Disney says that Kingdom Hearts is now a ‘billion dollar franchise’

In an investor-focused article on the Walt Disney Company website, the entertainment giant revealed an achievement that caught me off-guard: Kingdom Hearts, the mesmerizingly strange Final Fantasy x Disney crossover series, numbers among the company’s “billion-dollar franchises.”

The article, “How Games Are Helping Shape Disney’s Next Chapter,” looks to be a combination victory lap/game plan meant to be read by the market-minded individual. It’s shareholder chic, touting the company’s numerous sales-related achievements in the gaming space, such as its increasingly close relationship with Epic Games and the Fortnite Creative platform, or Marvel Rivals’ success among Gen Z. Also, the Kingdom Hearts thing.

Disney executive vice president of games and digital entertainment Sean Shoptaw explained that the company boasts “nine games that have grossed over $1 billion at retail.” Among that nine: Mobile game Marvel Strike Force, and Kingdom Hearts.

I truly do not know what to say about this development or its wider implications for Spaceship Earth. The Kingdom Hearts phenomenon passed me by, even though I am in a maximum risk demographic for being a Kingdom Hearts fan (late millennial, owned a PS2). I’ve always assumed it’s the sort of thing you can’t be initiated into past a certain age. It’s like an elf I just can’t see because the magic of childhood has left my soul.

Kingdom Hearts is still popular, though, and weirdly cross-generational. Its release chronology has it firmly being “a millennial thing,” but it also feels like “a zoomer thing” as well, judging by the frenzied reactions whenever that big-shoed Sora reappears.

And it makes sense that it has accumulated $1 billion after 15 mainline games—a solid chunk of which are repackaged collections of past games—over a quarter century. To the big mouse, that’s small potatoes (the new Spider-Man movie alone will clear over a billion before its theater run is done). Congratulations to the Walt Disney Company, Square Enix, and their respective shareholders.

We finally got another trailer for Kingdom Hearts 4 in June, four years, two ages of man, and one geological epoch after its initial 2022 reveal. Perhaps the next billion in Donald Duck keyblade revenue is nearer at hand than any of us suspect?