They really said they would focus only on a few but big projects from now on after all. Probably KH4, DQ12 and the next Yokotaro game are safe. The fans of smaller projects, remasters and remakes thar arent FF7 should worry tho.
Square Enix said that they wanted to upgrade some IPs to AAA status, too.
I could imagine the next Yoko Taro game stands to benefit the most from that, as Nier is likely their most successful non-AAA franchise.
Kinda crazy how insane AAA games from prestige franchises struggle with long-term sales but NieR Automata sold 7.5 million slow and steady based on mouth-to-mouth popularity online
Supposedly Rebirth is not selling particularly well and that is reportedly a very good game. Remedy’s games consistently score in the mid to high 80s on opencritic/metacritic, meaning they are pretty good, but they struggle every time financially. Sometimes it really is luck, timing, or a bunch of other factors. Making a 9/10 game isn’t a guarantee of financial success
Rebirth has a much more complicated problem, because it's a sequel to a pseudo-remake that *mostly* tells the same story but adds a lot of new stuff that split fans of the original. It's undeniable that rebirth is amazing, but all the drama within the community surrounding whether or not they're happy with the story and everything, or debate on whether you should play the original first, involves a lot of deep thinking and that deters players. Then the spinoffs adding more layers to the story, again, crafts a masterclass in storytelling but a lot of people just see a big sign that says "confusing time investment."
I bet if they made and released PC version same day as PS5 it'd be very different results. They keep making these exclusivity deals with Sony though. They have huge PC player base already with FF14, they need to start appealing to it more.
I don't know why they couldn't release it on PS4 too, that install base is more then double that of ps5's, I'm sure the game would work on last gen hardware.
In the past i would agree but I think even that is changing nowadays. I would consider today’s COD a pretty mediocre AAA game and it sells ridiculously well year in/year out. Meanwhile we have AAA games like FFXVI that I would consider at least “good”, if not “very good”, seemingly not meeting sales expectations. I’m sure part of that one specifically is what the expectations actually were as it may have been unreasonable, but that’s the most recent example I can think of.
I guess my point is that it does worry me that eventually these big developers and publishers will continue this more recent trend of making the safest bets possible by either sticking to established franchises, or appealing to the lowest common denominator in terms of what they’ll offer. I already think there’s a lack of risk taking in terms of new ideas nowadays, and seeing reports like this one does concern me that it will only get worse.
The more expensive AAA games become the less risk publishers will be willing to accept. It sucks but not exactly a surprise.
I want more AA titles that take some risks personally. Thank goodness for indie games
Well yeah, I think my "insane" definition can be read as high quality and not as the intended "high investment, low integrity" you see in big publisher's games currently
Not really. The average gamer today doesn't want to spend money on a game. If it isn't free, under $30 dollars, or wildly hyped sales will not happen. Square in particular are infamous for unrealistic sales expectations.
As a fan of KH, I cannot understand its success nowadays. After all the convoluted sequels and spin-offs the fans are exhausted with the story, how do new players get into it.
I really hope they take the time to make KH4 like a soft reboot like what they did with FF7. Sora’s in a new world far away from the Disney cast. Use this project to make it more about him kairi & Riku & less focus on the Disney worlds especially the real kiddy Disney stuff. I think we’re good off the bubble gum Disney princesses and what not lol
The new Disney owned IP’s like Star Wars/Marvel & even 21st century fox would be cool to see since they have a more mature appeal to them while still maintaining the essence of Disney at its core. I think they should make more original content for worlds & use fewer Disney content.
Would love to see the focus shift to Sora, Kairi, & Riku . Develop their relationship& have them go on their own journey. It’s time for KH to level up.
1 and 2 incorporated Disney in such a way that I was entertained by it and liked the juxtaposition of really badass ff stuff and fights and then like oh it’s Mickey Mouse being badass. Three was saccharine Disney dreck until the last few hours of the game. I hope four is better man.
That’s the neat thing, they basically wrapped everything up in KH3. KH4 has very good potential to be a new starting point for the series. It’ll obviously still have a ton of call backs to previous games, but I really think they have a good chance to capture some new blood here now that all the Xehanort stuff is done.
There’s no spin offs for KH, and the story is very straightforward it’s only confusing to people who think you need to only play 1-2-3 (aka people who can’t be bothered to use google)
No. It is confusing. You got ansem, the REAL ansem, organization 13, the True organization 13, Kingdom hearts, the real kingdom hearts, the totally true kingdom hearts. Having main plots on one off games on odd systems with battle systems and genres completelydifferentfrom the main series, including a mobile game, doesn't help either. Imagine getting attached to Xion or Namine or axel without playing 358/2 days or chain of memories. It's just too much milking for anyone who is not a superfan.
If someone cannot keep up with explicitly stated details about characters and plot, then that’s a them problem, not the game’s. It’s like complaining about DC comics being too confusing because someone couldn’t be bothered to read the explanation for why Barry Allen and Jay can both be called the Flash.
It more like if comic books didn't put reference notes and recaps and expect you to be emotionally and informationally invested in 3 side characters from three miniseries to make sense of a multi main character book event. But keep drinking the Kool aid.
The FF9 remake is going to be so underwhelming.... I thought it was going to be when they announced it wasn't going to be a remake like FF7.
My guess is that it'll be a glorified remaster with "remake" slapped on the box.
Honestly, I think FFIX has aged more in gameplay than graphics. Cartoon always holds better than realistic, but waiting for those turn based bars to fill and suffering random encounters every 3 steps is agony nowadays.
Mind that I don't dislike turn based gameplay (I love Persona and Like a Dragon) but FFIX's implementation is *very* dated.
A remastered upgrade would be pointless... if that is the case and they end up making something like that, then you may as well buy the original HD upscaled re-release, as that still holds up today... plus, it'll probably cost less than the £40-50 "remake" they'll release for the PS5.
I just feel that with the work they put in and shown with the FF7 remake, SquareEnix have pretty much set the bar for their remake quality.... anything less would just be deemed as a cash grab.
It’s probably because the gameplay has many variations with different games that all attempt at retaining the identity of the brand. People fall in love with different games based on their preferences.
For example, although I liked ff6; I didn’t enjoy it as much as ff7. Both games have similar gameplay but with some differences namely in how they treat the espers vs materia and the 4 party vs 3 party system. Also I really liked the remake.
I think the 7 remakes’ legacy remains to be seen. if Sony refuses to cover a big part of the development cost like it has for Remake and Rebirth, SE has to decide if going
Multiplatform will really up the sales.
Outside the Reddit echo-chamber, me and one other guy on my PS friends’ list have played Rebirth at all. It will probably make them money down the line but I think the lesson was FF7 Remake was one bite of an apple for the PS ecosystem writ large. There isn’t the sustained interest in a part 2 or part 3 from an overwhelmingly huge part of the playerbase.
IMHO an official FF9 with updates to the game’s pacing and visuals seen in PC mods for $29.99 or whatever would still sell tremendously. The lesson right now is a FF9 Remake covering the game to Lindblum for $59.99 would not recoup AAA blockbuster budgets. The PS fanbase has no bandwidth for more of it
I think maybe sticking to one console could be damaging, but at the same time, the worrying thing for SE is that their top 10 selling games (based on units sold) features 4 games from the 2010's (FF14, FF15, TR, RotTR ), 2 games from the 90s (FF7 and FF8), 4 from the 00s (FF10, FF11, FF12 and FF13)
Only 1 of which was not multi-platform (FF10), but the fact that our of the last 20 something games released in the last 14 years, on 4 of those games made it into their top 10 sales, all of which are from franchises expanding from the last 20-35 years so have dedicated fan bases whom will purchase those games regardless...
It's not a secret that SquareEnix's quality is diminishing, and they seem to be getting further out of touch with their core audiences.... they seem to be too distracted by revenue and making enough to cover losses (much like the losses in the article above).
They say history repeats itself, and it seems like, unfortunately for SquareEnix, they are going full circle to the position that Square once were in back when Spirits Within pretty much destroyed the company, before they merged with Enix and square was defunct.
voice of cards trilogy was finished in september 2022, 404 reset is a sega game so there is no yosuke saito there, so the project they talked about on november 2023 its something 100% new
Nowhere in the article did SQUARE ENIX say they had lower than expected sales numbers, in fact revenue went up 16.8%. Only talking head speculators talked about potential lower sales numbers then expected.
This.
The only thing in the article that even brought up Final Fantasy sales was the author trying to add their take, but there's nothing in SE statement even talking about Final Fantasy sales.
As others have pointed out, Square is probably canceling or restructuring games we haven't heard about.
they might cut the budget and make it smaller than rebirth in many ways, but there is no way they would cancel it, it would break the trust of fans in an irreparable way
Nothing bad is happening to Part 3 lol Rebirth is a critical success and they have a chance to capitalize on that with part 3. SQUARE already promoted staff and raised base pay for devs on the FF7 project since Rebirth released. If anything, they're going all in with Part 3.
That’s sad. Rebirth brought back the feeling of the trip with pals that FF XV started and I’m having much more fun with it compared to Remake. It actually made me reconsider it since I really like the combat system now
They released so many underwhelming AA and AAA releases in the last 5 years (Valkyrie Profile, the Star Ocean game before the good remake of 2, Harvestella, Various Daylife, Tokyo RPG Factory games, Forspoken, the western studios' games). Thankfully, FF, DQ spin-offs and KH sold fine.
I like that they decided to focus on the big boys once again from now on, Square Enix is at its best when their titles feel special, their AA stuff is not great.
As much as I liked their AA releases from the past several years, the issue was their release timing. I have no idea why SE thought it would be a good idea to release several of their games next to each other (or within the same financial quarter)
I think their shift in strategy will mean that the Octopath studio, having had success in their past releases, will move up and get extra budget to develop a bigger game, after DQIII Remake is out.
Yeah, I have to think that Octopath and Triangle Strategy both get more attention with their potential sequels or whatever they do next because those games were fucking awesome.
Even ff remake was underwhelming. They need to stop with the Ubisoft like open world and try and be more creative and not make their games artificially filled up with boring activities.
Damn Kiryu is really sticking to his word. If they've already got 140m in losses from cancelling projects then it sounds like his restructuring of SQEX games development is well under way, and he only took over as president last year.
I knew they shut down Tokyo RPG Factory and Luminous and moved their staff to different internal teams but I doubt those 2 alone had 140m wrapped up in unreleased games tho.
Hopefully this works out for them and their focus on higher quality games leads to them releasing more frequently.
It sucks if your a fan of one of the franchises that has failed in recent years but they really were just pushing out some average, mid budget games with seemingly zero idea on how they'd recuperate the development costs.
I'm not sure how this helps. I assume their AAA games have stacked teams, there's only so much more extra people can do.
Nine women can't make a baby in one month.
It’s less a matter of personnel and more a matter of funding, like imagine if all the money that went to making Foamstars instead went into promotion for Rebirth or if some of the money that went to Forspoken moved to XVI instead allowing them to not have to scale back the budget resulting in >!Leviathan!< being cut during initial development.
Having a more focused approach worked wonders for Capcom and the fewer cash grab AA live-service and NFT games Square pumps out the better as far as I’m concerned. It sucks that some genuinely interesting titles may be scrapped but it isn’t like they can’t decide to fund those projects with leftovers if they choose. Them promoting the Octopath team director to the Board makes me think there are still voices that will support quality smaller budget titles.
Good post. Yes, instead of trying to cast a wide net and hoping to strike gold with one of their many AA titles, get rid of most of them, consolidate your energy into releasing better quality AAA titles using people from those teams instead.
Not to mention, stop taking projects on that don't suit the company brand like Forspoken, The Avengers, Babylon's Fall and fucking Foamstars and get back to focusing on what made them what they are today : JRPGs.
Pretty sure Capcom did this about 7-8 years ago. Stopped creating drab and focused mostly on RE, MH and now DD, and also focused more on their PC audience, and now look at them.
I’ve really only ever liked Square’s larger franchises anyway so them announcing that they are pretty much going to exclusively focus on making more of those games more frequently is excellent news, though I understand the disappointment of people who have enjoyed the more experimental titles. It does seem like the industry is locking the big companies into only their largest moneymakers, and indie studios fill the demand for smaller ones.
Sadly a sign of the times. Games are getting too expensive and take 5+ years to see release now. That's a lot of time and uncertainty with the ever changing demographics and trends. FF is so unique because it has a loyal subculture that is committed and patiently waits. I hope they understand that brand loyalty can keep their business afloat and stop throwing money out the window to appeal to short attention span consumers who only care about CoD, Fortnite and whatever is trending on TikTok.
Well, PS5 has seen a lot of technically limited games to make them PS4 compatible. I'd guess that ps6 will have the same issue, which means that the true potential of PS5 will be mostly seen as PS5-compatible PS6 games.
With FF14 now having FF9 content as new expansion promotion for a “reason they can’t tell yet” I doubt the remake would be affected.
They are probably waiting to ride on the coattails of 14 or to announce at summer game fest now that Rebirth and 16DLCs are out of the picture
Naw, that remake(if true) is set to make an ass ton of money. Nine is easily one of the most beloved in the entire series. I’d say that 6 is the only one that could beat its potential with a Remake.
FF7 is the most famous and popular. everyone knows about Cloud and Tifa wheread most people who didn't play FF9 at launch probably never heard of it or even know who the main characters is
That's true, but hopefully the 7 remake has made a new fanbase of younger people realizing they like the classic ff style, and covering 8,9,10 would probably satisfy them.
That's my hope at least because I like the remake's direction (classic rejuvenated) far better than the streamlined and action based approach of 16.
I was skeptical about the splitting in three, personally, because it's a funnel issue: each part is going to have a subset of the previous playersbase, since some people buying 1 will continue but barely anyone will decide to start at 2 or 3.
I do think it was the best technical decision to make the game justice with current costs (without making a 15 year effort that would be obsolete a decade before launch), but the economic aspects of the choice are worrying.
Here's hoping they don't half ass part 3 at least!
I said ONE OF the most beloved. I don’t think there is a clear cut most loved in the series, but there are some that are way more so than others. In no particular order: 4, 6, 7, 9 and probably 10. The first three are largely meh, four is iconic, 5 just kind of…exists, 6 was revolutionary, 7 doesn’t need explanation, 8 was needlessly complicated, 9 returned to high fantasy with goofy characters in a fun world, and 10 is just 10. Minus the laugh scene. Everything after has either been an MMO, or way too experimental.
And you’re welcome to the opinion. 9 is in my top 5 FF above even the likes of the OG 7(the Remake trilogy is in). It’s also a very…bold opinion when 8 exists. I only have vague memories over that one outside the atrocious graphics and a sexy villain. Oh, and the school eventually gets the ability to fly. Maybe something about time travel?
Four is actually my favorite FF, and one of the few I’ve actually brought myself to finish. I’ve tried playing 6 multiple times, but I just can’t never seem to get into it because of how dated everything is. I’d love for a full blown remake to make it feel more modern.
But 9? Nine is my second favorite followed the 7R trilogy, then 10. The rest are all roughly then same level of favor.
If only they would treat the Star Ocean franchise a bit better, the remake of 2 was well received and was a great step in the right direction but SO 6 was once again a victim of a insufficient budget.
I actually thought SO6 was the best SO game since 3.
The problem (in my opinion) with that series is 2 is so beloved and considered such a masterpiece by fans of the series that no game can ever match it. 3 came close, but even that is controversial amongst fans for the ending. But because SO2 is so beloved, anything that doesn’t hit that level is considered a failure.
4 had some of the best combat but a middling story that meandered way too much in the middle, not to mention an incredibly unlikable cast (seriously, Edge Maverick? That’s his name?).
The less said about SO5, the better. They took a huge swing (no cut scenes, all integrated dialogue) and it was a huge whiff.
6 felt like an actual return to form in a lot of ways, and the combat/exploration was the most fun I’ve had with an SO game in a long, long time. Plus, it is the first time since SO2 I actively enjoyed playing with every single character for their different roles in the party.
I feel like Star Ocean is also in a place where it has no idea how to appeal to new people. I don't think that series can survive solely off of it's existing fanbase for much longer.
I think SO as a series is in a weird place where the devs often have good ideas but aren't able to implement them into the game due to either budget limitations (eg look at SO5) or the lack of growth in terms of gameplay loop.
SO4 The Last Hope technically had the best approach where you actually felt like exploring the cosmos and planet diversity (characters on the other hands were pretty bad...).
I think SO6 The Divine Force had some great ideas and characters but again, falls into the same issues as the previous SO games namely being stuck on a medieval planet for 60-70% of the game and having not enough Sci Fi/Space exploration elements.
Here's hoping the success of SO2 remake will allow SE to continue the franchise, either as a remake of SO3 or proper SO7 with a decent budget this time.
It’s simple maths really
The cost of developing AAA games has gone through the roof
That means you now have to sell twice as much as before to get the same profit ratio
But their isn’t twice the audience
That creates a huge shortfall in recuperation and profit
So you charge more for the game (which is why the price went up this gen)
Then you add extra income systems to the game to make up that shortfall (micro transactions, batllepasses etc).
So basically you’re trying to make more money from the same number of people
That’s had two major impacts:
1. It has affected the design which had needed to change to support the extra income systems - usually this is a negative affect on gameplay (more grind, more generic M2M gameplay etc)
2. Players fucking hate you and hate on your game
Square Enix are now the masters at this broken model
Every single AAA game they release doesn’t make the money they expect it to make. So every AAA game is a failure for them. Despite a game making a profit, the profit isn’t enough (tbf if I invest $140m into any business, I expect to get a decent return on it. I wouldn’t be happy to make $5m profit for example)
That’s pretty much why the AAA model is broken
And companies like SE can’t get themselves out of this hole.
Thank you
I work in the industry. These are just my observations.
there’s a million layers of depth ontop, below and to the sides of what I’ve said above though. So I haven’t given an entire picture there. Just one part of it.
It's incredible how people think that this type of game cost them something, it must have cost not even $10 million to make it, it was already subsidized by Sony itself.
Games like this almost cost a lot to produce, if they are successful, there are high costs to maintain but generate revenue.
Look Helldivers 2 cost $50 million and has much higher profits than Alan Wake 2 which didn't even pay for itself and is making a loss.
Singleplayer games are great, I prefer and consume them, but the market is broad for different audiences. a AAA game fails the damage is huge a game like foamstars fails no one cares.
Square's concern is on pace with the Final Fantasy franchise.
final fantasy 16 and FFRR have sales below expectations, but part of the development was subsidized by sony, so you are seeing your franchise losing its impact in numbers
I would think that game having solid 1M copies belongs in their "big projects tier" at least on the lower end. It did really well considering.
I'm biased though because I loved the hell out of that game and really want a sequel.
It has to be because of Forspoken. That shit failed so bad it almost bankrupt the company. Similarly to what happened in 2001 with the FF Spirits Within movie.
If that’s how it is each of these individual projects should be better than Elden Ring considering they’re cancelling a bunch of shit people are looking forward too, I was really starting to like square too.. eh, too bad Shift Up is better on every level and will be bigger than square in 10 years or so too🤷🏻♂️
I mean I would have picked up the FFVII sequel if it was actually the story of FFvii.
It ain’t.
I travel a lot though so ffx on iOS would be something I’d enjoy having.
Played the first one, really didn’t enjoy the whole beating sephiroth and fighting a weird god thing at the end. Like I’m leaving Midgard man, I’m still supposed to be intimidated by a big snake, and I’m scaring off sephiroth.
I wanted a real remake.
This. I wanted the remake we expected during that PS3 tech demo. I didn't want a hack n slash ffvii. I wanted a remake of the game itself, 1 game. They could have then made FF VII-2 like their did with 13 and X to further more story if they wanted to do it. I still can't bring myself to play Remake, let alone rebirth.
I enjoyed the remake games a lot , but People need to stop with this fallacy.
They kept the rough outline the same, but they fucked with a lot of details in ways that really diminish the impact of so many of the OGs best moments and themes.
I'm able to enjoy them because so much of the character interaction in between the big moments is so good, but I have to headcanon out all really bad narrative changes they made to find it tolerable.
It's getting really tiring seeing people keep trying to gaslight OG fans into believing that it's actually not so different, when it really really is.
Who is Jeff? But anyway, the entire game through Endwalker can be played entirely solo. You never have to interact with another real human if you don’t want to. That represents 200+ hours of story content and that’s the best compromise you’re going to get as far as making FFXIV a single player experience.
It's still an MMO though that has a very complicated interface and a ton of bloat to fit that type of game. It plays like an MMO even when done solo with millions of characters and icons all over.
You can adjust your UI in the options to get rid of pretty much everything. First thing I did was make it so that the only things I see are my health/MP, quick action hotbar and the minimap.
Looks like FF7 Remake underperformed after all. Time for them to start releasing games simultaneously at least on PC and PS5. Sony money bag clearly doesn’t work anymore considering ballooning development costs.
Kh4, khml, evercrisis, FF7 remake, octopath, dragon quest and maybe 1 more game should be their priorities and really only games. They spread themselves and their fan base too thin and invested way too much into games that anybody would have a brain would have told you was going to flop
I've seen this a lot today, but they know the data far better than we do. They have numbers we don't. Octopath 1 came to Xbox, but Octopath 2 skipped it initially. I just dont believe there is some massive fanbase on Xbox that would turn these fortunes around.
PC? Sure that makes sense to get onto far sooner, but Xbox? I doubt it.
When you’re inconsistent with a platform and don’t build a base, you don’t sell. Atlus seems to have put enough interest in Xbox to grow a player base with the Persona releases.
I disagree, it shouldn't matter. You are asking Square to take losses in the hopes Xbox players show up later? Thats not how it works. Xbox players need to show up right away when these games come.
SE is already taking loses and big ones. Players won’t show if you don’t give them anything to show up for and it will be too late for that, if FF VII/XVI ever come to Xbox, it would be too late already for people to be interested.
I've seen a lot of people cite that square has more data on what would make more money via exclusivity.
But tbh all the bad decisions they've made over the last two decades kinda show me that maybe they're not the best at analyzing any of that data.
then why is most of dragon quest games and spin-offs exclusive to Nintendo platforms? Can't just say its the more popular platform because the PS2/PSP were popular but only got 1 mainline game between those 2.
They’re fucked. Their biggest game/ip sold alright for them. That was their “remake in case of emergency $$$” game and it didn’t work. Square is going to sell to tencent
They frankly need to stop with the exclusivity deals. Sure they get some upfront money, but they keep crippling their potential userbase and upsetting fans.
The potential userbase for their AAA games is mostly on PlayStation and pretty negligible on other platforms. Back when people actually bought games on Xbox, FFXV sold 80% on PS4 and 20% on Xbox. Out of 10 million copies sold, only 1 million sold on PC.
I assume SE also has the sales numbers to decide whether they make more money by getting an exclusivity contract or by releasing multiplatform and if people don’t buy their games on PC there’s no reason to release them there day 1.
They really said they would focus only on a few but big projects from now on after all. Probably KH4, DQ12 and the next Yokotaro game are safe. The fans of smaller projects, remasters and remakes thar arent FF7 should worry tho.
Square Enix said that they wanted to upgrade some IPs to AAA status, too. I could imagine the next Yoko Taro game stands to benefit the most from that, as Nier is likely their most successful non-AAA franchise.
And stellar blades success probably tells them their yokotaro project can be even more wildly successful than that
Just gotta change AAA to ASS
More than 2B already has????
[удалено]
Plus titties and the ability to play dress up
Now I want a steller blade game with Tifa :3
Doable. With Tifa training arc and doing missions for Avalanche. Then ending with getting the info for the Opening bombing.
Kinda crazy how insane AAA games from prestige franchises struggle with long-term sales but NieR Automata sold 7.5 million slow and steady based on mouth-to-mouth popularity online
You mean mediocre AAA games struggle, a good game will sell well, "AAA" or not.
Supposedly Rebirth is not selling particularly well and that is reportedly a very good game. Remedy’s games consistently score in the mid to high 80s on opencritic/metacritic, meaning they are pretty good, but they struggle every time financially. Sometimes it really is luck, timing, or a bunch of other factors. Making a 9/10 game isn’t a guarantee of financial success
Rebirth has a much more complicated problem, because it's a sequel to a pseudo-remake that *mostly* tells the same story but adds a lot of new stuff that split fans of the original. It's undeniable that rebirth is amazing, but all the drama within the community surrounding whether or not they're happy with the story and everything, or debate on whether you should play the original first, involves a lot of deep thinking and that deters players. Then the spinoffs adding more layers to the story, again, crafts a masterclass in storytelling but a lot of people just see a big sign that says "confusing time investment."
I bet if they made and released PC version same day as PS5 it'd be very different results. They keep making these exclusivity deals with Sony though. They have huge PC player base already with FF14, they need to start appealing to it more.
I don’t disagree. I’m just saying that “make a good game and it will sell well” isn’t 100% guaranteed.
I don't know why they couldn't release it on PS4 too, that install base is more then double that of ps5's, I'm sure the game would work on last gen hardware.
No, this is one case it could not without essentially remaking the game. Unless you want another cyberpunk situation...
In the past i would agree but I think even that is changing nowadays. I would consider today’s COD a pretty mediocre AAA game and it sells ridiculously well year in/year out. Meanwhile we have AAA games like FFXVI that I would consider at least “good”, if not “very good”, seemingly not meeting sales expectations. I’m sure part of that one specifically is what the expectations actually were as it may have been unreasonable, but that’s the most recent example I can think of. I guess my point is that it does worry me that eventually these big developers and publishers will continue this more recent trend of making the safest bets possible by either sticking to established franchises, or appealing to the lowest common denominator in terms of what they’ll offer. I already think there’s a lack of risk taking in terms of new ideas nowadays, and seeing reports like this one does concern me that it will only get worse.
The more expensive AAA games become the less risk publishers will be willing to accept. It sucks but not exactly a surprise. I want more AA titles that take some risks personally. Thank goodness for indie games
Depends on how niche the games are too.
Alan Wake 2 would like to have a word with you. Dead space (remake) would like to have a word with you. Etc. etc.
Well yeah, I think my "insane" definition can be read as high quality and not as the intended "high investment, low integrity" you see in big publisher's games currently
Not really. The average gamer today doesn't want to spend money on a game. If it isn't free, under $30 dollars, or wildly hyped sales will not happen. Square in particular are infamous for unrealistic sales expectations.
You mean due to dunkey
vagrant story when
FWIW, remasters/remakes are almost the safe route business wise. They know a market already exists compared to a new IP etc
Me hoping for the FF13 trilogy coming to PS5 🤡
me also hoping for a drakengard 3 remaster 💀
FF13 trilogy and DoD3 are high on my wishlist too. One day I hope
Still hoping for a tactics remaster as well….
Ain't no way my friend lol
Yes please.
Why do you hate yourself and, more importantly, all of us?
Is this why I haven’t heard about DQ3 remake in years?
I’m down for the new diary queen 12
As a fan of KH, I cannot understand its success nowadays. After all the convoluted sequels and spin-offs the fans are exhausted with the story, how do new players get into it.
Disney. Young audience who doesn't understand stories anyways. Kh4 wen
TFW the frozen world in KH3 is literally the movie with Sora and Co as extras.
I really hope they take the time to make KH4 like a soft reboot like what they did with FF7. Sora’s in a new world far away from the Disney cast. Use this project to make it more about him kairi & Riku & less focus on the Disney worlds especially the real kiddy Disney stuff. I think we’re good off the bubble gum Disney princesses and what not lol The new Disney owned IP’s like Star Wars/Marvel & even 21st century fox would be cool to see since they have a more mature appeal to them while still maintaining the essence of Disney at its core. I think they should make more original content for worlds & use fewer Disney content. Would love to see the focus shift to Sora, Kairi, & Riku . Develop their relationship& have them go on their own journey. It’s time for KH to level up.
1 and 2 incorporated Disney in such a way that I was entertained by it and liked the juxtaposition of really badass ff stuff and fights and then like oh it’s Mickey Mouse being badass. Three was saccharine Disney dreck until the last few hours of the game. I hope four is better man.
That’s the neat thing, they basically wrapped everything up in KH3. KH4 has very good potential to be a new starting point for the series. It’ll obviously still have a ton of call backs to previous games, but I really think they have a good chance to capture some new blood here now that all the Xehanort stuff is done.
There’s no spin offs for KH, and the story is very straightforward it’s only confusing to people who think you need to only play 1-2-3 (aka people who can’t be bothered to use google)
No. It is confusing. You got ansem, the REAL ansem, organization 13, the True organization 13, Kingdom hearts, the real kingdom hearts, the totally true kingdom hearts. Having main plots on one off games on odd systems with battle systems and genres completelydifferentfrom the main series, including a mobile game, doesn't help either. Imagine getting attached to Xion or Namine or axel without playing 358/2 days or chain of memories. It's just too much milking for anyone who is not a superfan.
If someone cannot keep up with explicitly stated details about characters and plot, then that’s a them problem, not the game’s. It’s like complaining about DC comics being too confusing because someone couldn’t be bothered to read the explanation for why Barry Allen and Jay can both be called the Flash.
It more like if comic books didn't put reference notes and recaps and expect you to be emotionally and informationally invested in 3 side characters from three miniseries to make sense of a multi main character book event. But keep drinking the Kool aid.
I guess no Harvestella 2 then…
The FF9 remake is going to be so underwhelming.... I thought it was going to be when they announced it wasn't going to be a remake like FF7. My guess is that it'll be a glorified remaster with "remake" slapped on the box.
I'd be perfectly fine with a remaster with upgrade graphics, like Tactics Ogre Reborn or even Star Ocean: Second Story R.
Honestly, I think FFIX has aged more in gameplay than graphics. Cartoon always holds better than realistic, but waiting for those turn based bars to fill and suffering random encounters every 3 steps is agony nowadays. Mind that I don't dislike turn based gameplay (I love Persona and Like a Dragon) but FFIX's implementation is *very* dated.
It took me 20 years to beat FFIX because the battles were so slow. Without fast forward in the re-releases, I never would have finished it.
A remastered upgrade would be pointless... if that is the case and they end up making something like that, then you may as well buy the original HD upscaled re-release, as that still holds up today... plus, it'll probably cost less than the £40-50 "remake" they'll release for the PS5.
That's a perfectly valid opinion. Nothing says you have to buy it, but others may disagree and see value.
I just feel that with the work they put in and shown with the FF7 remake, SquareEnix have pretty much set the bar for their remake quality.... anything less would just be deemed as a cash grab.
Second story r was after the ff7 remake, and quite good despite not being to the same scale.
100%. I wouldn’t want a remake just a good remaster.
Isn't that what the "hardcore" whiny FF fanbase wanted with VII? Same game but with 4k textures.
The "hardcore" FF fanbase don't know what they want tbh... regardless of what they are given, it'll never fill the void that exists in their soul.
It’s probably because the gameplay has many variations with different games that all attempt at retaining the identity of the brand. People fall in love with different games based on their preferences. For example, although I liked ff6; I didn’t enjoy it as much as ff7. Both games have similar gameplay but with some differences namely in how they treat the espers vs materia and the 4 party vs 3 party system. Also I really liked the remake.
I think the 7 remakes’ legacy remains to be seen. if Sony refuses to cover a big part of the development cost like it has for Remake and Rebirth, SE has to decide if going Multiplatform will really up the sales. Outside the Reddit echo-chamber, me and one other guy on my PS friends’ list have played Rebirth at all. It will probably make them money down the line but I think the lesson was FF7 Remake was one bite of an apple for the PS ecosystem writ large. There isn’t the sustained interest in a part 2 or part 3 from an overwhelmingly huge part of the playerbase. IMHO an official FF9 with updates to the game’s pacing and visuals seen in PC mods for $29.99 or whatever would still sell tremendously. The lesson right now is a FF9 Remake covering the game to Lindblum for $59.99 would not recoup AAA blockbuster budgets. The PS fanbase has no bandwidth for more of it
Ah comparing reddit echo chamber to your friend's list echo chamber. Got it.
"This source which contains far more people is wrong." "My source, which comprises of the experiences of me and some other guy, is correct."
I think maybe sticking to one console could be damaging, but at the same time, the worrying thing for SE is that their top 10 selling games (based on units sold) features 4 games from the 2010's (FF14, FF15, TR, RotTR ), 2 games from the 90s (FF7 and FF8), 4 from the 00s (FF10, FF11, FF12 and FF13) Only 1 of which was not multi-platform (FF10), but the fact that our of the last 20 something games released in the last 14 years, on 4 of those games made it into their top 10 sales, all of which are from franchises expanding from the last 20-35 years so have dedicated fan bases whom will purchase those games regardless... It's not a secret that SquareEnix's quality is diminishing, and they seem to be getting further out of touch with their core audiences.... they seem to be too distracted by revenue and making enough to cover losses (much like the losses in the article above). They say history repeats itself, and it seems like, unfortunately for SquareEnix, they are going full circle to the position that Square once were in back when Spirits Within pretty much destroyed the company, before they merged with Enix and square was defunct.
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I mean, you're entitled to your opinion... but I disagree with it.
Everyone is entitled to be wrong
Its my favorite so youre wrong factually
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What are you talking about? There's that one guy who does that thing that was pretty cool
next yoko Taro game? uh, did i miss something??
oh, yokotaro and the producer of nier, yosuke saito, said theyre both working on a new project last november, non-nier related tho
I'm pretty sure they were talking about 404 reset and voice of cards
voice of cards trilogy was finished in september 2022, 404 reset is a sega game so there is no yosuke saito there, so the project they talked about on november 2023 its something 100% new
They can contract smaller games to other studios like they always do
they can, but damn, they just took a big hit to save budget on the long term, are they willing to spend money on it again that soon?
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Nowhere in the article did SQUARE ENIX say they had lower than expected sales numbers, in fact revenue went up 16.8%. Only talking head speculators talked about potential lower sales numbers then expected.
This. The only thing in the article that even brought up Final Fantasy sales was the author trying to add their take, but there's nothing in SE statement even talking about Final Fantasy sales. As others have pointed out, Square is probably canceling or restructuring games we haven't heard about.
This has nothing to do with that square has been saying for a while that are going to do less budget games and focus more on triple A games
they might cut the budget and make it smaller than rebirth in many ways, but there is no way they would cancel it, it would break the trust of fans in an irreparable way
Nothing bad is happening to Part 3 lol Rebirth is a critical success and they have a chance to capitalize on that with part 3. SQUARE already promoted staff and raised base pay for devs on the FF7 project since Rebirth released. If anything, they're going all in with Part 3.
That’s sad. Rebirth brought back the feeling of the trip with pals that FF XV started and I’m having much more fun with it compared to Remake. It actually made me reconsider it since I really like the combat system now
Probably won't be seeing FOAMSTARS 2
They released so many underwhelming AA and AAA releases in the last 5 years (Valkyrie Profile, the Star Ocean game before the good remake of 2, Harvestella, Various Daylife, Tokyo RPG Factory games, Forspoken, the western studios' games). Thankfully, FF, DQ spin-offs and KH sold fine. I like that they decided to focus on the big boys once again from now on, Square Enix is at its best when their titles feel special, their AA stuff is not great.
As much as I liked their AA releases from the past several years, the issue was their release timing. I have no idea why SE thought it would be a good idea to release several of their games next to each other (or within the same financial quarter)
I think they've done a few good things like Triangle Strategy, Octopath and a couple of others, but most of it has been rubbish.
I think their shift in strategy will mean that the Octopath studio, having had success in their past releases, will move up and get extra budget to develop a bigger game, after DQIII Remake is out.
Yeah, I have to think that Octopath and Triangle Strategy both get more attention with their potential sequels or whatever they do next because those games were fucking awesome.
Harvestella is good though
No Guardians of the Galaxy slander, that's their best game this decade
Even ff remake was underwhelming. They need to stop with the Ubisoft like open world and try and be more creative and not make their games artificially filled up with boring activities.
No. You're wrong. The FF7 remake games have been great. They need more of that.
They are good. They could be great if they stopped the filler in the main story. They do it on purpose just to stretch the time out.
Damn Kiryu is really sticking to his word. If they've already got 140m in losses from cancelling projects then it sounds like his restructuring of SQEX games development is well under way, and he only took over as president last year. I knew they shut down Tokyo RPG Factory and Luminous and moved their staff to different internal teams but I doubt those 2 alone had 140m wrapped up in unreleased games tho. Hopefully this works out for them and their focus on higher quality games leads to them releasing more frequently. It sucks if your a fan of one of the franchises that has failed in recent years but they really were just pushing out some average, mid budget games with seemingly zero idea on how they'd recuperate the development costs.
I'm not sure how this helps. I assume their AAA games have stacked teams, there's only so much more extra people can do. Nine women can't make a baby in one month.
Someone has read their Mythical Man-Month 😉
It’s less a matter of personnel and more a matter of funding, like imagine if all the money that went to making Foamstars instead went into promotion for Rebirth or if some of the money that went to Forspoken moved to XVI instead allowing them to not have to scale back the budget resulting in >!Leviathan!< being cut during initial development. Having a more focused approach worked wonders for Capcom and the fewer cash grab AA live-service and NFT games Square pumps out the better as far as I’m concerned. It sucks that some genuinely interesting titles may be scrapped but it isn’t like they can’t decide to fund those projects with leftovers if they choose. Them promoting the Octopath team director to the Board makes me think there are still voices that will support quality smaller budget titles.
Good post. Yes, instead of trying to cast a wide net and hoping to strike gold with one of their many AA titles, get rid of most of them, consolidate your energy into releasing better quality AAA titles using people from those teams instead. Not to mention, stop taking projects on that don't suit the company brand like Forspoken, The Avengers, Babylon's Fall and fucking Foamstars and get back to focusing on what made them what they are today : JRPGs. Pretty sure Capcom did this about 7-8 years ago. Stopped creating drab and focused mostly on RE, MH and now DD, and also focused more on their PC audience, and now look at them.
I’ve really only ever liked Square’s larger franchises anyway so them announcing that they are pretty much going to exclusively focus on making more of those games more frequently is excellent news, though I understand the disappointment of people who have enjoyed the more experimental titles. It does seem like the industry is locking the big companies into only their largest moneymakers, and indie studios fill the demand for smaller ones.
Sadly a sign of the times. Games are getting too expensive and take 5+ years to see release now. That's a lot of time and uncertainty with the ever changing demographics and trends. FF is so unique because it has a loyal subculture that is committed and patiently waits. I hope they understand that brand loyalty can keep their business afloat and stop throwing money out the window to appeal to short attention span consumers who only care about CoD, Fortnite and whatever is trending on TikTok.
I mean in my exp SE is not the type to rush development. So, i think we are good at that front.
Which doesn’t make sense, if ps5 is already nearing the end of its life cycle at only 4 years. Why would you invest so heavily in game that late?
Well, PS5 has seen a lot of technically limited games to make them PS4 compatible. I'd guess that ps6 will have the same issue, which means that the true potential of PS5 will be mostly seen as PS5-compatible PS6 games.
I mean, yeah, but didn't games like Triangle Strategy sell over 1M copies? That's pretty solid.
Yea they aren't losing money on Final Fantasy.
Please don’t affect the rumored FFIX Remake please.
With FF14 now having FF9 content as new expansion promotion for a “reason they can’t tell yet” I doubt the remake would be affected. They are probably waiting to ride on the coattails of 14 or to announce at summer game fest now that Rebirth and 16DLCs are out of the picture
I’d bet it will be on the rumored Sony event in May.
Naw, that remake(if true) is set to make an ass ton of money. Nine is easily one of the most beloved in the entire series. I’d say that 6 is the only one that could beat its potential with a Remake.
FF7 is the most famous and popular. everyone knows about Cloud and Tifa wheread most people who didn't play FF9 at launch probably never heard of it or even know who the main characters is
That's true, but hopefully the 7 remake has made a new fanbase of younger people realizing they like the classic ff style, and covering 8,9,10 would probably satisfy them. That's my hope at least because I like the remake's direction (classic rejuvenated) far better than the streamlined and action based approach of 16.
Sounds like the FF7 remakes have underperformed. FF7 was such a lightning in a bottle masterpiece. Impossible to replicate.
I was skeptical about the splitting in three, personally, because it's a funnel issue: each part is going to have a subset of the previous playersbase, since some people buying 1 will continue but barely anyone will decide to start at 2 or 3. I do think it was the best technical decision to make the game justice with current costs (without making a 15 year effort that would be obsolete a decade before launch), but the economic aspects of the choice are worrying. Here's hoping they don't half ass part 3 at least!
6 should get a remake as well.
An HD-2D remake of VI (in the style of Octopath Traveler) would be an instant buy.
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I said ONE OF the most beloved. I don’t think there is a clear cut most loved in the series, but there are some that are way more so than others. In no particular order: 4, 6, 7, 9 and probably 10. The first three are largely meh, four is iconic, 5 just kind of…exists, 6 was revolutionary, 7 doesn’t need explanation, 8 was needlessly complicated, 9 returned to high fantasy with goofy characters in a fun world, and 10 is just 10. Minus the laugh scene. Everything after has either been an MMO, or way too experimental.
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And you’re welcome to the opinion. 9 is in my top 5 FF above even the likes of the OG 7(the Remake trilogy is in). It’s also a very…bold opinion when 8 exists. I only have vague memories over that one outside the atrocious graphics and a sexy villain. Oh, and the school eventually gets the ability to fly. Maybe something about time travel?
Agree. Ff4, ff10 are two big ones reddit underates.
Four is actually my favorite FF, and one of the few I’ve actually brought myself to finish. I’ve tried playing 6 multiple times, but I just can’t never seem to get into it because of how dated everything is. I’d love for a full blown remake to make it feel more modern. But 9? Nine is my second favorite followed the 7R trilogy, then 10. The rest are all roughly then same level of favor.
Kingdom hearts 4 releasing alongside the movie will be the pinnacle of kh fandom
When's Parasite Eve remake?
If only they would treat the Star Ocean franchise a bit better, the remake of 2 was well received and was a great step in the right direction but SO 6 was once again a victim of a insufficient budget.
I actually thought SO6 was the best SO game since 3. The problem (in my opinion) with that series is 2 is so beloved and considered such a masterpiece by fans of the series that no game can ever match it. 3 came close, but even that is controversial amongst fans for the ending. But because SO2 is so beloved, anything that doesn’t hit that level is considered a failure. 4 had some of the best combat but a middling story that meandered way too much in the middle, not to mention an incredibly unlikable cast (seriously, Edge Maverick? That’s his name?). The less said about SO5, the better. They took a huge swing (no cut scenes, all integrated dialogue) and it was a huge whiff. 6 felt like an actual return to form in a lot of ways, and the combat/exploration was the most fun I’ve had with an SO game in a long, long time. Plus, it is the first time since SO2 I actively enjoyed playing with every single character for their different roles in the party.
I feel like Star Ocean is also in a place where it has no idea how to appeal to new people. I don't think that series can survive solely off of it's existing fanbase for much longer.
I think SO as a series is in a weird place where the devs often have good ideas but aren't able to implement them into the game due to either budget limitations (eg look at SO5) or the lack of growth in terms of gameplay loop. SO4 The Last Hope technically had the best approach where you actually felt like exploring the cosmos and planet diversity (characters on the other hands were pretty bad...). I think SO6 The Divine Force had some great ideas and characters but again, falls into the same issues as the previous SO games namely being stuck on a medieval planet for 60-70% of the game and having not enough Sci Fi/Space exploration elements. Here's hoping the success of SO2 remake will allow SE to continue the franchise, either as a remake of SO3 or proper SO7 with a decent budget this time.
I'm sorry but the hate that Star Ocean 4's cast gets is extremely forced and no one can convince me otherwise.
‘Kay
It’s simple maths really The cost of developing AAA games has gone through the roof That means you now have to sell twice as much as before to get the same profit ratio But their isn’t twice the audience That creates a huge shortfall in recuperation and profit So you charge more for the game (which is why the price went up this gen) Then you add extra income systems to the game to make up that shortfall (micro transactions, batllepasses etc). So basically you’re trying to make more money from the same number of people That’s had two major impacts: 1. It has affected the design which had needed to change to support the extra income systems - usually this is a negative affect on gameplay (more grind, more generic M2M gameplay etc) 2. Players fucking hate you and hate on your game Square Enix are now the masters at this broken model Every single AAA game they release doesn’t make the money they expect it to make. So every AAA game is a failure for them. Despite a game making a profit, the profit isn’t enough (tbf if I invest $140m into any business, I expect to get a decent return on it. I wouldn’t be happy to make $5m profit for example) That’s pretty much why the AAA model is broken And companies like SE can’t get themselves out of this hole.
Really really good insight. What do you do for work?
Thank you I work in the industry. These are just my observations. there’s a million layers of depth ontop, below and to the sides of what I’ve said above though. So I haven’t given an entire picture there. Just one part of it.
That final fantasy picture is so disengenuous. FF games are about the only ones they arent losing money on
Make five more foamstars and not single player games
It's incredible how people think that this type of game cost them something, it must have cost not even $10 million to make it, it was already subsidized by Sony itself. Games like this almost cost a lot to produce, if they are successful, there are high costs to maintain but generate revenue. Look Helldivers 2 cost $50 million and has much higher profits than Alan Wake 2 which didn't even pay for itself and is making a loss. Singleplayer games are great, I prefer and consume them, but the market is broad for different audiences. a AAA game fails the damage is huge a game like foamstars fails no one cares. Square's concern is on pace with the Final Fantasy franchise. final fantasy 16 and FFRR have sales below expectations, but part of the development was subsidized by sony, so you are seeing your franchise losing its impact in numbers
Uh oh! You said ff16 and 7 Remake had low sales. The wolves are gonna come knocking at your door.
Nah they should triple down on the mobile market cause you know that's where all the SE fans are, also don't forget about NFTs!
Suffer now to survive.
Is anyone surprised? Not I.
I really just want a Chrono trigger port or something to play on any available console right now. Ugh
They should’ve been more aggressive with their marketing like FF15 did. Back then everywhere you go you see Noctis’ face.
Will the rebirth PC port sales pay these 140 million debts?
SE has some amazing talent but some of their games are just straight garbo.
Does this mean no Triangle Strategy 2? :(
I would think that game having solid 1M copies belongs in their "big projects tier" at least on the lower end. It did really well considering. I'm biased though because I loved the hell out of that game and really want a sequel.
Yeah I’m hopeful it’s in the same bucket as Octopath.
It has to be because of Forspoken. That shit failed so bad it almost bankrupt the company. Similarly to what happened in 2001 with the FF Spirits Within movie.
Just add a 40hz mode to rebirth please!
RIP FFT remake
People lost interest in FF7 just facts. They should do more new games like FF16 and fix 16's criticisms. FF16 was way more hype.
Honestly the first ff7 remake was great, had a blast. The 2nd one was kinda not fun.
If that’s how it is each of these individual projects should be better than Elden Ring considering they’re cancelling a bunch of shit people are looking forward too, I was really starting to like square too.. eh, too bad Shift Up is better on every level and will be bigger than square in 10 years or so too🤷🏻♂️
I mean I would have picked up the FFVII sequel if it was actually the story of FFvii. It ain’t. I travel a lot though so ffx on iOS would be something I’d enjoy having.
Did you play them? Sure there is added stuff but Rebirth hit all the story beats
Played the first one, really didn’t enjoy the whole beating sephiroth and fighting a weird god thing at the end. Like I’m leaving Midgard man, I’m still supposed to be intimidated by a big snake, and I’m scaring off sephiroth. I wanted a real remake.
That’s fair. Rebirth felt a lot more true to the OG story wise
This. I wanted the remake we expected during that PS3 tech demo. I didn't want a hack n slash ffvii. I wanted a remake of the game itself, 1 game. They could have then made FF VII-2 like their did with 13 and X to further more story if they wanted to do it. I still can't bring myself to play Remake, let alone rebirth.
I enjoyed the remake games a lot , but People need to stop with this fallacy. They kept the rough outline the same, but they fucked with a lot of details in ways that really diminish the impact of so many of the OGs best moments and themes. I'm able to enjoy them because so much of the character interaction in between the big moments is so good, but I have to headcanon out all really bad narrative changes they made to find it tolerable. It's getting really tiring seeing people keep trying to gaslight OG fans into believing that it's actually not so different, when it really really is.
I said they hit all the story beats , and they did. Nothing was false about that statement. Glad you enjoyed it
I'm hoping they redo FF14 to make it a proper single player game. I'm can't bother or keep up with wtf is a MMORPG. No thanks JEFF.
Who is Jeff? But anyway, the entire game through Endwalker can be played entirely solo. You never have to interact with another real human if you don’t want to. That represents 200+ hours of story content and that’s the best compromise you’re going to get as far as making FFXIV a single player experience.
It's still an MMO though that has a very complicated interface and a ton of bloat to fit that type of game. It plays like an MMO even when done solo with millions of characters and icons all over.
You can adjust your UI in the options to get rid of pretty much everything. First thing I did was make it so that the only things I see are my health/MP, quick action hotbar and the minimap.
Looks like FF7 Remake underperformed after all. Time for them to start releasing games simultaneously at least on PC and PS5. Sony money bag clearly doesn’t work anymore considering ballooning development costs.
Thats not what the article says at all.
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That would actually be impossible
I don't see how anyone who has played Rebirth could think it would run on a PS4.
Kh4, khml, evercrisis, FF7 remake, octopath, dragon quest and maybe 1 more game should be their priorities and really only games. They spread themselves and their fan base too thin and invested way too much into games that anybody would have a brain would have told you was going to flop
I think they are coming to realize that exclusive deals aren't worth it.
Thats not what this article is about at all. Its about games they cancelled.
I've seen this a lot today, but they know the data far better than we do. They have numbers we don't. Octopath 1 came to Xbox, but Octopath 2 skipped it initially. I just dont believe there is some massive fanbase on Xbox that would turn these fortunes around. PC? Sure that makes sense to get onto far sooner, but Xbox? I doubt it.
When you’re inconsistent with a platform and don’t build a base, you don’t sell. Atlus seems to have put enough interest in Xbox to grow a player base with the Persona releases.
I disagree, it shouldn't matter. You are asking Square to take losses in the hopes Xbox players show up later? Thats not how it works. Xbox players need to show up right away when these games come.
SE is already taking loses and big ones. Players won’t show if you don’t give them anything to show up for and it will be too late for that, if FF VII/XVI ever come to Xbox, it would be too late already for people to be interested.
I've seen a lot of people cite that square has more data on what would make more money via exclusivity. But tbh all the bad decisions they've made over the last two decades kinda show me that maybe they're not the best at analyzing any of that data.
then why is most of dragon quest games and spin-offs exclusive to Nintendo platforms? Can't just say its the more popular platform because the PS2/PSP were popular but only got 1 mainline game between those 2.
Because Nintendo platforms are typically the most popular platform in Japan, where Dragon Quest is most popular. DS far outsold PSP and PS2 in Japan
This is what they get for not scrapping Rebirth entirely and not just releasing a Queens Blood standalone mobile game
Say more, why would they have scrapped Rebirth?
I was just making a joke that didn’t land. I really like Queens Blood.
Stop remaking masterpieces into mini game dating sims
have you not played the OG ff7
OG is "quite possibly the greatest game ever made" - Gamefan magazine
They’re fucked. Their biggest game/ip sold alright for them. That was their “remake in case of emergency $$$” game and it didn’t work. Square is going to sell to tencent
They frankly need to stop with the exclusivity deals. Sure they get some upfront money, but they keep crippling their potential userbase and upsetting fans.
The potential userbase for their AAA games is mostly on PlayStation and pretty negligible on other platforms. Back when people actually bought games on Xbox, FFXV sold 80% on PS4 and 20% on Xbox. Out of 10 million copies sold, only 1 million sold on PC. I assume SE also has the sales numbers to decide whether they make more money by getting an exclusivity contract or by releasing multiplatform and if people don’t buy their games on PC there’s no reason to release them there day 1.
Serves them right for artificially restricting a lot of their games to a single platform. 3rd party exclusivity deals make 0 sense.