Square Co., Ltd. was a Japanese video game company founded in 1983 by Masafumi Miyamoto and Hironobu Sakaguchi.

Square's first games were released for the Nintendo Family Computer (also known as the "Famicom," and known internationally as the Nintendo Entertainment System) and the Famicom Disk System. Their early games were not very successful, and by 1987 the company was faced with the possibility of bankruptcy. That same year, Square employee Hironobu Sakaguchi was charged with the creation of a game that might well prove to be the company's last. The result was Final Fantasy, a computer role-playing game for the Famicom.

The term Final was picked because he was planning on retiring from the gaming industry and that Final Fantasy was going to be his last game. Final Fantasy did much better than Sakaguchi and Square had hoped, and led to a North American distribution deal with Nintendo of America, who released to market Final Fantasy in the United States in 1990. Due to its success, Hironobu Sakaguchi's plans for retirement ended and he stayed at SquareSoft to develop new Final Fantasy games. It may also be possible that the reason every new Final Fantasy game has a new story, with new characters is because the original Final Fantasy game was created with the belief that a sequel would never be created.

Final Fantasy was followed by a sequel in 1988, marketed exclusively in Japan until Final Fantasy Origins. North American localization was originally planned for the Famicom version of the sequel, but given the age of the game at that point, and the imminent arrival of Nintendo's Super Famicom (known internationally as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System), it was abandoned in favor of the Super Famicom Final Fantasy IV.

Square has also made other widely known games such as Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Seiken Densetsu 3, Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, Brave Fencer Musashi, Vagrant Story, the Kingdom Hearts series (done in collaboration with Disney Interactive) and, to a lesser extent, Super Mario RPG (done completely independent from Nintendo Co. Ltd).

Square was merged into Enix (known for the Dragon Quest series), another Japanese video game producer, in 2002 so as to curb development costs and become more competitive as a result of Square's major financial loss with Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. In April of 2003, the merger was completed, forming the new company, Square Enix.

Subsidiaries and related corporations

The Disk Original Group (DOG) was a union formed of no less than seven Japanese video game companies: Square Co., Ltd., MicroCabin, Thinking Rabbit, Carry Lab, System Sacom, XTALSOFT, and HummingBirdSoft. Founded July 14, 1986, Square took the lead of this promising alliance to produce games on the Famicom Disk System. Because Square headed DOG, all DOG titles were published under the name Square. In reality, however, Square only produced a few of the eleven games published under the DOG label. In general, the games were commercial failures, leading to Square's brush with bankruptcy and the creation of Final Fantasy.

Squaresoft is a brand name used by Square between 1992 and 2003. As such, the name is often used (incorrectly) to refer to the entire organization, but its corporate name remained Square Co., Ltd. until the Enix merger.

Square Soft, Inc. was established as the official North American subsidiary of Square in March 1989. It was responsible for both the production and distribution of North American localizations of Square titles during the 16-bit era, and continued to produce English language localizations of Square games in the 32-bit era. It has also been responsible for localizing a number of non-Square titles, including Capcom's Breath of Fire for the SNES and Sony's Wild ARMs 3 for the PlayStation 2. It developed the game Secret of Evermore for the SNES. It is currently known as Square Enix, Inc. Square Soft's original headquarters were in Redmond, WA, where it distributed its now-dead newsletter, the Ogopogo Examiner, but it was relocated to Costa Mesa, CA in August 1996, where it remained until late 2005; as of 2006, Square Enix, Inc. is now located in El Segundo, California.

Square L.A., Inc. was established in August 1995. It was subsequently renamed Square USA, Inc.. It operates as a high-end computer-generated imagery research and development studio, and has been integral in the production of graphics for Square-produced games since the beginning of the 32-bit era. Its headquarters are in Los Angeles, CA and Honolulu, HI. Like its sister company, Square Soft, Inc., Square USA is a wholly owned subsidiary of Square Co., Ltd.

Square Electronic Arts, L.L.C. was a joint venture between Square and Electronic Arts (EA) established in May 1998 to distribute Square-produced game titles in North America. Its counterpart was Electronic Arts Square, K.K., in Japan, which was established to distribute EA games in Asia. Both companies were folded at the end of March 2003 as a result of the merger of Square and Enix.

Square Europe, Ltd. was established in December 1998 to localize and market Square-developed games in Europe and Australia. Located in London, England, Square Europe was granted exclusive publishing rights in Europe and other PAL territories for all interactive entertainment titles developed by Square.

DigiCube Co, Ltd. was established in February 1996. It was formed to market and distribute games and related merchandising (toys, books, music, etc.) in Asia. It declared bankruptcy in October 2003.

Square Pictures, Inc. was established in November 1997 to develop and produce computer-generated imagery films based on Square properties. It was folded in 2003, following the box-office failure of its only feature-length production, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. However, it did survive just long enough to create the CGI short-film, Final Flight of the Osiris for The Matrix spin-off DVD, Animatrix.

Quest was an independent software development studio established in July 1988, best known for the Ogre Battle series. Several team members, including Yasumi Matsuno, Hiroshi Minagawa and Akihiko Yoshida, left Quest in 1997 to join Square, where they worked on several titles for the Sony PlayStation, including Final Fantasy Tactics and Vagrant Story. In June 2002, Quest was purchased by Square.

Square Visual Works Co., Ltd. (CG Studio), Square Sounds Co., Ltd. (Sound Studio), Squartz Co., Ltd. (Quality Assurance) and Square Next Co., Ltd. were all founded in June 1999. All were subsequently absorbed into Square Co., Ltd. in 2001 and 2002.