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 On 03/27/2013 at 06:56 PM by GamerGirlBritt See More From This User » |
Well the CEO of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada, stepped down. Oh oh, what am I saying? Excuse me, he actually got demoted. To what exactly, well, no one knows yet. But we do know he's being replaced by Yousuke Matsuda, the company’s Representative Director. Now what caused this all of a sudden? Basically this fiscal year was a little...uh...*cough* underwhelming for the company. The long and short of it? They lost a whole lot of money. Like, a shit ton. Seriously, a huge shit ton of money. Geez, I wonder why...
Wait...so you mean, no one actually wanted me to return?.....awkward.
Nah, I'm kidding (kinda).The big fuck ups were actually Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs. Not that they weren't good games, they just ended up selling more poorly than projected, selling 3.6 million copies since release. But on the bright side, Tomb Raider is expected to be at 3.4 million copies sold by the end of this month, and it only came out earlier this month. DLC will help to ease some of the financial burden, but truthfully their figures are pretty weak.
The most disappointing part about this (to me anyway) is that the weak sales are particularly attributed to North America, causing Square Enix to agree to cover the cost to retailers whenever they have to lower prices earlier in order to move product. Sheesh, and people wonder why North America never gets the good stuff. I guess the biggest problem is when AAA western-market games fail to sell enough copies at a high enough price. I mean, just ask THQ.
Meanwhile, their flagship series Final Fantasy isn't doing too much better (obviously). The entire Final Fantasy XIII franchise had some bipolar sales, and Final Fantasy XIV is just a fucking corporate embarassment. No way around it. And here's where major cash grabs like Final Fantasy X/X-2 HD come in. But that's the better (and more effective) of the cash grabbing schemes. The worst of them? Final Fantasy: All The Bravest (seriously). So if things start getting worse before they get better, maybe that Final Fantasy VII remake won't be so far off after all...
...or maybe we're just all fucking kidding ourselves.
I'd be more excited about Lightning Returns if it was a stand alone title. However, I feel like I'll have to get the other "13" FF games to understand it fully. That sort of sours it for me.
My favorite "rpg series" was Digital Devil saga. They put the whole story they needed to tell into only two games.
I lost faith in square a long time ago. They have been on a downward spiral for a long time. Aside from a FFVII remake, maybe they should look at what made FFVII such a success in the first place and try it again. That or they could beg Hironobu Sakaguchi to come back.
Final Fantasy has lost that wow factor that made it such an awesome game, the storys are always real good and somewhere along the way its been more about graphics then story, and personaly I would rather have the story, final fantasy 13 would have had a good story but they kept switching between characters so much I lost interest, but I must admit I do have a thing for 13 and 13.2.
I actually liked FF13 series and the FF14 MMO. It may be hard to believe that someone enjoyed these two umm disasters, but I did. I undersand the problems people had with them, but there was still something interesting and unique about each game, even FF 13-2. I'm actually looking forward to Lightning Returns. It seems to have an interesting game mechanic with a countdown clock and Valkyrie Profile style combat. Not releasing Type-0 is my main issue with Square right now.
FF13 never kept my interest, I wasnt fond of lightening really and the battle mechanics just wasnt my type of thing. My old time fave FF game is nine. I loved the story and characters, it to me was a very memorable game. I have always wanted them to do remakes for 7-9 but Im doubting it and kind of given up on it now. Were already coming up on the PS4 and there still not here. All I got to say is Final Fantasy 13 Versus better be the baddest thing to be released by them because if not thats prolly what will sink them for good, the game has been in development for atleast 7 years. To fuck something like that up, would be really bad...
FFIX was a true masterpiece and sadly so underrated. I think its glory got drowned out by all the hype over the PS2 and The Bouncer. I consider it to be the last REAL Final Fantasy. I just hate FFX and although XII was pretty good it just did not feel like final fantasy to me. Admittedly I kind of actually liked 13 &13-2, but once again they don't feel like Final Fantasy to me. Squenix needs to go back to the roots of the series if they want to save it.
They suck at final fantasy games, but they still publush some great games like Just Cause, Deus Ex, etc. and it would be a shame to lose them.
I'm not surprised Sleeping Dogs didn't do well, considering how little I've heard of it. You're right about why North America doesn't get certain releases though, internet hype does not always profits make.
What is All the Bravest, that another movie thing like they released in the FFVII universe?
The problem isn't that SE is releasing bad games. The problem is that their expectations are too high for the current market. Sleeping Dogs sold well for a new IP that was salvaged from the ashes of what was by all reports a lackluster game in True Crime: Hong Kong. Hitman Absolution did well for a series that hadn't had a true current gen game, considering that Blood Money was originally developed for the PS2 and Xbox.
Really, a big part of their financial woes stems from XIV. That was such a monumental failure that it probably would have put the company out of business if if wasn't for the steady income from XI and the Eidos games. Once the game ended its free trial period it only had 10,000 subscribers. That's only about 150,000 a month coming into the company when the game was probably on track to have about 300,000+ subscribers had it been a quality title. So it leaves games like Tomb Raider to pick up the slack. I'm sorry if they think 3.4 million units sold (not counting Steam) in two weeks is a failure, but that's a slam dunk in the eyes of any sane business person.
I just hope this grand restructuring doesn't mean an end to the Final Fantasy franchise. Considering how much they cost to make, how long they take to make, and the lower returns, it's a possibility.
I really hope they come back strong. Square shaped the way I feel about games since I bought a PS1 long ago. Can't believe they lost so many yen. FF X was the last one I truly enjoyed from the series. But I remain hopeful for the future.
I have to doubt that Sleeping Dogs and Hitman: Absolution account for their 100 million+ loss. It must be thw expensive development on FFXIV and Dragon Quest X, the latter of which I doubt was successful enough to see a profit (at least, not yet). It just seems like Square was trying to brush their own development problems under the rug and blame it on the US studios.
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