Without Eidos, Square Enix Would Be In Serious Trouble

GamingUnion.net: "Square Enix has been having a bit of trouble as of late, which has resulted in a net income of -$148.4 million for the fiscal year which ended on the 31st of March, 2011. However, back in 2009 when they purchased a beleaguered Eidos, things were starting to look up for the company. They were expanding their opportunities while continuing to grow their existing properties and it culminated in releases such as Batman: Arkham Asylum, Final Fantasy XIII and Just Cause 2. It also saw their first increase in net income for a considerable amount of time. But, given Square Enix's rather frank admissions about their own quality, and the cancellation of so many unannounced products, without Eidos things would be so much worse. It could even be argued that Eidos is a primary factor in what's holding them together right now."

[Hardedge]

It's ironic. Then again, I'm glad Eidos are doing well. I'm looking forward to Deus Ex and the new Tomb Raider.

[fozzness]

Good article. I surely hope things get better for Square Enix... I mean.. I can kind of see where they're coming from (i.e. going in a new direction in order to target a new demography).. but it still sucks for us who absolutely loved Squaresoft...

[TotalPS3Fanboy]

"Without Eidos, Square Enix Would Be In Serious Trouble"

Without Wada, Square Enix would NOT be in serious trouble.

[fozzness]

Actually I think it started with Sakaguchi's The Spirits Within money suck... but... eh whatevs.. still bad news bears :-P

[Kalowest]

"It should also be noted that Square Enix has put a bit of a focus on handhelds, but again, we will cater to that in another upcoming article."
Some of SE best games this gen have been for the PSP, and DS.
The World Ends With You

[mephman]

Best games yes, but aside from Dragon Quest IX, they aren't anywhere near the best selling.

[Kalowest]

SE handheld games sell better in JP then anywhere else. Yep DQIX sold a shit load.

[Hardedge]

Outside of DQ, none of the handheld games actually sell as much as say Batman Arkham Asylum did. I don't expect them to sell as much as Deus Ex or the new Tomb Raider either.

[stealth500k]

All there handheld games sells a shitload in japan.

And in fact eidos is weighing them down alot.

[Cablephish]

Squenix has good games. I loved The World Ends With You for instance. It had a great story, great characters, and it took advantage of all the DS's capabilities. I don't know how it fared in North America, but it seemed like the kind of game that was overlooked sadly.

But they have a lot of remakes of Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games, where they get good sales.

[JDouglasGU]

i didn't know square got a piece of arkham asylum... that's a lucky break!

[Nobody1356]

Wow they should totally buy this game call halo, which only run on xbox360

[TheColbertinator]

lol

Wipe your chin

[GoldPS3]

With comments like this it won't be long before you down to 1 bubble lol and you'll have to make another account again.

[SpaceFox]

1. Remake FFVII for PS3/NGP
2. Re-release FFX, X-2 and XII in HD for PS3/NGP
3. ???
4. PROFIT

I'll buy 2 copies of each, one for PS3 and one for NGP. And probably a few extra just out of pure gratitude, as gifts.

[bwazy]

Seriously I really don't know why the HELL they don't do this. LISTEN UP SE!

Edit: Not so much X-2, but still, I'd buy it.

[SpaceFox]

I know right. And yeah, I liked X-2's gameplay, but everything else pretty much bombed. If they're gonna remake X though they may as well stick X-2 in there.

[NatureOfLogic]

X-2 was great compared to FFXII and FFXIII.

[DW74]

I thought X-2 despite the J-pop girl-power vibe had one of the great FF combat systems.

[Menech]

Why FFVII for NGP or just showing your Sony loyality?

The NGP will have even more space limits then the 360, true PS3 exclusive I could understand using the full bluRay dics.

But leaving the 360 out and asking for it to be on the NGP and PS3 is just being a fanboy.

[HeavenlySnipes]

I seriously would hold off any game coming near its release date until next year.

FFXII is my favourite PS2 game

[SpaceFox]

Haha, same. That would last me quite a while.

[HeavenlySnipes]

I can't do what I want with my time and money? LOL @ N4G

[Tdmd]

Mine too. Would love to go back at it in HD!

[stealth500k]

hardly. Eidos is holding them back really. There best selling franchises arent with eidos

"Dragon Quest X are of course also in existence, but we've seen and heard very little about either of them. There's also no real indication about when they'll come out."

If he actually researched its been semi confirmed for next year with a big reveal this year............

He also missed other titles in development like dragon quest rocket slime 3 ( a big seller in japan) , Final fantasy chocobo racing (another big seller)

And likely more from japan will get shown at tgs and E3

@below

can you seriously be that dense?
400k for any game is freaking incredible. A game selling 400k (especially a handheld game) can make 3 times the profit as a game that sells 2 million. Why? COSTS

And I will take the head composers word as hes worked on every dragon quest since the first one. And the creator of dragon quest said its going to get revealed this year.

[mephman]

Er, the composer just let slip that it "might" release next year. I'd say that still gives us no real indication, I wouldn't say it's semi-confirmation.

Chocobo Racing is certainly not a big seller in Japan and recent Dragon Quest spin-offs haven't been selling that well really, Rocket Slime 1 sold around 400,000 - big woop.

Edit: Really I'm dense? You think 400,000 is a lot? Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep and Dissidia: Final Fantasy probably sold that in a week or two. Dragon Quest IX has sold over 4 million Japan.

Yes, costs come into it, of course they do, but do you really want Square Enix to become a publisher of tiny little games like NIS America, just so they can turn a small profit?

[Hardedge]

Really? FF Chocobo Racing is a big seller? Under what rock did you just crawl out from?

Arkham Asylum sold 4.5+ million copies.
FF Chocobo Racing sold 300k.

Even Kane & Lynch 2 sold more than that, and that was a shoddy game.

[Tony P]

It's been a simple truism of the industry that Japan isn't at the center of it anymore. SE catches so much flak for doing what most other Japanese devs are trying to do: survive.

The transition from the old ways to the new isn't easy and every two penny smark on the net thinks he can solve SE's woes. But it's easy to criticize the people at the top when the responsibility for people's jobs and livelihoods isn't on your shoulders.

[mephman]

It is easy to criticise, that's true, but Square Enix do themselves no favours. None of the other publishers are having anywhere near the amount of troubles that Square Enix are - and very few of them have had to compromise on their principles as much as Square Enix has.

[evrfighter]

criticism goes a long way. They fired the douche that thought doing 6 quests a day would work in an mmo.

without criticism that entire stereotypical japanese stubborn old man team of devs at SE would still have full reign over ffxi and ff14.

[Louis_Guzman]

Looking at EA's, Ubisoft's and THQ's financials the west has their own set of problems in the industry. SE was the only Japanese game company that didn't turn a profit last fiscal year.

[Aclay]

Completely agree... the decline in the console Japanese market has been quite apparent this gen., and that alone is probably want contributed to Square going for a Western dev. like Eidos and trying to appeal more to the Western market in general.

The market for JRPG's on consoles outside of Japan doesn't seem to be want it once was, and the Western console market and Western games has largely taken over.

If Square would actually focus on finishing games before announcing new ones, I think they might just be a little more productive.

[stealth500k]

I think your just hating...........

Devleopment costs. Research that before you shoot your mouth of on whats going on.

The jrpg market is as strong on consoles and on handhelds as it ever was. Theres about 3 times as many jrpgs as wrpgs in development at any given time. Also this gen jrpgs are on more systems than ever were wrpgs are actually on less.

[Aclay]

No, I'm not hating, just stating my own personal analysis.

In comparison to previous generations, there hasn't been as many Japanese developers making JRPG games on console (PS3/360) and a lot seem to have gone the Portable (PSP/DS) route...that's why I said the JRPG market on console doesn't seem to be what it once was outside of Japan.

Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and Kingdom Hearts have a good following outside of Japan, but I really don't know of any other JRPG's that would move the amount of units that those would.

[VampiricDragon_]

Theres been just as many but your probably not aware of it.

And does moving units make the game good or bad? Not really. Does selling the most give it the most profit? Not all the time. Its not black and white

[Louis_Guzman]

Yeah Aclay, tell that to Nintendo this gen. Btw, since you're playing the numbers game no Wrpg moves as many units as FF, DQ, KH, Pokemon or Monster Hunter.

[sasuke99]

delusional much?
even without Eidos SE will do just fine!

stop thinking so high america -_-;

[mephman]

You realise that aside from 2009, Square Enix has seen a decline in its profits every year since 2005?

The latest, of course, was a huge deficit. I'd hardly say that's delusional - you're the one who's delusional.

Edit: I meant NET profits, not profits.

[VampiricDragon_]

you sound pretty dellusional..........they had there highest profits in there history that year. Of course it would go down...........

[mephman]

Yes, highest profits, but not net profits. They made 102.8 million net profit in that year, in 2005 they made 157.9 million in net profit.

[WooHooAlex]

They would turn a MASSIVE profit if they finally decided to remake FFVII, putting out Kingdom Hearts 3 wouldn't hurt either.

DAMNIT Square, you're F'ing up big time right now!

[boss_killa]

Square needs to remake FF 7 and Chrono Trigger with awesome HD graphics. That'll help them make some money. It seems Square have no idea what to do anymore.

A new Chrono game wouldn't hurt either.

[fozzness]

I also think releasing possibly the KH series on PSN might help a little bit.. or maybe even porting some PSP games...

[mananimal]

Yes, they would be on the borderline of being Irrelevant, without them.