Any Square fan (and some people who aren't fans) have had plenty to say lately about their new strategy of flooding the market with spinoffs and new concepts alike, feeling as if the company is taking a dramatically different turn from the calm focus they seemed to possess before merging with Enix.
Sqaure president Yoichi Wada commented to Reuters recently that the company needed "to go beyond traditional Square-Enix", and recent numbers have shed some light on the reason why. Per Gamespot:
Sales dropped 9.8 percent on the year to ¥147.5 billion ($1.4 billion)--a sharp contrast to last year's 31.3 percent gains, which grew revenue to ¥163.4 billion ($1.6 billion). While the publisher was able to curtail a precipitous slump in net income from a year ago, Square Enix still posted net income down 20.9 percent to ¥9.2 billion ($89 million).
The hardest hit was in overseas markets which, ironically, completely opposes Wada's comments about wanting to make 80 percent of the company sales about their overseas presence. What's the strategy then, with goals fallen so far by the wayside? Square says they will focus strongly on research and development, with a special eye on "advanced information technologies". Hmm .. more cell phone games? Let's hope not.
Personally, this is no big shock to me -- the beloved Squaresoft of my youth is not the same company today. Change is fine, but I've felt uneasy about the dissolution of focus the company has seemed to suffer in the past few years. It makes me wonder if they might pull out that Final Fantasy VII remake just to compensate, which in my opinion would be the worst timing possible. Let's hope the waves caused by these losses force the RPG kings to consider some new approaches.
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Square remakes EVERYTHING, and seeing how solid FF7 was in the first place (with quite a few annoying technical issues that could be easily fixed in a remake), I'd be willing to give it another go.
I'm not sure how long something like this would take and since I doubt it's been started, it seems unlikely that it would be out within the next fiscal year.
I guess they could just shovel out some crap though. It's not like people won't buy it!
The World Ends With You was a strong step in the right direction since it was so experimental in terms of both gameplay and presentation. I hope they start experimenting more.
Maybe they should focus on a new IP? there has got to be something in their pipeline.
By the way, Colette, I saw you on Hard News and Meow!
Maybe they should just say "fuck it" and buy Atlus and Level 5. They're doing more interesting work in the RPG space anyways.
If I understand you right, Collette, the new approach seems to be tossing out tons of quickies (be they remakes or original, though modestly funded/marketed, games). This does not seem to be panning out financially, but it seems to promote more diversity and maybe even evolution than the monolithic releases they were once known for--is that what you would prefer to see return?
While the likes of Driving Emotion Type S (an attempt at a GT style driving game) bombed, others games were a bit more successful. Perhaps Square were hurt by such experiments, as that was quite early in their PS1s lifespan. Correct if wrong.
Since then its been an rpg rollercoaster. However, I for one am glad to see it slowing down and changing for the better. I've been getting quite ill on so much FF, that I feel dizzy and look above my head to see status numbers, all the time.
PSP Dissidia is a good start, though still rpg laced. I'd love to see them outsource Front Mission for a decent action game (after Dirge, Square really need help, in this area).
A.) FF VII's story would have to be seriously reworked it's intended to not be a clusterfuck and/or not be as eye-rolling-inducing as the PS1 game. "Aerith's dead... HAY LETS GO SNOWBOARDING!1" Cross-dressing Cloud wouldn't make it, either.
B.) Repent for the whoring by re-releasing Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and give FF VI the 3D treatment either on DS or a console (seriously, the game was so operatic it screamed for FMVs).
C.) STOP. MAKING. GODDAMNED. CELL PHONE GAMES.
I am done with squares final fantasyathon have been since 20001 when they started going into the double digits,
then started throwing out horrible secret of mana rip offs like dawn of mana that had nothing to do, with there old games and was not even worthy to have the word mana in it..
Oh and there there was the lame ass chrono trigger redo secound game Chrono cross that only good factor that was even close to the Old cchrono trigger was the music done by the same guy. the art sucked the chracters sucked I did not care about any of the pokemon collectathon gotta catch em all characters.
Now all they throw out is remakes of final fantasy and spin of of wait... can you guess? what it's more final fantasy!
over and over again! it's no wonder i have not bought a sqaure game since kingdom heats 2 and that was what 3 years ago? at least those game are so insane idea that it's interesting again.
sqaure doing disney games wow just lilke capcom did awsome duck tales and rescue ranger games on the NES. cant pass that up.
Not going to get anything good for sqaure that often anymore. I'm not buying any of there remakes final fantasy 7 sucked balls i'mnot getting any of there final fantasy 7 wannabe spin off either.
1 sqaure game every 5 years is about my limit now If i buy anymore I will throw up much like getting bad beer and drinking to much of it and it's all in the exact type of bottle.
1) Get out of exclusivity deals: Seriously I bet any amount to anybody this generation will be a virtual 3 way tie. Put ALL your franchises on ALL system ok? None of this "360 undiscovery, PS3 the FF series and Nintendo gets the chronicles and other new franchises". Final Fantasy III should be on all systems that can handle it, Chronicles on all systems, you get the idea.
Its no wonder Squeenix has had a slow start in this generation, they putted all their money on the slowest moving console. And while we are on the subject commit to a timeframe for XIII already, delay those stupid knock off if you most ( or cancel them altogether, knock off only work on proven games not unreleased games that might not do well enough to sustain em ).
2) LOCALIZE: And by localize I mean everything...EVERYTHING. Stop whining about the high costs of localizing, stop patronizing gamers, your main market its geeks and otakus they would actually prefer only subtitles instead of dubbing and other things you use as excuse not to localize on a timely fashion if at all.
2. Stop making so many unnecessary FF games.
3. Make a remake of FF 7, FF 7 = money and more people buying a PS3.
4. Make KH3.
5. Create more varied games instead of the constant stream of Cell Phone games and begin making more better quality JRPGS.
6. Start new franchises on Xbox 360.
7. Is their anime department really that important? If it is then start making stuff for America instead of Japan only.
8. Look into more Chrono Trigger.
9. Finish development on FF 13 and vs 13.
10. Breathe more life into the PSP.
11. Also make more games for the DS.
New Chrono Trigger = INSTANT CASH
Square, pull your head out of your arse and realize that it's the abysmal quality of your titles that's losing you sales. People still love a good RPG with solid play/battle mechanics, an engaging story and characters you care about.
I remember when I dawned on me that Square had changed, it was FFX. Really, WTF was all that about? It was the first ever FF game since the NES days that I didn't complete on one 'go'. I had to put it down for a few months. And everything that was wrong with that game has carried over to all their recent efforts: characters that not only you don't care about, but actually *hate*, story lines so convoluted and 'epic' that you lose interest, and boringly average play mechanics.
Square man, you used to be cool, what happened to you?
PS: Squeenix, make Dragon Quest X for Wii using an optimized Dragon Quest Swords graphics engine and improve on DQ VIII's gameplay engine. kthxbai
Back on topic, SquareEnix needs to stop raping the FFVII franchise until it's dry and just make the remake game already. I'm not even that interested anymore, they're just going to make Cloud more and more girly until he grows a vagina anyway.
They demonstrated they knew the winning formula back when they released the tech demo for the PS3 and gamers everywhere got a collective hard on.
Why they have not enacted upon this, I do not know.
FFVII remake, to be honest that should be left alone as Dirge (poor) and Crisis Core (great) are already based on it, therefore leave it alone. Chrono Trigger should have hit even the GBA years ago, and even on DS still hasn't, that's just lame. I don't know why its so hard for Square to give fans certain requested games, especially those more deserving.
I agree that The World Ends With You is a great game and a good change for Square to go in, but what amazes me about that game is that Square barely did any advertising for the game, in the U.S or Europe. This I don't understand, so its no surprise that sales might be lacking. How can Square expect to succeed by only shouting loudly about FF games and little else? Even the DS FF games got tv ads, but I never saw any for TWEWY. This problem needs fixing fast.
I also agree that while not as tech based, I find myself more excited by Atlus, Nippon Ichi, Vanillaware, Sting, and Mistwalker rpgs more. Odin Sphere and Persona 3 are small funded but exciting and fun experiences. Lost Odyssey staked its own claim against the odds.
I think with the release of MGS4, we'll be seeing the end of these old licenses for a while, which I don't think are as valuable as they once were. FF series also needs a rest with them. This a lesson that Capcoom are learning well, by remixing some of their classics, while also equally creating and promoting new IP. If Square follow Capcom and Sega's idea, they'd do much better.
You know what to do, Square. Translate a game like Itadaki Street, something different and push it out. More Front Mission, Parasite Eve, Vagrant Story, and from the Enix side, more Torneko, Actraiser, Ogre Battle, Robot Alchemic Drive, and don't forget some fresh IP.
I still blame Sakaguchi leaving and Nomura shitting all over everything.
As much as I don't want them to remake VII for the PS3, it would make them money and it would shut a lot of people up. I really want them to give that kind of treatment only to IV and VI and give it a break for a while, but I know overall I'm in the minority.
Make a REAL Chrono Trigger game. Square has merged with Enix, they could probably get Yuji Hori and Akira Toryiama to work on it again. If they're not going to do anything with it, could they sell it to Mistwalker and let Sakaguchi work on it? Please?
Also, I thought the reason why KH3 hasn't been announced yet is because a) the team is working on FFXIII and b) those three portable KH games are coming out (one on PSP, one on DS, and one on cell phone).
Finally if they're gonna make cell phone games, port them to the DS and sell them outside the US. I want my FFIV: the After.
Even the Enix side of the company doesn't seem safe as every damn game from the Enix camp was total crap.
And if they plan to make a spin-off at least put some effort into it, revenant wings was horrid. The FF3 remake was also horrible.
It would also be nice to see some old franchises, why is FF so special? A DS remake or even straight port of Chrono Trigger would sell millions and yet all Square does is sit on the Chrono name and squashes any fan attempts to remake it.
A few years ago, a game with Square on the title was gold, now I see the name Square and avoid it.
Sadly Squeenix will continue to crap all over games I enjoyed in the past, so I'm really not expecting too much from a PS3 FFVII. But I'm still anticipating it, and I will no doubt rent/borrow a PS3 if/when this goes down!
Square has always been mostly shit, and has been shitting all over itself since Day 1.
For every FF3 caliber game, there are a handful of FF Mystic Quests. For every Secret of Mana, a Secret of Evermore waits idly to shit on it.
This has been going on since the NES daze, I guess the only change would be the production values. Butt fuck a JRPG in 2008 anyway.
Made about $600 off 'em all on ebay a few years ago, though ;)
Also, it is incredibly obvious that a remake is coming eventually. Every single game up to FF7 has been ported/remade in some way or another (FF3/4 DS, PS1 enhanced ports etc...).
And where's the Enix part? Where's my (good) Actraiser sequel you bunch of jackasses?