Square Enix, the Japanese videogame maker, wants to fight fire with fire, as it announced its intentions to buy stakes in external developers. The company’s president, Yoichi Wada, explained that as competition grows both in Japan and worldwide, they need to go beyond the traditional Square Enix, Reuters quoted him as saying.

The Final Fantasy publisher is working on boosting sales overseas, as Wada explained, adding that there is no fix budget for investing in other companies, and that the management is allowed to issue 290 million additional shares (worth approximately $9.20 billion) without requiring approval at a general shareholders’ meeting.

Square Enix was in fact created in 2003 from the merger of two Japanese game makers (Square Co. and Enix). Unfortunately, the combination wasn’t as powerful as expected, and the titles didn’t go very well either, except for Final Fantasy. The problem they are currently dealing with is that they only manage to reach the Japanese market.

The company is trying to reach Europe and North America by forming new partnerships, and as Wada told Reuters, they aim at increasing total game software revenues from the current 50 percent to 80 percent over the next three years. Following the announcement, the shares went up 0.9 percent.

We know the intentions, but there is still no word on whether Square Enix has already started discussing some partnerships, or if they have a list of desired partners at least. But they’d better come up with a valid solution, otherwise the European and North American market will be hard to break.