Square Enix has been making news again – this time for posting a loss of 5.7 billion yen in its most recent financial statement, having posted a profit of 5 billion yen for the same period last year – the loss now being blamed on intense competition in the Japanese video game market and the fact that for some inexplicable reason foreigners refuse to buy its fine titles.
Despite the discouraging loss, April-December sales were up 7% to 102 billion yen, in no small part thanks to moderate sales from the likes of Hong Kong-based GTA clone Sleeping Dogs (1.5 million) and newly streamlined Hitman: Absolution.
However, their sales were not enough to cover development and marketing expenses, resulting in an operating loss of 4.8 billion yen, down from a profit of 11.2 billion on the same period a year earlier.
Commenting on the 42% drop in profits, CFO Yousuke Matsuda says “the hurdle to achieving our projections is very high.”
Despite all this, the company’s share price actually rose quite handily – though admittedly from its lowest point ever:
Japanese gamers are as supportive of ever of this national champion:
“Keep trying with those social games! w”
“What happened to all the social games they were supposed to be so great at?”
“Glad I didn’t buy Sleeping Dogs after all.”
“Don’t worry, there is always FF14!”
“I like the manga they publish so I hope they don’t go bankrupt.”
“Blame it on Sony for messing up on the hardware side.”
“They still have an ace up their sleeve in the form of a FF7 remake.”
“Square Enix is the very picture of hell now – remake, social, remake, social…”
“What do they expect after treating their creators as disposable contract employees?”
“Looks like all they have left is tricking children into buying items in their social games.”
“This is why everyone is telling them to remake FF7.”
“FF7 has too many towns to be remade!”
“When are they going to remake this damn game already…”
“The popularity of both FF and DQ is waning… it really seems this company is in denial over that.”
“When their backs are against the wall, they’ll still be able to remake Romancing SaGa 2!”
“Remakes are a total waste of time and money.”
“Have they even made a post-2000 hit? They just rely on their old titles, and don’t even seem interested in trying to make new games.”
“They dumped their core creators, I can’t understand that. You can’t expect to outsource your core team like that.”
“What do you expect, Wada is just some financier who doesn’t understand a company’s knowledge comes from its people, not the company itself. Now they just drive out their veterans as being too old. Management ruined their social venture, and their publishing arm has no future now FMA has finished. All they have left now is DQ – expect them to remake it into the ground.”
“They constantly fawned over the overseas market whilst neglecting their Japanese core market – and this is the result!”
“Bamco makes for quite a contrast. Square are just industry losers now.”
“Bamco is still actually making games, after all. They do make social games, but they are still making proper games as well. Same with Capcom.”
“Expect them to end up being taken over by Bandai at some point.”
“Square Enix Bandai Namco…”
“Would the Japanese game industry have died already without social gaming to keep it afloat?”
“More like, they would have never fallen this far without social gaming.”
“I cannot comprehend why this company, with all the dreadful content and gameplay mistakes it rolled into FF13, is insisting on sticking to it all the way to a third game now.”
“Simple, they invested so much into it they have to keep trying to reuse it all so they can recover their investment.”
“I hope they crash and burn along with Gree!”
“If they can just keep this up for a few years they may finally be able to get rid of Wada…”
Don’t fret my friends. We have Final Fantasy Versus XIII and Kingdom Hearts 3 on the way. It seems like only Tetsuya Nomura is putting in work.
This must be a part of their ingenious plan to loose so much money that the fabric of space time is warped and they become rich.
Lol Squartle Penix pls, stop to maked more garbage FFs inspired in the shitt FF13, go back to the good rpgs like chrono, DQ, Valkyrie, and left die that mtf visual “mmo” called FF13.
Dear Square Enix:
If you want to sell games in the west, you have to SELL GAMES IN THE WEST.
We’re still waiting on Type-0 (which will never happen) and Bravely Default (which will probably never happen).
Yet, we’re guaranfuckingteed to get yet another FFXIII sequel over here.
I’m seriously done with you. So many other companies are putting out worthwhile games that don’t serve only to deepen my disappointment. Thanks for the memories, but that’s all you’re good for anymore.
Here’s a hint square, instead of showing us games we want, and then pushing them to the back for games like fucking FINAL FANTASY XIII LIGHTING ARC, give us the one’s we want like FF VERSUS XIII and KINGDOM HEARTS FUCKING III!!!