Square Enix Financial Results Show a Significant Decline in Sales

cageymaru

cageymaru

Fully [H]
Joined
Apr 10, 2003
Messages
21,914
Square Enix Holdings CO., LTD has released its financial results for the six-month period ending September 30, 2018. Titles that the company launched for PC browsers and smart devices failed to generate an income. Income from the MMORPG FFXIV was down compared to last year when the Stormblood expansion launched. Digital comic books offset declines in paper comic book sales. The business strategy for Luminous Productions has been changed to focus on high-quality AAA games. This led to a 3,733 million yen ($33 million USD) write-off. On a positive note, high-margin digital sales are remaining stable even though overall digital sales decreased, and the company says that it wants to capitalize on this by adopting subscription models.

It's not overly clear what has actually changed at Luminous Productions, since the original announcement said the studio would be "development new AAA titles and bringing innovative game and other entertainment content to a global audience". It's likely plans for "other entertainment content" - which we surmised to translate as transmedia products like Final Fantasy XV's full-length prequel movie - have been dropped, instead focusing specifically on games.
 
SE has been going downhill for a while. FFXIV was great at launch but then they took devs away for other projects and it stagnated. They've butchered what FF should be - JRPG - and made them into 3rd person shooter rpg's.
The ff7 they're showing is not the ff7 anyone wants.
The moble remakes like ff6 look like crap.
 
Let's see. What have Square Enix actually had in the last 6 months? They only released 3 new video games:
  1. Life is Strange 2
    Only one episode released so far, and I have yet to see anyone that says they like it. From what I've read it sounds like Social Justice: The Game.
  2. Octopath Traveler
    Square Enix sabotaged this game's release by not printing enough copies to meet the demand initially. Supply wasn't ramped up until 3 months later and now the market is flooded with copies that are not moving. Hype came and went and SE failed to capitalize on it.
  3. Shadow of the Tomb Raider
    Has been getting mediocre reception from gamers. Initial sales reports shows it has sold less than Rise did when it was an Xbox One exclusive. I honestly don't know where the failure here was, as there was a very strong marketing campaign leading up to its release.
travisty said:
SE has been going downhill for a while. FFXIV was great at launch but then they took devs away for other projects and it stagnated. They've butchered what FF should be - JRPG - and made them into 3rd person shooter rpg's.
The ff7 they're showing is not the ff7 anyone wants.
The moble remakes like ff6 look like crap.
Click to expand...
I think they had to rethink the FF7 remake strategy when reactions to what they showed a couple years ago was not at all positive. It looked like they were expecting the transition to the mechanics from FFXV would also capture the financial success of FFXV, but all fans were asking for was a proper graphical upgrade considering the original was being developed on the N64 hardware.

They also messed up here, thinking they could get easy money by simply pushing the mobile phone versions of the FF classics on the PC without any changes and people would buy them up. Hopefully they have learned their lesson from the Chrono Trigger fiasco, but I don't expect them to fix the releases of earlier games like FF6.
 
Last edited:
I liked shadow of the tomb raider, but I liked rise better, it was more open world. Shadow was incredibly linear.
 
I bet they could increase revenue if they properly finished DeusEx: Mankind Divided. They'd probably get some of my money if they did that.
 
Well that what they get for focusing too damn much on their crappy ass mobile games. Octopath lack of physical copies shouldn't of affected sales too much since it was available digitally. FfXIV is crap that just recycles the same formula with every expansion release. There are to long of gaps between major patches and old content becomes pointless. Content is stale and it is currently in it drought cycle of a expansion. Other then some minor quests to finish off this expansion pack don't expect anything major til summer of next year when the next expansion comes out. Then the cycle starts over again for the next 2 years.
 
Armenius said:
Let's see. What have Square Enix actually had in the last 6 months? They only released 3 new video games:
  1. Life is Strange 2
    Only one episode released so far, and I have yet to see anyone that says they like it. From what I've read it sounds like Social Justice: The Game.
  2. Octopath Traveler
    Square Enix sabotaged this game's release by not printing enough copies to meet the demand initially. Supply wasn't ramped up until 3 months later and now the market is flooded with copies that are not moving. Hype came and went and SE failed to capitalize on it.
  3. Shadow of the Tomb Raider
    Has been getting mediocre reception from gamers. Initial sales reports shows it has sold less than Rise did when it was an Xbox One exclusive. I honestly don't know where the failure here was, as there was a very strong marketing campaign leading up to its release.

I think they had to rethink the FF7 remake strategy when reactions to what they showed a couple years ago was not at all positive. It looked like they were expecting the transition to the mechanics from FFXV would also capture the financial success of FFXV, but all fans were asking for was a proper graphical upgrade considering the original was being developed on the N64 hardware.

They also messed up here, thinking they could get easy money by simply pushing the mobile phone versions of the FF classics on the PC without any changes and people would buy them up. Hopefully they have learned their lesson from the Chrono Trigger fiasco, but I don't expect them to fix the releases of earlier games like FF6.
Click to expand...

Dragon Quest XI was in the last 6 months, too. It did fairly well, but primarily in Japan.
 
FFXIV, even with its problems, is still one of the best "classic" style MMORPGs, and one of the few that has no F2P model. I really, really hope this isn't the start of the road to free-to-play for FFXIV.
 
I mean lets be honest, the FF games suck past 10, a lot of the other titles they put out were good like The last Rem., the Bouncer, the first Drakengard, the only thing propping them up have been Eidos Montreal and IO interactive titles, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Deus Ex. I mean they even butchered several remasters of their own previous games and want a fortune for a game that came out 20 years ago, Like Blizzard and several others they just seem to have forgotten they need to earn the customers and the fans that will pay for the products, people have gotten burned by so many studios and publishers dropping 60$ on a broken or terrible game, that many people wait to find out if its any good before they buy and invest, companies are so full of themselves they expect the logo and reputation to sell their games, rather than just selling a good game.
 
viivo said:
FFXIV, even with its problems, is still one of the best "classic" style MMORPGs, and one of the few that has no F2P model. I really, really hope this isn't the start of the road to free-to-play for FFXIV.
Click to expand...
14 sucked when it was released, the only reason it got fixed was due to the public backlash they got from releasing a game in that state. I mean its good now, but man was it a trainwreck.
 
Armenius said:
Let's see. What have Square Enix actually had in the last 6 months? They only released 3 new video games:
  1. Life is Strange 2
    Only one episode released so far, and I have yet to see anyone that says they like it. From what I've read it sounds like Social Justice: The Game.
  2. Octopath Traveler
    Square Enix sabotaged this game's release by not printing enough copies to meet the demand initially. Supply wasn't ramped up until 3 months later and now the market is flooded with copies that are not moving. Hype came and went and SE failed to capitalize on it.
  3. Shadow of the Tomb Raider
    Has been getting mediocre reception from gamers. Initial sales reports shows it has sold less than Rise did when it was an Xbox One exclusive. I honestly don't know where the failure here was, as there was a very strong marketing campaign leading up to its release.

I think they had to rethink the FF7 remake strategy when reactions to what they showed a couple years ago was not at all positive. It looked like they were expecting the transition to the mechanics from FFXV would also capture the financial success of FFXV, but all fans were asking for was a proper graphical upgrade considering the original was being developed on the N64 hardware.

They also messed up here, thinking they could get easy money by simply pushing the mobile phone versions of the FF classics on the PC without any changes and people would buy them up. Hopefully they have learned their lesson from the Chrono Trigger fiasco, but I don't expect them to fix the releases of earlier games like FF6.
Click to expand...
This.

This. 100% this.
All we ever wanted was new art for FF8 and FF7 basically. THE GAME IS RELAXING AS ITS TURN BASED AND THAT'S WHY WE LOVE THEM (as well as nostalgia). Not fucking tomb raider fantasy XYXVXVXVXVXxXX10!!1.
Fuck it grinds my gears when companies do this shit. Just re-do the graphics, fix the few tiny bugs and errors and send it out on it's way. We don't want the type of game changed, that's a big part of the draw. Japs can be stubborn fucks sometimes when people want to give them money. I'd gladly pay 50 USD for FF7 or FF8 re-done graphically. I'd get the money worth out of it, hell I'm currently re-playing FF8 for the millionth time now on a damn console.
I don't expect Crysis graphics remake. Or even very good motion etc. Just re-do the graphics for modern resolutions and systems and release it.
Guranfuckingteed huge sales. Everyone I know who loves those games agrees this is how it should be done! Why doesn't Sony understand this?

headmaster cid ff8 back the way they were.jpg
 
Square is a master of good ideas and bad decisions that tend ruin those good ideas. Maybe they lack of good leadership that holds things in check?
 
Doesn't Square outsource a lot of its development? Would account for why their ideas always seem much better than their execution.

That being said, I completely enjoyed FFXV.
 
N4CR said:
This.

This. 100% this.
All we ever wanted was new art for FF8 and FF7 basically. THE GAME IS RELAXING AS ITS TURN BASED AND THAT'S WHY WE LOVE THEM (as well as nostalgia). Not fucking tomb raider fantasy XYXVXVXVXVXxXX10!!1.
Fuck it grinds my gears when companies do this shit. Just re-do the graphics, fix the few tiny bugs and errors and send it out on it's way. We don't want the type of game changed, that's a big part of the draw. Japs can be stubborn fucks sometimes when people want to give them money. I'd gladly pay 50 USD for FF7 or FF8 re-done graphically. I'd get the money worth out of it, hell I'm currently re-playing FF8 for the millionth time now on a damn console.
I don't expect Crysis graphics remake. Or even very good motion etc. Just re-do the graphics for modern resolutions and systems and release it.
Guranfuckingteed huge sales. Everyone I know who loves those games agrees this is how it should be done! Why doesn't Sony understand this?

View attachment 118308
Click to expand...

You're talking about updating art assets in a game hat MIGHT have had a max resolution of 480p. And dropping in 4k updated art assets. The entire engine needs to be updated as well to be 64 bit, have better memory management, not run like greased lightening (too fast on modern systems) and still be fun to play and handle being in a memory system similar to windows 10 or even ps4.

That isn't just dropping in new art and fixing a few bugs. It's re writing the entire damn engine.
 
Grimlaking said:
You're talking about updating art assets in a game hat MIGHT have had a max resolution of 480p. And dropping in 4k updated art assets. The entire engine needs to be updated as well to be 64 bit, have better memory management, not run like greased lightening (too fast on modern systems) and still be fun to play and handle being in a memory system similar to windows 10 or even ps4.

That isn't just dropping in new art and fixing a few bugs. It's re writing the entire damn engine.
Click to expand...

Sure, but the base content, the inspiration, the dialogue is all there, which is the hardest and most time consuming part of designing something usually.
They have everything they need to base it off. Now it's a game engine for a 2d/sprite game mostly with small amounts of 3d.
If Abes Oddysee can be remade by a small team of a few people in Unreal engine in similar fashion (check out New N' Tasty, best game remake I've seen in a long time), I don't see why Square Enix of all companies cannot do this.
 
They need to push Dragon Quest XI more in the US and elsewhere.

That was one of the best games I've played since FF VII came out and that's about as high a compliment as I can pay it.

It's insanely fun and insanely long and every second of it it high quality. You can play 120 hours+ of fully animated and voice acted quests.

On the flip side, they should finish their DLSS and ray trace work on FF XV and retweak the combat system.
 
I feel like I have done my part.

I just looked through their comprehensive list of titles since being formed in 2003. The only ones I have any interest in at all were the Deus Ex prequels, and I bought those at full price. That series is on my "must buy" list.

Everything else is either fantasy nonsense, or call of duty, neither of which I find particularly stimulating.

I never bought Deus Ex: The Fall. The mobile inspired design turned me off. Maybe it is worth it though?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top