Square Enix Facing Big Losses For 2010

eldavojohn writes "It's no secret that Final Fantasy XIV took a lot of heat early on, which required extensive damage control. And the Japanese tsunami (which appears to have added $7.5 million to their losses) certainly didn't help. But if what early investor reports are saying is true, then Square Enix is expected to report $148 million in losses for the closing fiscal year. Expect title cancellations (which might add to the hurt) and a very painful realization for the owner of Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior (PDF). Perhaps a move to re-releasing classics will prove more fruitful than high development cost MMORPGs?"

Re-release classics?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not...uh...find out what made the classics classic and do a bit more of that?

You know, games with interesting, non-whiney characters, non-linear story with some exploration in gameplay, music that is better tailored to each scene so it doesn't sound like they just put a track in to fill the silence.

Sad state of affairs for a once great company

[mjhacker]

How could a company that consistently produced quality entertainment for nearly two decades be reduced to a mere shadow of its former self? What happened? As probably one of the few people on /. that actually loved FFXI, I have to say, FFXIV was a complete waste of time. FFXI was fun, but it didn't age well, and there were a lot of things that SE could have learned from and done better. Instead of learning from their mistakes, they ended up making a less fun, more frustrating version of FFXI, and thought that making it pretty would solve everything. Well, it didn't, and now they're paying the price for it. SE needs to go back to the mindset that they had when they were just Square. They need to stop cranking out duds every 3 months. We need games that are on the caliber of FFVI, Chrono Trigger, and Xenogears. Otherwise, the world will simply stop caring about them... that is, if we haven't stopped caring already.

Sod Final Fantasy

[L4t3r4lu5]

If Deus Ex: Human Revolution is done right, they'll be well into the black again.

August 11th, folks. Diaries should be marked.

Everything they make sucks

[Andtalath]

It's really that simple, squeenix has lost all manner of quality.
They just make ugly designs, annoying musc, 100% grindy gameplay and stories which grow less and less cool.

The main problem is that japans gaming culture and western gaming culture has grown more and more widely apart.

This really hurts their market.

Re:Re-release classics?

[Aladrin]

It's even simpler than that. STOP spending so much money on the parts of the game that people don't really care about!

Sure, FF13 is beautiful, but the gamers would rather have had a better plot and characters. They'd rather have had open exploration, instead of that railroad. They'd rather have had real weapon customization instead of that linear just-keep-adding-things crap with no choices. Even the job system didn't have any real choices.

Gamers don't want a movie. They want an interactive experience.

Absolutely..

[Junta]

Looking back, FFVII remains one of my favorite experiences. I tried to think more carefully about why on a recent replay.

The top thing had to be the music. It was just fantastic. Maybe I just like chiptunes, but even as late as FFX, it seemed like they had some notable 'background' tracks. Now it seems like they are all generic toned down orchestral pieces that aren't noticable at all and just barely tweak to fit the mood. Except for when they make some pop song to prop up somewhere in the middle of the game...

The open ended nature of exploration absolutely was up there. There are a lot of games that continue to get this part at least. One of the big moments when playing FFVII for the first time was leavinig midgar. Up until that point, I thought it was going to be a game like FFX or later turned out to be. Then when the world map presented itself, the contrast did a lot (for me) toward making midgar feel more like a cramped place with little control of your destiny relative to the larger world.

Another thing was how the story panned out. The general theme was certainly not new, but the details were so convoluted, I liked it. Of course, I like Crono Trigger and there was nothing partiuclarly complex about the story at all.

Finally, I think the lack of definition and no voice actors helped. I fill in the details with whatever I like. Crisis Core tought me I really won't like the voice actors if I get to make up my mind about how they should sound ahead of time.

The worst thing was the translation.