Monolith Soft, the game development studio behind the Xenoblade Chronicles series, is reporting that its profits have been at an all-time high. This was detailed in a financial report that covered its fiscal year. For those unaware, Monolith Soft is a subsidiary studio under Nintendo, not to be confused with Monolith Productions, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The company was acquired by Nintendo in 2006, first producing the Wii-exclusive title Disaster: Day of Crisis, before producing the at-the-time cult classic Xenoblade Chronicles, which later became a smash hit that produced a number of sequels to form a franchise.
Monolith Soft would then become one of Nintendo's most important studios, providing support to a number of the Nintendo Switch's heavy hitters and most popular games. This includes being a support studio for games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The developer was also quite busy throughout 2022 as well, not only providing support for one of Nintendo's fall tent pole releases, Splatoon 3, but also developing the third numbered game in the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy. With both games being a success on the Switch, it's likely no surprise to hear that the company's profits have skyrocketed.
This report comes from a Japanese business outlet, GameBiz.jp, which detailed Monolith Soft's 2022-2023 fiscal year, ending on March 2023. According to the data provided, Monolith Soft had made around 800 million yen (about 5.63 million USD) in profits, which is a 97.8% increase when compared to the previous year's 404 million yen (2.84 million USD). That is approximately double what the developer had made last year, which was likely the result of the successful releases of both Splatoon 3 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 within the same year.
It should be noted that the previous fiscal profit figure was covering 2021-2022, which was a year that Monolith Soft didn't release a game nor have a title that was supported by the studio launched during that period. Despite that, the studio made a decent profit at the time, and this figure for 2022 is an incredible jump in profitability. 2023 is looking to be a promising year for Monolith Soft as well, based on the current Nintendo Switch release schedule.
In 2023 alone, Monolith Soft has contributed to one of Nintendo's biggest heavy hitters of the year, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Not only that, the company's 2023 fiscal year also saw the release of the Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed DLC, which was praised by many fans for concluding the series in an ultimately climactic and satisfying way. This September will see a re-release of one of Monolith Soft's first games before being acquired by Nintendo, Baten Kaitos 1 & 2 HD Remaster. Fans have congratulated Monolith Soft online for this momentous milestone.
Source: GameBiz (via Noisy Pixel)
