners through 1993.
When Enix moved into traditional publishing for
video game consoles in 1985, it began with
ports of two of its more successful games, ''
Door Door'' (1983) and ''
The Portopia Serial Murder Case'' (1983). From that point onward, Enix served as a publisher for both video games developed independently by other companies as well as for titles in franchises owned by Enix and created by licensed developers. Enix's flagship franchise was the ''
Dragon Quest
previously published as ''Dragon Warrior'' in North America until 2005, is a franchise of Japanese role-playing video games created by Armor Project (Yuji Horii), Bird Studio (Akira Toriyama) and Sugiyama Kobo (Koichi Sugiyama) to its publi ...
'' series of console games, developed primarily by
Chunsoft; some of the games, such as ''
Dragon Quest VII
''Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past'' is a 2000 Japanese role-playing video game developed by Heartbeat and ArtePiazza, and published by Enix for the PlayStation. It was released in North America in 2001 under the title ''Dragon ...
'' (2000), have sold millions of copies, and the series as a whole has sold over 85 million copies as of March 2022.
On April 1, 2003, Enix and Japanese video game developer and publisher
Square merged to form
Square Enix
is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its ''Final Fantasy'', ''Dragon Quest'', ''Star Ocean'' and ''Kingdom Hearts'' role-playing video game ...
, with Enix legally absorbing Square.
Between 1985 and April 2003, Enix published 95 video games for 56 developers on 12 systems, 65 titles of which were exclusive to Japan. Only one game, ''
King Arthur & the Knights of Justice'' (1995), was not released in Japan at all, with the remainder appearing in Japan as well as either the North American or
PAL regions. Enix served as the Japanese publisher for all of the games released in that region that it was involved in with the exceptions of ''
Paladin's Quest
''Paladin's Quest'', originally released as in Japan, is a utopian/dystopian science fantasy role-playing video game developed by Copya System and published in Japan by Asmik Corporation on November 13, 1992, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment ...
'' (1992) and ''
Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen'' (1993), where it served solely as the North American publisher.
Games
This list includes retail games published by Enix during its existence under that name after its transition from hobby programming contests to retail publishing in 1985. Only versions of the games that were published by Enix in at least some regions are included; some games have additional ports to other systems that were only published by Square Enix or other publishers. The release dates given are the earliest release of the game by Enix; some games may have been originally published earlier by other publishers in another region.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Enix videogames
Video games developed in Japan
Video game lists by company