Square Enix Revises Earnings Forecasts For Major Loss

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Did you know that wherever you bought it from has to deal with the financials? SE still got their money from the distributor, the only thing that gets sent back to SE are the sales records, coming from the distributor's inventory. As.. any accountant should know

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This also hurts the developer though, if a game bombs and the retailers get stuck with a lot of unsold copies they will remember it. A lot of retailers got burned with FFXIV, trying to get them to stock FFXIV on PS3 if they release it at all will not be an easy task.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/11q4release.pdf

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/...q4earnings.pdf




Welp, there ya go.

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This is most likely Mindjack and other games that they shovelwared to us. Not just FFXIV (As it mentions consoles). Mindjack was a great idea on paper but I was probably one of 10 people who bought it. which is why in my first post in the thread I said they most likely dropped a bunch of titles they have determined to be shovelware so as to reduce the lowquality appearance of future titles and restore respect in the company.

It's time to destroy some useless projects like mindjack.. finally. :P

All the more reason to make amends with Sakaguchi-san!

But don't worry, SE still has Eidos, and Arkham City will make up for a chunk of that loss.

New info released:

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/11q4slides.pdf

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Strategic Pillar:

#2 - Becoming "Network Centric" - Revitalize our major MMO titles

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They're still gonna work on FF14. Yay!

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

New info released:

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/11q4slides.pdf



They're still gonna work on FF14. Yay!

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Yeah I saw those slides earlier on NeoGAF, was a relief. Felt all anxious and nervous that FFXIV would get dropped.
Really do love this game and am looking forward to fun and exciting things to come. :D

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Strategic Pillar:

#2 - Becoming "Network Centric" - Revitalize our major MMO titles

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Put some FF13/Versus graphics programmers into the staff pls. :D

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Originally Posted by Munba

Put some FF13/Versus graphics programmers into the staff pls. :D

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They already did a majority of the programers for the crystal tools engine are shared.

FF13 doesn't deserve any legacy sequel

I'm pretty sure that they plan to release an expansion soon with the PS3 announcement. They can't afford to loose money.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

New info released:

http://www.square-enix.com/eng/news/pdf/11q4slides.pdf



They're still gonna work on FF14. Yay!

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Or they're going to revitalize (like I've mentioned before) XI as everyone who mentions having XIV utilize XI features or content is told to "go back to XI" so SE heard your cries, people! :D

(They also published a few other MMOs and may revive Front Mission Online.)

;)

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Originally Posted by Evangela

FF13 doesn't deserve any legacy sequel

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Good thing you're no where near a game development studio or the world would have no sequels based on your logic. Sales proved otherwise and sales solely determine sequels, btw ;)

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Originally Posted by rainfish

This also hurts the developer though, if a game bombs and the retailers get stuck with a lot of unsold copies they will remember it. A lot of retailers got burned with FFXIV, trying to get them to stock FFXIV on PS3 if they release it at all will not be an easy task.

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In some cases, you are correct. However, since companies like Gamestop strictly sell video games, there may be contracts behind certain products, MMORPGs especially. Anything that cannot be purchased outside of any store usually has a contract behind that, that way, no games are left unsold.

Let me put it this way. Say you are not able to order directly from SE, or from anywhere on the internet. Then you visit Gamestop or another Gaming Store and none are selling the title. There is no way you can purchase that game, no matter how hard you try. This is why Publishers, Manufacturers, or Vendors sign contract deals with the Merchandising companies.

The contracts mostly indicate that the Merchandiser is required to have the game in stock no matter the circumstances.

Also, I'm not quoting you to prove you wrong, because you are not wrong at all, situations like this do happen if Merchandisers do not sign the contracts. I'm quoting you so that everyone can learn how the business world works, since it does get a bit complicated when it comes to the end of a company fiscal year.

Square Enix has so much money, i'm sure they could give a shit less.

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Originally Posted by FilthyDisco

Square Enix has so much money, i'm sure they could give a shit less.

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Exactly, they are showing their Retained Earnings for the Fiscal Year, and not their Capital for the entire time they've been a business. This is how FFXIV is being funded, directly from the excess revenue they have been saving, aka Capital Account.

Considering that they list clearly "revitalizing our major MMO titles" (Page 14) as a key point for growth, it's obvious that no. FFXIV is not in trouble.

Reading the whole financial report tends to be better than reading just some alarmist article written by some poor writers that are just looking for hits on their websites.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Considering that they list clearly "revitalizing our major MMO titles" (Page 14) as a key point for growth, it's obvious that no. FFXIV is not in trouble.

Reading the whole financial report tends to be better than reading just some alarmist article written by some poor writers that are just looking for hits on their websites.

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That goes to show that you can't base anything off of reviews unless it was your own review. :P In other words, "You can't knock it til you try it."

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Originally Posted by Nuru

That goes to show that you can't base anything off of reviews unless it was your own review. :P In other words, "You can't knock it til you try it."

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It's not even a matter of reviews, really (while most journalists are not even nearly through enough with their reviews of normal games, let alone MMORPGs), the problem is that financial reports are long and boring, and require some knowledge to be interpreted. Which means that journalists will read them as they want, putting only the data that fuels the "big headlines", and ignoring what counters their theories.

The funniest part is that some went as far as hypotesizing that the lack of listing of FFXIV for PS3 for the 2012 lineup means that it won't be released, when it says *clearly* just over the listing that it includes "only previously announced" titles.

Sometimes the lack of reading ability of some people (or their intentional will to mislead their readers) baffles me completely.

PS: an actually interesting tidbit is that they spell their intention of digitalizing their catalog titles, which could pave the way for a release of FFXIV on steam. Re-releasing on steam as soon as the title is solid would be a very sound move on their part.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

It's not even a matter of reviews, really (while most journalists are not even nearly through enough with their reviews of normal games, let alone MMORPGs), the problem is that financial reports are long and boring, and require some knowledge to be interpreted. Which means that journalists will read them as they want, putting only the data that fuels the "big headlines", and ignoring what counters their theories.

The funniest part is that some went as far as hypotesizing that the lack of listing of FFXIV for PS3 for the 2012 lineup means that it won't be released, when it says *clearly* just over the listing that it includes "only previously announced" titles.

Sometimes the lack of reading ability of some people (or their intentional will to mislead their readers) baffles me completely.

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Oh okay, i get what you mean. It does suck that it drives some people to believe whatever is said and its not even true.

My friends told me about this yesterday and how this was bad news for FFXIV. After I asked him where he got his info from (Kotaku), I took it with a grain of salt and explained to him, the real deal.

Now just imagine how many other people believe the same story he did. =/

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Originally Posted by Nuru

Oh okay, i get what you mean. It does suck that it drives some people to believe whatever is said and its not even true.

My friends told me about this yesterday and how this was bad news for FFXIV. After I asked him where he got his info from (Kotaku), I took it with a grain of salt and explained to him, the real deal.

Now just imagine how many other people believe the same story he did. =/

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LOL kotaku. That site is seriously the scum of internet journalism. They spin their "news" so hard that it makes me laugh everytime i can be bothered to read one of their articles (which I'm doing more and more rarely, since it's a painful thing for anyone that has any writing experience or just a brain).

Bet the article was written by Brian Ashcraft. Every single piece of his that involves square enix is so full and drooling of seething hate that I wonder if some executive at SE hit on his wife or bludgeoned his dog. He doesn't even make the slightest effort to hide his bias. Seriously, one of the worst and most integrity-lacking internet writers I ever seen.

Every writer on kotaku has similar biases towards this or that producer (the bias Luke Plunkett displays against Sony is even worse than Ashcraft's against SE for instance), and loves to write hatemongering articles against them.
It always baffles me how any editor in chief with a brain can even think that allowing such crap on his site is anywhere acceptable.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

LOL kotaku. That site is seriously the scum of internet journalism. They spin their "news" so hard that it makes me laugh everytime i can be bothered to read one of their articles (which I'm doing more and more rarely, since it's a painful thing for anyone that has any writing experience or just a brain).

Bet the article was written by Brian Ashcraft. Every single piece of his that involves square enix is so full and drooling of seething hate that I wonder if some executive at SE hit on his wife or bludgeoned his dog. He doesn't even make the slightest effort to hide his bias. Seriously, one of the worst and most integrity-lacking internet writers I ever seen.

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This is exactly why I don't even bother. The only reason I used to go was for SE news, but after reading so much hate, its just not the place to go for news on games, that website is ruined. lol

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Originally Posted by Abriael

It's not even a matter of reviews, really (while most journalists are not even nearly through enough with their reviews of normal games, let alone MMORPGs), the problem is that financial reports are long and boring, and require some knowledge to be interpreted. Which means that journalists will read them as they want, putting only the data that fuels the "big headlines", and ignoring what counters their theories.

The funniest part is that some went as far as hypotesizing that the lack of listing of FFXIV for PS3 for the 2012 lineup means that it won't be released, when it says *clearly* just over the listing that it includes "only previously announced" titles.

Sometimes the lack of reading ability of some people (or their intentional will to mislead their readers) baffles me completely.

PS: an actually interesting tidbit is that they spell their intention of digitalizing their catalog titles, which could pave the way for a release of FFXIV on steam. Re-releasing on steam as soon as the title is solid would be a very sound move on their part.

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STEAMWORKS PLZ.

That being said. I've love it if they could get the old PC versions of games on steam especially Edios old cateloge.

FF7 on steam? FF8? Legacy of Kain, Soulreaver, Tomb Raiders, etc. All the old classics. They could release it as a "Square Edios Collectors Pack" where for 50 bucks you get FF7, FF8, All the LOK, SR, Thief, TR, and DE games together.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

places still accept opened returns on games? where the hell do you live lol

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Australia, EB games says if you can finish it within 7 days you can return it, or if you just plain don't like it 7 days no questions asked.

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Originally Posted by Abriael

Considering that they list clearly "revitalizing our major MMO titles" (Page 14) as a key point for growth, it's obvious that no. FFXIV is not in trouble.

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I was going to post this good thing I went back to see if anyone had already! Yeah XIV is just fine folks it's not being abandoned this isn't NCsoft.. *cough*

More info:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ada_on_losses/
http://www.nikkei.com/news/headline/...E3E2E2E2E2E2E2

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Speaking at an investor's briefing on the 13th (via Nikkei), Wada explained that of the 12 billion loss, about 4.5 billion came from such things as Final Fantasy XIV's reworking and the cancelation of multiple titles. Most of the 4.5 billion was related to domestic development, he said.

"Our game development has become weaker than expected," admitted Wada. "Revamping it will take one or two years."

Wada attributed the poor state of development to weak communication. Creative leads did not pass on his opinion to their subordinates. Additionally, there was trouble with division of labor amongst technical staff, who were protective and would fulfill only their own roles.

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The Nikkei article has another quote about FFXIV (rough translation):

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延期されたＦＦ14の発売やネット版の課金はいつごろになるのか。

　「いずれももう少し時間がかかりそう。まだ希望段階だが、ネット版については今期中に課金制に移行したいと思う。中国市場への参入はそれ以降になる」

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When will you start charging for FF14?

It looks like it will take a little more time. I'm still hoping to move to a pay to play system at the present time. After that happens, we will enter the Chinese market.

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Let's hope Yoshi P has the managerial and communication skills to pull this off.

The internal structure over at Square Enix has been a real problem, it seems. I hear that taking the small teams that were responsible for the great Squaresoft games of the late 90s and then merging them into large dev teams didn't really help, since a lot of them retained a cliquish attitude and didn't quite work together that well as a whole.

Additionally, it seems that despite all the problems they had with the development of FF12, they didn't even learn their lesson with FF13.

FF12 postmortem: http://www.1up.com/news/gdc-2007-long-development-final

FF13 postmortem: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...ntasy_XIII.php

This seems to make sense when applied to FF14, because despite all of SE's accumulated knowledge about how to run a successful MMORPG due to its success with FF11, they seemed to throw it all out the window and completely screw up FF14.

Well, here's hoping they can fix this, and fix it soon, although Wada said that it'll take at least 1-2 years. It boggles the mind how things got this bad. You gotta be blind to have not seen this coming.


P.S. SquareEnix, what the F*&@ were you thinking with Front Mission: Evolved. You should be ashamed of yourself. Step 1: Bring Front Mission 5 to the US on XBLA and PSN. Step 2: Make Front Mission 6.

Good job with Tactics Ogre, though. <3

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Originally Posted by Joeking

Australia, EB games says if you can finish it within 7 days you can return it, or if you just plain don't like it 7 days no questions asked.

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That policy is for used games only.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

More info:

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It was clear there were some internal problems lately. Hope this situation will bring SE to its root, like the past golden age of Squaresoft. I really miss that period..

I bet this results in them lowering that estimate of how long it would take to remake FF7 down to 2 years :P

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

More info:

http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/201...ada_on_losses/
http://www.nikkei.com/news/headline/...E3E2E2E2E2E2E2
The Nikkei article has another quote about FFXIV (rough translation):

Let's hope Yoshi P has the managerial and communication skills to pull this off.

The internal structure over at Square Enix has been a real problem, it seems. I hear that taking the small teams that were responsible for the great Squaresoft games of the late 90s and then merging them into large dev teams didn't really help, since a lot of them retained a cliquish attitude and didn't quite work together that well as a whole.

Additionally, it seems that despite all the problems they had with the development of FF12, they didn't even learn their lesson with FF13.

FF12 postmortem: http://www.1up.com/news/gdc-2007-long-development-final

FF13 postmortem: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/3...ntasy_XIII.php

This seems to make sense when applied to FF14, because despite all of SE's accumulated knowledge about how to run a successful MMORPG due to its success with FF11, they seemed to throw it all out the window and completely screw up FF14.

Well, here's hoping they can fix this, and fix it soon, although Wada said that it'll take at least 1-2 years. It boggles the mind how things got this bad. You gotta be blind to have not seen this coming.


P.S. SquareEnix, what the F*&@ were you thinking with Front Mission: Evolved. You should be ashamed of yourself. Step 1: Bring Front Mission 5 to the US on XBLA and PSN. Step 2: Make Front Mission 6.

Good job with Tactics Ogre, though. <3

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Front mission 5 has been translated, and i must say, best game in the series besides 3 :)

Lol the people in the first page thinks that spells the end of FFXIV and they stated that FFXIV is not on the chopping block. You think they would bring in a new director and team waste the money on the title if they didn't intend to fully support the game?

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Originally Posted by Ostia

Front mission 5 has been translated, and i must say, best game in the series besides 3 :)

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It has? I thought it never got localized? Or are you talking about the fanmade English patch?

I might as well just play it in Japanese, lol

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Originally Posted by Dargoth_Draconia

Lol the people in the first page thinks that spells the end of FFXIV and they stated that FFXIV is not on the chopping block. You think they would bring in a new director and team waste the money on the title if they didn't intend to fully support the game?

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This is why coming to conclusions is just downright retarded. The OP made an accidentally.

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Originally Posted by Joeking

I feel that SE will learn nothing from this. Continuing with there secretive development, thus forcing the community to live with whatever they wish to serve up. Like a restaurant not taking your order and just telling you its going to be good, then when its served you find out it has peanuts and your allergic.

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Its funny some of you guys say stuff like this as if every other company is sending reps to each of your individual houses and asking your opinion on their next title...seriously...all companies barely have any transparency. SE listens to its fans based on feedback, but remember you're not the only market they're reaching out to, there's the Japanese market as well and they like a lot of the stuff that you may not like...its a compromise they have to make half the time and considering their NA market is huge and their overseas market is huge I'd say they're doing a lot right.

What? They cancelled Dissidia: Cloud-Paste to further develop FFXIV? I heard it on the internet

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Originally Posted by Mack

Its funny some of you guys say stuff like this as if every other company is sending reps to each of your individual houses and asking your opinion on their next title...seriously...all companies barely have any transparency. SE listens to its fans based on feedback, but remember you're not the only market they're reaching out to, there's the Japanese market as well and they like a lot of the stuff that you may not like...its a compromise they have to make half the time and considering their NA market is huge and their overseas market is huge I'd say they're doing a lot right.

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Let's be fair in saying that most gamers don't know what they want. Most people who pick up a game want some copy-pasta from a title they already enjoyed. Read the forums more than a few times, and you'll realize that most of the suggestions involve making this game a Hi-Def XI with WoW-features (with little regard for the potential). So for that purpose, we sort of deserve to be shut-out of the creative process, even if they mettle through our posts to jot down significant ideas. Most people are not artistic (or like to think they are in spite of this), so they disregard the significance of what ALREADY is, because it isn't up to par. So markets aside, there's little good in sharing what they are working on with us, because instead of trying to better evaluate it, we're going to MOAN and CRY, because it isn't what we expected. Thus, we need our shitheaded, whiny, sack-like brains dragged through the game until our joy bells start ringing and they know what to sell us. In the mean time we can pop off ideas and hope that the Dev's are intrigued by some of them.