和田洋一
Enix's competitor Square also suffered financially in 2001, mainly from the box office failure of its feature film "". This made Enix hesitant to join with the company. However, it was announced on November 26, 2002, that the two companies would merge the following year in order to mutually decrease development costs and to compete with foreign developers. The merge was delayed until April 1, 2003, when the new merged entity Square Enix came into being, with Enix as the surviving company. On October 1, 2008, Square Enix (the former Enix Corporation) renamed itself Square Enix Holdings and became a pure holding company. On that same date, a new video game company called Square Enix was created as a subsidiary of Square Enix Holdings. As part of the merger, former Square president Yoichi Wada was appointed the president of the new corporation, while former Enix president Keiji Honda became its vice president.The founder of Enix and the largest shareholder of the newly combined corporation, Yasuhiro Fukushima, was made its honorary chairman.