Square Enix limps through fiscal '07

Gamespot reports:
"Final Fantasy publisher sees revenue fall 9.8 percent to $1.4 billion, profit sinks 20.9 percent to $89 million."

"Square Enix was hit hardest in overseas markets, where sales had slipped 45.7 percent in North America, 41.1 percent in Asia, and 35.3 percent in Europe during the year. That's in sharp opposition to Wada's professed desire to expand its overseas presence to account for 80 percent of the company's sales. As part of this end, Square Enix said last year that it was actively looking for US publishing partners."

More after the link.

[Condoleezza Rice]

Release it,and ye profits will climb

[shazam]

they didnt even release any games. or any real games.

[tplarkin7]

If Square would have released it for 360, it would have sold millions. Instead, they are going to sink on Sony's ship.

[SaiyanFury]

Are you serious? Most of the serious Final Fantasy fans grew up on the SNES and original PlayStation consoles. I assume that most JRPG fans who are my age (mid to late 20s) also own a PS3 in anticipation of FF13 and other Japanese RPGs. If Square released it on Xbox 360 it has the real possibility of tanking hard in Japan as the 360 has seen virtually negligible sales over there since it's launch. Don't get me wrong, the 360 is a very capable system, but the Japanese love their own brands. Nintendo and Sony of course. A true sequel on a non-Japanese console is unheard of in this day and age, not to speak of history as well.

[Palodios]

Looking at their lineup, its no wonder. Remakes, re-releases, handheld games, and side-story games (FF:CC/ DQ:Swords/FF7:CC) not to mention upkeeping FF11, despite that its going nowhere, and its not very popular among FF fans. They've yet to release any next-gen rpgs, unless you count DQS, they're wasting tons of great licenses( Chrono obviously, and Ogre Battle) and the art style for most of their games has become very childish/anime-aphile, alienating western audiences.

They definitely need a new strategy if they want to stay relevent for anything other than numbered FF's.

[Mr_President_]

Its kinda hard to make money when you don't release any console games. WTF has Square been doing for the past 2 years?

[Boldy]

Infinite Undiscovery

[JVIDICAN]

since when did square work on blue dragon and lost odessy?
your thinking of mistwalkers

[Skerj]

Those were Mistwalker.

[Snukadaman]

only infinite undiscovery is a square game...you deleted the wrong ones...and thats not even released yet.

[ricoloco]

two of the games you mentioned are not even square-enix games and the 3rd one won't be released until sept. so back to the original question what are they doing the past two years?

[g3nkie]

lmao.....kinda funny

[Whoooop]

:)

[crck]

Yes, the DS is cheap to make games for but there are also alot people that want graphics better then a N64. Quit trying to cash in on cheap old technology or get left behind.

[Mr_Kuwabara]

They did Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy 1 and 2 yet again remade but for the PSP along with the original Tactics and Tactics 2 for the DS. Final Fantasy XII sequel or whatever it was for the DS also but sadly, nothing for the consoles.

[JVIDICAN]

they really didnt have a BIG seller in 2007 so its to be expected

[Skerj]

Stop remaking the first 6 FF's already and start doing some proper releases.

[Fishy Fingers]

Just show me some Versus footage, I'll even chuck you a few quid.

[iamtehpwn]

I would donate my own personal money if it helped speed the development of Versus up.

[Kain81]

of Final Fantasy VII for PS3, they profit would increase extrem fast^^

[codylz28]

If I remember correctly, SE said FFVII would be remade if certain requirements were met. Maybe this profit loss is one of the requirements. I'm 100% sure that would be a big boost to their profits in U.S. Europe, and elsewhere.

[Marceles]

The certain requirement was for the same exact cast that worked on the original to be part of the remake project...doesn't look like Sakaguchi is budging anytime soon :(

[Rockxy]

maybe if they stop making stupid wuss characters in every game I'll buy something.

[Fishy Fingers]

You like your men RUGGED huh?

[codylz28]

Titus in X was good but at times he did annoy me. Vaan in XII honestly didn't appeal to me that well. He just seemed to be a side-kick guy. I thought either Balthiere or Ashe would have made for a better lead. XIII and versus have pretty interesting leads so yeah I can see those 2 making SE some nice bucks.

[Rockxy]

Just saying give us a real hero, the Girls if FF Games look tougher then the guys, I don't want to listen to a little cry baby thought the hole game :(

[Honolulu]

I am sadly forced to agree.
We need more Barrets, Sabins and FF7-cids.
Also, more antagonists like Kefka.

[meepmoopmeep]

i think the big reason why the FF franchise is this way is because the fanbase has expanded to more than the hardcore gamers now. there's a lot of females that love the franchise and kids as well.

that's what i think, at least.

[Rockxy]

I know where you'd like to put your Fishy Fingers : )

[ISA_Scum]

They've focused on the wrong type of lineup for the past year. 2006 was a huge year for RPGs and Square had a lot to do with it. Rather than carrying that momentum into next-gen development, they focused on handheld games entirely! Bad move and these numbers prove it.

[jackdoe]

And DQIX, one of their largest hand held title, slipped into this year.

[meepmoopmeep]

i'm sure it won't be hard for them to find publishers with their popular titles. they might want to think about expanding towards other genres or something to capture a bigger market.

i can see their intentions on focusing on the DS so much, but c'mon, their slow entry to this current gen console platforms isn't helping them much either. isn't it like 80% of DS owners get pirated games or something?

making remakes is fine but don't keep all the focus on that alone. i know they're working on a few current gen projects so hopefully that will help them in sales.

having these sort of financial issues makes the "possibility" of FF-XIII going multiplatform if they need the money that desperately. that's unless MS or Sony pays heavily for exclusivity.

i guess the titles coming out this year will give them some clues as to where to go with their future IP's.

but i'm pretty sure they'll see a lot of profit once both of the FFXIII games come out. Releasing a remake of VII will help them tremendously.

EDIT: damn it, at least tell me what you're disagreeing about so we can have a nice debate. :P

[Elginer]

Just pissed you mentioned even the remote possibility that FFXIII would go multiplatform, that pisses off PS3 fanboys to no end.

[Max Power]

but i would imagine they are disagreeing with your statement about FFXIII going multi

[meepmoopmeep]

yeah, people just keep their blind goggles on and don't wake up to the reality that this is a business. a company needs to profit and if a company is in a financial situation then going multiplat is the logical thing to do.

companies aren't biased fanboys like gamers are. they're in this to make money and keep their company afloat.

[strotee]

"going multiplat is the logical thing to do"

Not necessarily. This might be a stretch for an analogy but work with me.

Imagine if Leonardo DeVinci had to make the Mona Lisa using crayons on a bar napkin; he originally set out with a vision in his head and the people funding his work told him at the last minute that he had gimpy tools to work with. He thought, "fvck this, crayons/napkin aren't going to cut it, I'm taking my business elsewhere to create my master piece".

Imagine, Final Fantasy 13, Versus, possibly 14 stripped of all features to fit on a DVD9 (no cut scenes, etc), horrible thing to imagine, huh? SquareEnix need Blu-Ray for their vision (for 13 and beyond); I wouldn't think that they'd want to hurt their reputation of by releasing last gen games on this generation hardware. A quick dollar won't fix a broken reputation of releasing a gimped game.

[meepmoopmeep]

^^^

wow, i do agree with the points you made there. great job on the writing an taking time on the analogy.

yeah, in a way i retract my multi-platform comment then. you're right, the future FF games and most games of that scale do benefit from the blu-ray capacity, a standard HDD for installs, etc. but, it is still possible to bring the games on multiple dvds without gimping the game. i don't know since i'm not a developer, but, i mean, it would still sell regardless of how many discs it's taking.

but yeah, i still think that if the company was really in a deep financial bind, the thought of porting a highly popular IP for multiple platforms will cross their minds.

who knows.

[clintos59]

See a very high boost in sales. They need to stop working on these other damn titles and get to work on the franchise that has made them big. FF13 would be good to have anytime soon since so many people are waiting for it.

Edit: Also kingdom hearts 3 wouldnt hurt either. :)

[Max Power]

is making FF versus XIII. If they are making that game already i am sure not a whole of people are on it at the moment.

[kewlkat007]

Some of them flopping, I think Crisis Core did alright.

Final Fantasy 12 was no FFVII or FFX. It's alright but didn't like it much.

FF online, well never played that one.

I guess all is riding on FF13, Versus and Last Remenant, as well as new found hope on the Nintendo(Old Pals) and the Wii/DS.

Given the user-base of the PS3 , I think, FFXIII and Version could be done if they wanted, they just waiting for more PS3 out there.

If released in Japan late in the year we might see a 6 month holdout till anywhere gets it, unless its multi region release like Last Remenant(first Multi Regional Release title).

If they re-visited Chrono Trigger they would make a killin.

[meepmoopmeep]

Square has already announced the FF games to be a worldwide release date.

[kewlkat007]

I thought it was only LR. Then scratch what I wrote.

[meepmoopmeep]

yeah, i think it's going to be a new trend, hopefully.
it use to be a problem with translation that took a game so long to release outside of japan, but i think they're going to focus more on trying to get a worldwide release date for their biggest titles.

[heyheyhey]

well that explains why they're looking for mergers

[meepmoopmeep]

i'd like to see them merge with Sony :P

[PSMonster21]

^^^ That'd be sweet if it happened.

[LenHart]

didnt release anything major last year

their prtofits would increase this year since FF13 would land between Jan-march 2009

FF13 will sell atleast 5m copies wouldwide at launch

It will reach between 15m -20m in its lifetime

[Percy]

Maybe if they would release games to the crowd that wants them in north america. Their customers do not have ds's or xbox 360's they have psp's and ps3's. If they would release anything for either i would buy it but im not going out to pick up another hand held and im holding out for a cheaper elite before i pick up another 360.

[Ashta]

Infinite Undiscovery is actually a Tri-Ace game.

It's just being published by Square-Enix. So, SE's actual development teams haven't been working on anything other than Last Remnant, FFXIII, and a bunch of Mobile games that never make it overseas. (or whatever)

Oh, and The World Ends With You.

They REALLY need to make some more console games though. I mean...I'm excited about FFXIII and all but I wouldn't mind some minor JRPG's for my PS3 as well. Stuff like the Mana and Saga series.

[aggh im on fire]

Even with FF i can't see them reaching there glory days. Square's getting left behind.

[Rockxy]

If they want to make a real killing just give us Xenogears 2 : )

[Knightofelemia]

If they relese a remake of FF7 onto the ps3 their set for the next 10 yrs. But they need more creativity when it coms to new games