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Forum - View topicNEWS: Square Enix President Youichi Wada to Step Down
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wohdin
Posts: 352 |
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It now expects an "extraordinary loss" of 13 billion yen (about US$140 million), mainly due to slow console sales in the West and "sluggish" arcade machine sales.
Now, see, we all know this is a bunch of bull, because this "extraordinary loss" can be attributed to the one real problem here - the fact that there hasn't been a good Final Fantasy game released in about 5 years. Well, that, and the lack of Bravely Default in the West. Which I'm sure could have almost single-handedly pulled them out of their slump, since basically the entire planet has been begging them for it since day0. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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Square Enix, the victims of their own demise. I can't feel sorry for a company that spits out trash like FFXIII.
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TitanXL
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Do you actually believe this or are you being fictitious? I really hope it's the later and you don't honestly think it would make that amount of money in America. That's almost as absurd as people back in the day saying Mother 3 would sell in America. Now, work with me here a bit, but I'm willing to say the reason for this is... exactly what they said. Crazy thought, I know, but let's roll with it for a second. Sluggish arcade sales are definitely a thing, and that's probably primarily why they're pushing Gyrozetter and other arcade game so much by giving them an anime. They saw how much of a success it was for Level-5 with their Inazuma 11 and Danball Senki franchises. Hell, a lot of companies took notice of that and have since tried aping it. For example, I have little doubt in my mind Yu-Gi-Oh!'s new direction with Zexal was done so to emulate it as well, and it clearly paid off for them given it's resurgence. Square's push for their arcade franchises makes sense in an over-saturated market and they need to stand out. I have no idea if it worked since I have no access to arcade market info, but I would hope it did since Gyrozetter seems to have gotten pretty popular. Slow console sales in the west? Probably, the west isn't that into JRPGs outside a few key franchises, namely Final Fantasy and Pocket Monsters. XIII sold well for them, but their other stuff, not so much. Dragon Quest still isn't anywhere near as big in America as it is in Japan, and that's another. I'm not sure if they include western games they publish in the west count towards this or not or if it's strictly the Japanese-side of things, but if they do I know Sleeping Dogs was kind of a bust for them and that probably hurt. I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy, but it's not really a secret the two reasons they listed are probably the biggest factors and not "they didn't release this game a few people wanted". |
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Panon
Posts: 242 |
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He also thinks Final Fantasy XIII is to blame, a game which has sold nearly ten million copies - so reality isn't factoring much into his logic. |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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^
ET sold heaps of copies yet it still - according to legend at any rate - almost single-handedly caused the video game crash of '83. Just because something sells a ton of copies doesn't mean it's made a profit. Now, I believe that Final Fantasy XIII did in fact make a profit, but that wasn't my original point. What I said was that I couldn't feel sympathy for a company who made such a crap game, commercially successful or not. |
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Polycell
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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^
If you believe the urban legend the unsold copies were buried in a landfill in the desert. That's really desperation stuff right there. |
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halochief_90
 Posts: 466 Location: Canada |
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Square also released lot of Eidos property's within this fiscal year including Hitman Absolution and Tomb Raider (the latter of which is apparently very successful). My guess is their big loss came from Dragon Quest X.
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Polycell
Posts: 4623 |
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Atari definitely buried something in a landfill(to the point of pissing off the local government), but whether or not any of it was ET cartridges doesn't change the fact that they produced millions more than they sold. That said, this was partly because of poor management in general(how else can you manage to spend over $100 million on a game developed in five weeks by one man?), so ET was more of the epitome than an unholy god of ruin unleashed on a previously healthy company.
More on-topic, adjusted for debasement, Squenix's total loss is smaller than than Atari's from that one game, so they still have a decent chance to recover, though now I want to know how much FFXIII cost them. |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Lara Croft shall save them!
... That's actually kind of sad that their bought American company probably just blew them out of the water this year in terms of a successful video game, and a movie is already in the works. No idea how much of a profit they get as a distributor for the game, but hopefully this will force them to back away from their endless ports and phone games, and actually go back to their roots perhaps? Nahh... I'm just in nostalgia land for them I guess. |
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Utsuro no Hako
Posts: 1052 |
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As a non-gamer my main concern is what would happen to their publishing arm if the main company went under. They have a few big hits -- Inu x Boku SS, Soul Eater, WataMote, Working -- but their titles don't show up on the bestseller list with the frequency of other publishers.
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yuna49
 Posts: 3804 |
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We have a variety of other SE games on our shelves besides Final Fantasy installments like Kingdom Hearts, Chrono Trigger/Cross, and Parasite Eve. Where are the equivalents of games like those in 2013? I own a copy of DQ VIII. It repeatedly failed to hold my attention.
We spend much of our time replaying PS2 games because the releases for the PS3 have been so mediocre overall. The best RPGs for that platform seem to be coming from Bioware these days. Maybe SE should think about why that is. I still think losing Sakaguchi cost SE a lot. Apparently there must be some bad blood between him and Sony as well seeing as how he has never made another game for the PS series of consoles after leaving Square. Either that or perhaps a contractual limitation as part of his termination agreement. Arguing that a slowdown in console sales is the reason for the decline in revenues means that SE doesn't have a model for success in a saturated market. Game manufacturers rode the wave of new console releases to push sales, but I don't see that happening as much with whatever the next generation may bring. There are too many competitors now to console gaming, particularly phones and tablets, with games targeting more casual players. In a mature market, content is king. Too bad SE isn't doing so well in that department these days. Does anyone know how well the sequel to FF XIII has fared, and how it compares to FF X-2? |
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RoverTX
 Posts: 424 |
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Don't forget FFXIV was scrapped and FFXI had been a big money maker for them, and I bet they where counting on that also. Now considering that they basically started over from scratch I am sure that big loss didn't help much either.
I know FFXIII sold well but I wonder how the subsequent games in the title did in comparison, if its a sharp drop then you know they are scared. |
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Donpablo
 Posts: 117 |
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What gets me the most is that the Western market is once again being thrown under the bus. When games like Sleeping dogs and Tomb Raider which have sold over a million copies is considered a failure I think something is really broken with SE's business model.
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VPedge
Posts: 69 |
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Just lol @RoverTX I think SE themselves even said 14's rebuild was costing them alot of time and money |
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