Square Enix is reporting profits for fiscal 2010 to date are down 76% to a mere $22 million, a change it blames on “more discerning consumers.”
Sales are also down 27.5% to $120 million, with a 58% decrease in operating profit.
Announcing the disastrous figures, Square Enix offered this excuse:
“Consumers have become relentlessly discerning, and the gap between titles which sell and those which don’t is widening. We’ll recover by investing in quality products which will appeal to consumers.”
Needless to say, its stock price is now at the lowest ever in the company’s history.
With a succession of handheld and mobile games all it has scheduled for release, and the poor reception of such “new IP” as NieR and Mindjack, to say nothing of the disaster which is Final Fantasy XIV, it is hard to see any imminent improvement in the company’s financial position.
With the last decade a succession of increasingly dire failures, and that decade also strangely coinciding with the tenure of Yoichi Wada as CEO, it seems increasingly clear only his departure is likely to restore the company to growth.
What they need to do is make a Final Fantasy that isn’t linear (FFX, FFXIII). They need to go along the lines of 7, 8, and 9. Creating a world that’s worth exploring with towns, dungeons and most importantly, more side quests. The only thing that kept me a fan of this series is the music. Another thing that was missing from FFXIII was true stat-maxing. I wonder what it would be like if they combined FF Tactics’ ability set up, FFVIII’s Junction System with FFX’s Sphere Grid. Either way, I will always be loyal to the end, whatever that end may be.
Who cares about the “JOB SYSTEM”
The main fact is this, all other MMO’s don’t charge you for a EXTRA CHARACTER.
I don’t give a s♥♥t, if they can do 1000000 jobs.
The main fact is this INVENTORY SPACE/STACKING/RARITY.
Its a freaking fantasy game for damn sakes.
Grind—–> I’m out of space
I have to go to town to store s♥♥t (BORING)
I have to vend s♥♥t for gold (BORING)
I have to leave guys out of SPACE (BORING)
This is why Warhammer Online is BETTER
—— GOLD IS PRACTICALLY USELESS in this game which makes it fun, all its for is TRAVELING.
This alone makes it a GREAT INNOVATION unlike all other MMO’s.
You earn money by killing players, and you don’t LOSE money or Exp killing players or dying to mobs.
There is no downtime, 20silver… for dying/recovering 10% max hp from weakness.
Lets put it like this.. im sitting at 400gold for the last 2+ Years in Warhammer and I never needed to buy ANYTHING from ANYONE and I’m still having fun playing vs real Opponents.
AI give me a break, if you want to beat AI go play a console game alone. MMO is about testing your wit vs other people solo/team/guild/faction/race.
This GAME LACKS THIS s♥♥t ENTIRELY.
HENCE ITS A SHITTY GAME
No innovation, the players want to FIGHT each other and go to war with eachother, you got 3 Cities and yet… no War? You show videos of a Great war in the skies, yet there is NO WAR IN THE GAME.
BULLSHIT ADS, STUPID GAME.
FF7 remake you bastards!
Here’s a couple of protips for Square-Enix if they want to do better in the future.
For one, they need to stop being a bunch of prickteases and actually produce the enhanced remake of FFVII. It’s been over five years since that E3 “tech demo” that got everyone excited for a graphically-enhanced re-release. FFVII is still their best-selling title to date, so it’d be foolish of them not to go through with the remake.
Second, they need to make better games. The FF series has been IMO going downhill for the past decade. FFXIII was criticized for, among other things, being overly linear and restricting you to one playable character in your three-character party. FFXIV has been an total failure both critically and commercially. Obviously, trying new things isn’t working out for them, so maybe they should go back to the basics. Current-gen graphics are fine and all, but perhaps a return to a more old-school style of exploration and gameplay should be considered for FFXV: world maps, towns, distinct classes for each character, and various other elements more reminiscent of, say, FFIV and FFVI.
If they do these things, maybe, just maybe, they might see things turn around.
Square is too focused on the Final Fantasy series and its androgynous characters.
They should focus on expanding Dragon Quest to the PS3 at least.