FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
A sad fate for Square and Enix.
For anyone paying attention this shit really all started with FFX-2 and the fan boys who wouldn't let Tidus die.
For anyone paying attention this shit really all started with FFX-2 and the fan boys who wouldn't let Tidus die.
Final Fantasy is a dying brand that's worth less than the Kirby franchise.
Japan sales data for FF games since 2021
FF XVI - 435,582
FF7 Rebirth - 358,353
FF7 Crisis Core Reunion - 262,216
FF Tactic remastered - 93,960
FF Origin - 74,633
Kirby sales data since 2021
Kirby and the forgotten land - 1,265,202
Kirby's return to Dream Land Deluxe - 614,794
Kirby air raiders - 288,618 (3 weeks)
Japan sales data for FF games since 2021
FF XVI - 435,582
FF7 Rebirth - 358,353
FF7 Crisis Core Reunion - 262,216
FF Tactic remastered - 93,960
FF Origin - 74,633
Kirby sales data since 2021
Kirby and the forgotten land - 1,265,202
Kirby's return to Dream Land Deluxe - 614,794
Kirby air raiders - 288,618 (3 weeks)
FalsettoVibe
Member
This. I don't want SE games limited to Nintendo hardware. That would be terrible. Sony is already losing to Nintendo in Japan. Allowing Nintendo to buy SE and lock their games down would damn near be suicide for Sony in Japan. They simply cannot afford that. On the other hand, Nintendo would survive fine without SE games
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FalsettoVibe
Member
Kadokawa has to want to be gobbled up.
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Deerock71
Very Poor Hoice of Wor
Agent_4Seven
Tears of Nintendo
No matter who will buy them, it'll change nothing Square Enix cuz they are stuck in the past when it comes to core design of their games and just don't have the necessary tallent in their studios to create something truly great, memorable and worth playing, well, except maybe Dragon Quest. FFXV was great story-wise (excluding 99% of side quests) and visually, but everything else was crap af.
IFireflyl
Gold Member
Final Fantasy X-2 was released 1 year, 7 months, and 22 days after Final Fantasy X was released. You can't blame fanboys when X-2 had to be underway within just a few months of X releasing. That is an absudly short development time, even considering they had the bones of Spira already.
Also, SquareSoft implied that Tidus lived in the post-credits scene. That's on them, not on fans.
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kazuyamishima
Member
lh032
I cry about Xbox and hate PlayStation.
balls of snow
Member
Some private equity conglomerate will buy them if Square is that dire.
Boss Mog
Member
If a platform holder buys them I would hope it would be Sony. It would suck to have SE games being locked to Nintendo machines. I feel like with Sony there would at least be a chance to have multiplatform releases, for some games anyway.
While Sega would seem like a great choice (it worked well for Atlus), they are currently valued at half of SE, so I don't even see it as plausible.
Probably best if no sale occurs and they instead restructure/refocus and put more competent leadership in place.
While Sega would seem like a great choice (it worked well for Atlus), they are currently valued at half of SE, so I don't even see it as plausible.
Probably best if no sale occurs and they instead restructure/refocus and put more competent leadership in place.
Signalis
Member
Will most likely be a Japanese company buying them. Countries outside of Japan can't just stroll into Japan and buy companies. What most likely will happen (and this happens a lot in Japan), some Japanese companies will come together and buy Square Enix. People have no idea how companies band together to help each other out. In Japan even rival companies will buy shares from each other to protect each other.
But on a less serious note.
Square just shot themselves in the foot.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America can stroll in an buy Square Enix like an asshole. If you screw someone over in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
What this means is the Japanese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase any more copies of Forspoken, nor will they purchase any of Square's games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Square has alienated an entire market with this move.
Square, publicly apologize for being bought by a western or middle-eastern company or chinese company or you can kiss your business goodbye.
But on a less serious note.
Square just shot themselves in the foot.
I don't know how much the rest of you know about Japanese culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is in America can stroll in an buy Square Enix like an asshole. If you screw someone over in Japan, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.
What this means is the Japanese public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to purchase any more copies of Forspoken, nor will they purchase any of Square's games. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Square has alienated an entire market with this move.
Square, publicly apologize for being bought by a western or middle-eastern company or chinese company or you can kiss your business goodbye.
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Fess
Member
I didn't talk about Xbox but my personal take is that there won't be Xbox specific versions much longer. If Xbox becomes a PC with bc for legacy Xbox consoles, which is what's rumored, it's better to just make a PC version and catch Steam and old Xbox users on the same platform. Just make sure that's there day 1 and not late when hype is gone.
Calverz
Member
Partly yes. They said as much.Oh yeah, SE games tanked because they were exclusive.
yurinka
Member
No, he keeps increasing their investment in PS every year, which is almost as much as in the other divisions combined. The difference between the sales and OI bar of each year and division is what they spent on them (not counting investments in external companies or acquisitions):
https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/corporatereport/CorporateReport2025_E.pdf
No, in the fourth Mid-Range Plan (FY2021-FY2023) they made big investments to grow particularly in their three entertainment divisions (which includes gaming).
So in the Fifth Mid-Range Plan (FY2024-FY2026) they expect these investments establish, mature and start getting results before making more important investments focusing on profitability to get cash and also spinning off their financials divisions to get additional cash, to later reinvest that in more acquisitions for their entertainment divisons (particularly in IP, meaning to acquire IPs and teams that produce and work IP), but also to save money because of potential future unpredictable market changes and economy going wild particularly due to US doing weird stuff like banning key markets, doing the tariffs thing etc.
So yes, since they complete paying the previous acquisitions related costs (they're still paying them) and until they resume the acquisitions after they spionff and sell 80% of their finances divisions temporarily they should temporarily have nice profits, which means extra dividends.
The continue growing their installed base and reaching record numbers. But locally they focus their business in their top selling regions (EU and NA), not in Japan or Namibia.
It's worth mentnioning he also bolstered relationships with FromSoft signing with From and Kadokawa two separate long term deals including games, anime, movies etc (plus mobile games to be made by CyGames), NC Soft, Netease, MiHoyo, Koei Tecmo (+ mobile games with them via Akatsuki), Bandai Namco (including to use them to resurrect old low seller Japanese IPs). Plus signed games like Stellar Blade, Death Stranding 2, Marvel Tokon or Physint. Plus created the Japan lead PlayStation Indies and the China Hero Project initiative.
Basically strenghtened their relationship with most top performing actors in Asia they could.
Totoki & Nishino are the ones who made now the big price cut in Japan to try to increase market share at the cost of sacrificing even more short term profit lost in hardware sales. They didn't alienate any partner, they continue having the same, and in fact they now have more partners in Japan and Asia.
No, according to Kadokawa they made a formal acquisition letter. But for now sold them enough to turn them the largest shareholder. Maybe they agreed to don't make the acquisition now, but strategically wait to complete the acquisition after they get the money from selling their financials division.
Here you have their capital allocation, mostly for PlayStation:
Thanks for sharing a proper source, I see now they really got a substantial amount of stocks. My bad, I was wrong.
Sony bought Bungie to boost their first party MP/GaaS side not only with their own games but also supporting the other ones. GaaS now make over 40% of their first party revenue, revenue that is around twice as big as it was before starting the generation.
Destiny 2 didn't perform after the acquisition as well as they estimated, and (not an issue, normal business) Maraton got delayed, but Destiny 2 and Destiny Rising are making a lot of money, particularly when also combined with MLB, Helldivers 2 and GT.
And now they are starting got release the mobile games, plus soonish they'll release more GaaS with potential to provide a good extra chunk of money on top (Marathon and Tokon).
Sony is taking a few years of rest regarding acquisitions to complete pending payments, integrate the companies they bought a few years ago and start getting results from them to later continue making acquisitions.
As budgets keep increasing, the publishers will become more and more multiplatform. Expect all their games going forward to be released on PS, PC and Switch2 (plus in many cases Xbox until it dies), maybe with some timed console exclusive in some very rare case if a platform holder pays particularly well, something that won't be as common as before at all.
I'd say there are more factors, but partly yes: if you release a game in 6 platforms you make more money than releasing it in 1 platform.
As happened with Mojang, Zenimax, ABK or Bungie, if Sony would buy Square Enix very likely they'd keep them fully multiplatform but would block any Nintendo or Xbox console exclusivity and any 'day one in GP' deal or GP preference over PS+, and any bundle, beta marketing deal with Nintendo or MS. Sony would get all the marketing deals, exclusive betas/demos/bundles when available plus priority for PS+ regarding gamesubs. And maybe from time to time some timed console exclusive.
Square Enix would get benefited from getting more budget, more and better marketing support getting the 1st party treatment plus more importantly competent management that would make better usage of their resources, plus other synergies like movie/anime/tv show adaptations, some collab with some popular music artists when there's fit, support to better distribute existing movies/anime/etc. via crunchyroll and similar etc.
Plus in gaming also having the perks of first party games: Sony's internal support teams, localization, motion capture, Q&A, PR, legal etc. Square Enix could cut a big chunk from there helping to cut the fat regarding costs while now having these things in more capable hands.
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Forspoken(Console exclusive)Oh yeah, SE games tanked because they were exclusive.
Final Fantasy XVI(Time exclusive)
Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth(Time exclusive)
Three consecutive flops that forced Square Enix to abandon their exclusivity deals for AAA games.
Witchilich
Member
It means games won't be optmized for Xbox and will perform better on $600 PS6 than $1200 Magnus.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
My point, sir, is that Final Fantasy as a brand (and square as company) began its decline when they strayed from each entry being a standalone story.
Next, came FF13 and its sequels, and talk of Versus, and so on. They lost their way pandering to whatever they thought the fan base/industry was calling for at the moment.
The last good FF was X. That was the end of the Sakaguchi era. Final Fantasy the movie bombed and he was ousted. Square merged with Enix and the only person who had veto power on direct sequels was gone.
FFX-2 was the beginning of the end.
Unfortunatecookie
Member
They didn't tank because they were exclusive. They failed because they just didn't excel as a product.
Avengers wasn't an exclusive and it failed. The deeper problem with SE has nothing to do with exclusivity; it has everything to do with game design. Foamstars, for example, failed because it was a bad Splatoon clone.
kazuyamishima
Member
Angry_Megalodon
Member
IMO Square Enix is missing the necessary talent to move Final Fantasy forward and do anything with the Nierverse. Their only safe card is DQ , that sells efortless like Pokemon.
They need to hire fresh devs that bring in new ideas.
They need to hire fresh devs that bring in new ideas.
icecold1983
Member
Something there needs to change. They are unable to make great new games. Anything better than "just OK" is a rerelease of an old game.
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Square Enix obviously has big management issues.
The idea that releasing their games on more platforms was going to fix their issues was naive at best, it's like putting a band aid on a gun wound.
The real issue is that they can't develop great games on a reasonable schedule and they devalued their IPs, especially Final Fantasy, with a decade of mediocrity so new generations of gamers just don't care.
All their big games go through some kind of development hell, games like Dragon Quest XII and Kingdom Hearts 4 should be already out.
They have no direction for the FF main series, they just try to follow trends and their main focus is becoming increasingly to control costs and cutting ambitions (see a FFXVI with no cities and brain dead fillers and side missions).
That they release a bunch of mid 2.5D games isn't going to change their fortunes.
Their only bright spot in terms of development is the FF7 Remake team, but these people at this point are just targeting old FF7 fans with sequels that won't attract new players, they can just hope to retain those who liked previous games.
I don't know if they'll become an acquisition target but imo if other companies were interested they would have already moved in this sense unless they're waiting for a stock collapse ala Ubisoft.
The idea that releasing their games on more platforms was going to fix their issues was naive at best, it's like putting a band aid on a gun wound.
The real issue is that they can't develop great games on a reasonable schedule and they devalued their IPs, especially Final Fantasy, with a decade of mediocrity so new generations of gamers just don't care.
All their big games go through some kind of development hell, games like Dragon Quest XII and Kingdom Hearts 4 should be already out.
They have no direction for the FF main series, they just try to follow trends and their main focus is becoming increasingly to control costs and cutting ambitions (see a FFXVI with no cities and brain dead fillers and side missions).
That they release a bunch of mid 2.5D games isn't going to change their fortunes.
Their only bright spot in terms of development is the FF7 Remake team, but these people at this point are just targeting old FF7 fans with sequels that won't attract new players, they can just hope to retain those who liked previous games.
I don't know if they'll become an acquisition target but imo if other companies were interested they would have already moved in this sense unless they're waiting for a stock collapse ala Ubisoft.
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So the activist investor has nothing to worry about now, right?
CentralScrutinizer
Member
All the talent Square Enix had jumped ship to Monolith Soft after Nintendo bought them and started expanding.
Unfortunatecookie
Member
Absolutely.
Even their mid Multiplatform games like Octopath Traveler 0 bombed hard.
I don't want to see SE games fail but we should be honest. A lot of their games fail not because of exclusivity but because they fail to excel in gameplay, storytelling, animations etc. They just don't deliver.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
I think SE did say they are going to do Multiplats, ie at least PS5 and PC and Switch where possible.
So DQ remake should hit all platforms but FFVII R3 may need a bit more time for Switch 3 port as that will be more of a technical challenge and Rebirth will release first.
I really hope SE stays more independent but somebody lights a fire under their mismanaged rear.
I like a lot of their smaller 2D-HD games and would hate to see all that disappear if some private equity or Sony/Nintendo buys them or if it's some corpo raider who breaks them up.
IFireflyl
Gold Member
I don't disagree with that. I was just responding to the bit where you blamed fanboys for Final Fantasy X-2. I replay Final Fantasy X about once a year because it's a fantastic story with great combat. It's my favorite JRPG.
FinalBossWithTheMostPower
Member
Agreed. It's mine as well.
Fess
Member
It's not unreasonable to think that'll happen in some cases, I've said that too, PC gaming is often about brute forcing through bad optimization.
Won't be like that with all games though. DF will have their hands full. And Alex when doing optimized settings videos…
Fess
Member
Yeah I feel like they wouid be back at square one again if they get bought. Can't see it end well at all.
Astray
Member
Do you realize that the info you posted is more than 6 months old?As I mentioned before, they don't own 14% of Square Enix:
https://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ir/stock/shareholder.html
Share holding %s can easily change in more than half a year!
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Don't bother with the denialers. Nothing can convince them of anything they don't want to hear.
Dude, they have done their research. A big title like Final Fantasy confined to a single console for a whole year with a limited user base isn't going to grow your franchise. Take a look at this slide.
Final Fantasy, a series that used to sell 10m units, was on the brink of turning into another niche JRPG from Japan, but fortunately they are changing the direction for the next FF title for simultaneous release.
Sorry to burst bubble, but they would have flopped 10x more on the Switch. Assuming the Switch wasn't dogshit hardware and actually capable of running the games to begin with.
SE would love to get more free money from Sony. But it's more likely they don't see any value in paying for an exclusivity period for this dying franchise, especially with Xbox out of the picture. So now FF will continue flopping but without Sony footing the bill.
Hilarious. It used to sell 10 million? No shit. You know which games those were? FFVII and FFX, both PS exclusive. How much did the multiplatform XIII sell? A lot less. XV managed to reach the previous high but at a time when the series should have been selling 15-20 million+ given how much bigger the modern gaming market is compared to before. The game also had a disaster of a development cycle.Dude, they have done their research. A big title like Final Fantasy confined to a single console for a whole year with a limited user base isn't going to grow your franchise. Take a look at this slide.
Final Fantasy, a series that used to sell 10m units, was on the brink of turning into another niche JRPG from Japan, but fortunately they are changing the direction for the next FF title for simultaneous release.
FF is damaged goods. Sorry to break it to you, but your precious Nintendo isn't going to save it.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
Sales data says you're wrong. Only people who care about teh powah are forum fanboys while the rest of the world love Switch and Switch 2. They are normal people who don't need power validation. Tech has reached a point where dinosaur power lust isn't a thing with 99% of players.
Go sit in a corner with your powerful space heater and dream of Forsaken 2.
Octopath Traveler 0 didn't bomb based on the budget; it was a mobile port that had less than 2% of Final Fantasy budgets.
Even their mid Multiplatform games like Octopath Traveler 0 bombed hard.
PC and Switch 2 are the future for Square Enix based on Dragon Quest sales numbers, while PlayStation and Xbox are irrelevant.
Capcom is very quick to change their strategy with their support of Switch 2 since PS5 is not enough to support their games, especially in Japan, where Monster Hunter is starting to decline at an alarming rate.
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yurinka
Member
Do you realize I also posted this?
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/activist-investor-square-enix-sale-in-2026.1691277/post-271083437
And that despite being from half a year ago it's what they continue having TODAY in their website?
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asdasdasdbb
Member
I've said this multiple times, but Switch (2) is the only platform that would potentially move the needle at all.
Selling the RPG franchises to Nintendo does make some sense. I don't know what you would do with the rest of the company though.
Octopath Traveller sold more on Switch 1 than Rebirth on PlayStation 5, and Monster Hunter Rise sold 10m on Switch alone, which is more than MH World on PS4.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
I don't think they'll sell either. If they do, it's as you said, they coalesce better with Nintendo than Sony, a company who seems to dislike their own roots and jumped PlayStation HQ to the West. I'm not sure Sony would even want SE anymore since they chase GaaS so badly these days.
SE's HD-2D projects have become their bread and butter, and Nintendo works closely with them already. It would be a much better match with Nintendo than anyone else.
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TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
If Square ceased being Square, it'd probably be enough to push me off of the hobby as a primary interest.