Forum - View topicNEWS: Square Enix Reports Loss in April-September 2012
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Fletcher1991
 Posts: 514 Location: Long Island, NY |
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They need to stop dicking around and release FF Versus 13 and then finally Kingdom Hearts 3, otherwise their pain and suffering shall be eternal.
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14889 |
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A lot of J-companies are in trouble. Suzuki is exiting the American car market. It's pretty much the end of Sharp as its stock was reduced to junk status. This doesn't bode well for J-game makers to develop more games to consoles when even one of its bigger developers is losing money out of it.
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tuxedocat
 Posts: 2183 |
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Console gaming just doesn't seem to be doing well overall.
My local brick-and-mortars tell me they sell plenty of handheld gaming systems and the games that go with them, but no one wants to buy console games. Money that once went to consoles are now going to tablet computers. Game companies need to follow the money and develop games for 3DS and tablets. |
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mewpudding101
Industry Insider
 Posts: 2210 Location: Tokyo, Japan |
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Hm, maybe they should stop milking the dry FF13 cow. It never had any milk anyway.
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enurtsol
Posts: 14889 |
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In Japan, yep. But worldwide 2011-2012, Xbox 360 consoles and games are the top sellers. Albeit traditional gaming as a whole isn't as high as it used to be because..........
.................. Smartphones and tablets are becoming the go-to gaming platforms, particularly relative to handheld consoles, when both iOS and Android portable game software revenues have surged past even Nintendo's, the king of handhelds. So it seems becoming people play games on smartphones and tablets on the go, while using Xbox 360 and PS3s on their large screens at home. And while smartphones and tablets would become more powerful to play more robust games, next gen consoles may feature higher processing powers but there's legitimate concern that consoles are hitting the point of diminishing returns. |
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fsunole90
Posts: 21 |
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Square was waiting on Disney to buy star wars, now they have the rights to a lightsaber keyblade. We will see kh3 soon! |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2482 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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It's not like Square Enix doesn't know this. They've put lots of resources into their Downloadable Games division, which has released ports like Final Fantasy Tactics and The World Ends With You, along with new properties like Chaos Rings and 774 Deaths. The big question is whether they can make it on $10-$15 prices for these games (which still get decried as "rip offs" when so many iPhone games are 99c), versus the $50-60 they charge for console games. Granted, the 70% cut they get from Apple may well be better than they do at retail, but still, if iPad gamers are going to save them, it isn't happening yet (EDIT: well, given that the article says the mobile group reported good results, let's say it's not yet enough to offset the losses elsewhere). |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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Yeah, it's almost like there hasn't been a new generation of consoles in half a decade. I'm more interested in how their manga lines are doing since the various Gangan magazines publish some of my favorite series (Working!!, It's Not My Fault I'm Not Popular, Saki, Inu x Boku SS, Kimi to Boku) and have provided some of the best anime of recent years. |
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BlaqNumbr9
 Posts: 155 Location: Bowing before the Master... |
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Maybe its time for that FF VII remake.
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Ambimunch
 Posts: 2012 |
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Serves them right...unless they start releasing quality ff games (that are not 13), KH3 and versus....well they will keep losing sales
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Levitz9
 Posts: 1022 Location: Puerto Rico |
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Square Enix is suffering the consequences of their poor decisions when it came to building their Final Fantasy brand. Between X and XII, we were loaded with too many spin-offs which didn't do much to endear gamers to FF (Tactics Advance, Crystal Chronicles, and FFXI were great games, but did they need to be Final Fantasy titles?). XII was divisive to gamers, and SE didn't help matters when they made the interactive film that is FFXIII. Now that Sakaguchi, who has always been the creative drive behind FF, has left SE, they're scrambling to find what "magic" that FF had.
It's a crying shame, because all griping aside, SE had a lot of good ideas on their hands. They just poorly handled them. I don't think I'd blame Tetsuya Nomura for this, though. His character designs have become hackneyed, but when his ideas work, they work (see: The World Ends with You). |
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faintsmile1992
 Posts: 295 Location: England |
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As console technology gets more and more advanced, not only are consoles and software getting more expensive but it gets less and less economical to produce the games in the first place. I don't know how many 16-bit era games could be churned out at the cost of making one FF13, but I'm sure its a lot. (This is an important factor in the rise of the non-games and mini-games plagueing the shelves, whilst so-called 'hardcore' titles are prety much reduced to less and less franchises spewing endless remakes, spin-offs and sequals.)
Japanese games with stylised visuals don't need HD graphics which exist only for alleged 'realism' (SAS fantasies in a zillion trillion shades of brown and grey), investing in that as a future was a dead end. As for download distribution, it sucks for licenced content - everyone's system goes down sometimes and what if your game's no longer licenced in your country? (Hint: download 7zip and use Google in the first place.) On another note: I don't fancy a Wii U. This console generation I'm buying a Japanese Saturn instead, to play all the import-only games I missed out on the first time when I was like five or something lol. |
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yurihellsing
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You still referring to that F grade comedian for insults to a genre that you don't like? |
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faintsmile1992
Posts: 295 Location: England |
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Its not so much that I dislike the games but that I hate the fact I have to import everything, not to mention the attitude of their fans, not only to one another when they're online but when they laugh at people who play Japanese games that haven't got 'death and killing in them'.
I've even been told No More Heroes (uncensored version) is a kids game FFS, because the blood doesn't look real enough. And this desire for more realism is outright laughable, when you know their favoured gameplay is set in a virtual universe where soldiers are powered just by walking over items conveniently left round the battlefield just for them, by the enemy of all people. The stab is not at the games but their fanbase, and what they really mean by 'realism'. Besides I've got nothing against violence in the media but when people actually tell you they're only interested in violence that's realistic and makes them 'feel there', and that they don't like games that don't feel like they're killing real people, Jack Thomson starts to make a bit more sense cause these people are just a bit creepy. But none of these people have the balls to be a killer or something, if they had they'd have tried joining the army for real or something, or joined a gang to play with real guns. People don't need Jimmy Carr to notice what British gaming culture is like, and why it drives people away - the way it it screams 'gamma male' and alienates everyone else. And the day I'll stop whining about that is the day they stop complaining about younger gamers as their favourite scapegoat, when the problem is an aging fanbase of childish adults (the average age of a UK gamer is now around 40 but behave like children when they lose - is the problem with XBox live really the kids? Really? What they need is more younger gamers, and to give gaming a cool image again - hot lads, not middle aged men without a girlfriend). And if you think this is my harsh judgement, remember this - not only Square Enix is bedevilled by less and less people buying nothing but ever more expensive games from less and less franchises, this fact affects the Western industry far more than it does the Japanese... The law of diminishing returns sets in at some point. Go to a western games retailer and ignore the mini game/non-game crap... what else fills the shelves? Who buys it? Who's been killing Western gaming by their purchasing power? |
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yurihellsing
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Sorry but something tells me you have no clue as to what the state of play is in the UK there's a reason why we don't get all those Jrpgs it's cause they're not even that good and when it comes to fantasy games we got WarHammer 40K. Something also tells me you spend too much time complaining so you end up missing such things. Go here look up the mailbox videos there may be a better answer to your question(s) http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut?feature=g-user-lik |
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