On the Cusp of Kingdom Hearts 4 Blowout, Disney Says Series Is a Billion-Dollar Brand 1

It’s pretty much expected that Kingdom Hearts 4 will feature heavily at this weekend’s bi-annual D23 convention.

Disney will host a livestream of its scheduled Kingdom Hearts panel, which will take place on 15th August from 4:30PM PT.

And now in anticipation of the event, the company’s described the Square Enix action RPG series as a billion-dollar franchise.

In a corporate blog post about the media giant’s games initiative, bigwig Sean Shoptaw said that “nine games have grossed over $1 billion at retail”.

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It’s a bit of a muddled quote because he seems to imply nine individual games have surpassed $1 billion, which I imagine would be true for titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man.

But the article then goes on to list Kingdom Hearts as a billion-dollar franchise, which I suspect is also true given the series has been hugely successful since its introduction in 2002.

Either way, I consider the upcoming livestream and the reference to the franchise here to be pertinent. It’s clear both Disney and Square Enix are beginning to prepare Kingdom Hearts 4 for release.

After the game was re-revealed earlier this summer, I suspect we’re going to see even more of the title this weekend – potentially with some actual Disney announcements this time, including worlds and character inclusions.

This is going to be exciting, folks.

[source thewaltdisneycompany.com]