Support NeoGAF

[iQuasarLV]

If anything it's the exact opposite. SE has discovered that their remakes and remasters do pretty well while their new IPs underperformed.

Net sales declined YoY in the HD Games sub-segment, partly because the release of major titles a year earlier had created a challenging YoY hurdle, but also because many of the new small and mid-sized titles we launched this year did not perform as well as we had expected.

What games might you think they are referring to here, hmm?

 

[Woopah]

What games might you think they are referring to here, hmm?

Primarily Harvestella, Diofeld Chronicle, Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium. Possibly Dragon Quest Treasures as well.

Whereas Tactics Orge: Reborn, Crisis Core Reunion and Dragon Quest X Offline seem to have sold pretty well.

 

[Doom85]

Primarily Harvestella, Diofeld Chronicle, Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium. Possibly Dragon Quest Treasures as well.

Whereas Tactics Orge: Reborn, Crisis Core Reunion and Dragon Quest X Offline seem to have sold pretty well.

It’s been reported Tri-Ace is hiring sometime after Star Ocean 6 released so clearly the game did well enough.

 

[Woopah]

It’s been reported Tri-Ace is hiring sometime after Star Ocean 6 released so clearly the game did well enough.

I don't think we can say that a game met SE's expectations, just because the stuido that made it still exists.

For example, we know Marvel's Midnight Suns did not meet the publisher's expectations, but that hasn't stopped Firaxis from hiring people.

 

[March Climber]

It’s been reported Tri-Ace is hiring sometime after Star Ocean 6 released so clearly the game did well enough.

Tri-Ace is that one comic relief character in a serious movie that somehow manages to keep avoiding death, but they're oblivious to it.

 

[Roni]

I keep hearing how Forspoken flopped yet I’ve seen no movement on the price. Square needs to swallow their pride and send this to the clearance rack ASAP.

One of the clearest signs their leadership is old and needs replacement: this was widespread practice in the industry around 2010, everyone has moved on from locking a game no one wants at full price until it recoups its investment.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It’s kind of a series of self-fulfilling prophecies for SE at this point.
They do a lot of RPGs still. BUT, people only really want FF and KH from them, so that’s where the big money goes. The rest of their games have to do with limited tech and budgets and virtually zero marketing, of course nobody knows about them. Plus, the smaller games aren’t what people expect from SE, so they review poorly and people are all too eager to call them trash even without having played them.

I hope SE keep diversifying their portfolio. Otherwise we wouldn’t even have the good smaller stuff like Octopath or Teatrhythm and we’d be stuck with FF (far from its highs at this point), the joke that KH has become, and their west-pandering shit. The industry needs a big publisher doing smaller stuff. The quality you get from a B-tier SE game is still netter than what you get from indies on average.

As for marketing, I think that holds true for some games (even though they turned out hugely criticized by critics Balan and BF so it wouldnt matter anyway). But some of their games got TONS of marketing, in particular Forspoken and Marvel Avengers. I dont remember if GOTG got a lot.

I think their best bet is just focus on JRPGs big or small. Forget about all the quick cash in indie card games, and forget about their attempt at GAAS and open world action games like Forspoken.

Their best selling and rated games are probably all their JRPGs. Just stick to that.

It would be like Bethesda trying to make an NBA game or Konami making an F1 racing game. Forget it.

 

[DenchDeckard]

I wonder if final fantasy xvI will meet squares lofty expectations.

 

[Killer8]

It's a misallocation of resources. Many mid games like Harvestella, Diofield Chronicles, Various Daylife (and the list goes on and on) simply shouldn't have been made. They could've rolled the budgets of all these shitty games into something with AAA production values with more widespread appeal. There is only so far that pretty Amano-style box art depicting watercolor people standing on cliff sides can take you, when the Metacritic score averages 70.

I don't particularly mind their remasters since they are preserving their series' legacy. Tactics Ogre also sold relatively well and they did a solid job with it (for a change). It was more like a Let Us Cling Together+ with all the gameplay and balance changes. Live A Live was also fantastic and i'm sure the upcoming Dragon Quest 3 HD remake will be too. I think a case could be made that SE should actually invest more into their remasters, since nostalgia is such a big component of their popularity.

We've not seen anything from Parasite Eve for a long time, and having a remaster to refresh a series' relevance in people's minds can open the way for sequel development. I think this is probably why Valkyria Elysium flopped (in addition to it being low budget shite) - they should've dropped a remaster of Valkyrie Profile Lenneth and 2 first, and then released the new entry. That's a little something called marketing that SE need to get re-acquainted with.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

It's a misallocation of resources. Many mid games like Harvestella, Diofield Chronicles, Various Daylife (and the list goes on and on) simply shouldn't have been made. They could've rolled the budgets of all these shitty games into something with AAA production values with more widespread appeal. There is only so far that pretty Amano-style box art depicting watercolor people standing on cliff sides can take you, when the Metacritic score averages 70.

I don't particularly mind their remasters since they are preserving their series' legacy. Tactics Ogre also sold relatively well and they did a solid job with it (for a change). It was more like a Let Us Cling Together+ with all the gameplay and balance changes. Live A Live was also fantastic and i'm sure the upcoming Dragon Quest 3 HD remake will be too. I think a case could be made that SE should actually invest more into their remasters, since nostalgia is such a big component of their popularity.

We've not seen anything from Parasite Eve for a long time, and having a remaster to refresh a series' relevance in people's minds can open the way for sequel development. I think this is probably why Valkyria Elysium flopped (in addition to it being low budget shite) - they should've dropped a remaster of Valkyrie Profile Lenneth and 2 first, and then released the new entry. That's a little something called marketing that SE need to get re-acquainted with.

I agree with this post.

But good luck thinking they'll change. Square has already stated Blockchain games are coming. So if anything, they'll be making more games for quick cash ins and western style games which seem more attune to GAAS.

It seems like they got the overall resources (as you said about pooling resources), but they seem to prefer doing a combo of their big JRPG games, sandwiched between tons of smaller scale and western style games, hoping it all comes together.

 

[Trogdor1123]

It looked awesome to start and then they showed more and it was… it was not appealing

 

[mrmustard]

Not worth a new topic, but the game was more than 100 million Dollars:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-rymer-92879b3/

 

[Evil Calvin]

Coming from the company who was upset with the 8 million copy sales of Tomb Raider

 

[iQuasarLV]

Primarily Harvestella, Diofeld Chronicle, Star Ocean: The Divine Force and Valkyrie Elysium. Possibly Dragon Quest Treasures as well.

Whereas Tactics Orge: Reborn, Crisis Core Reunion and Dragon Quest X Offline seem to have sold pretty well.

Of the 2022 roster 41% were re-releases / remakes / remasters. Of available data made public the extrapolatiton for 2022 looks like

Everything in yellow was not an original IP for the year. Things with ??? were Nintendo Switch only releases with no track able sales data. Sales #s with a + in the line were multi-platform releases with the only track able data from PC retailers.

2022 was NOT a standup year for SquareEnix.

 

[Valonquar]

Maybe they'll reskin Forspoken with an Agni set of skins and a JP only audio track and just print money.

 

[kunonabi]

Maybe they'll reskin Forspoken with an Agni set of skins and a JP only audio track and just print money.

Whoever had the bright idea of not keeping it as an agni's philosophy game should be banned from making any more important decisions.

 

[Spukc]

Square is the new ubisoft.
I just don’t care the second it’s from them.

 

[jshackles]

$40 now for a used physical copy on Gamefly

 

[Gambit2483]

Square is the new ubisoft.
I just don’t care the second it’s from them.

Except SE actually has a AAA title releasing this year....

 

[Woopah]

Of the 2022 roster 41% were re-releases / remakes / remasters. Of available data made public the extrapolatiton for 2022 looks like

Everything in yellow was not an original IP for the year. Things with ??? were Nintendo Switch only releases with no track able sales data. Sales #s with a + in the line were multi-platform releases with the only track able data from PC retailers.

2022 was NOT a standup year for SquareEnix.

Those estimated sales prove my point though. It was not the remasters and remakes that sold badly for SE.

 

[Spukc]

Except SE actually has a AAA title releasing this year....

What? Game?
Because FF15 was a sausage boyband sim
The magic system was trash.

15 was so shit it made 13 suddenly look great. (I loved what i played of 14 after the reset, but i do not have time for an mmo)

Came to realize the last ff game i liked was 12 remake. And crisis core Remake.
7 R was bloated af.

 

[iQuasarLV]

Those estimated sales prove my point though. It was not the remasters and remakes that sold badly for SE.

All those numbers outside Triangle Strategy and Live A Live are atrocious. The horse's mouth even admitted it. HD remakes and AAA IPs all failed to sell enough to pull SE out of the red into the black. Hell they even had to sell off EIDOS to post a significantly positive # on their financial reports. Those are also available for reading.

 

[adamsapple]

$40 now for a used physical copy on Gamefly

If you're gonna gamefly, just rent it instead of buying.

Square is the new ubisoft.
I just don’t care the second it’s from them.

I appreciate the AMOUNT of games they put out in the last 12 months, but most of them have been received pretty poorly. No denying that.

 

[MayauMiao]

The gif also serves as a game review score.

 

[Woopah]

All those numbers outside Triangle Strategy and Live A Live are atrocious. The horse's mouth even admitted it. HD remakes and AAA IPs all failed to sell enough to pull SE out of the red into the black. Hell they even had to sell off EIDOS to post a significantly positive # on their financial reports. Those are also available for reading.

The Triangle Strtagey and Live A Live numbers look good becuase they are based on actual reports from SE, the rest of the numbers are just guesses that don't look that turstworthy. For example, Crisis Core did over 180,000 just physcial and just in Japan. Its total sales are wayyyyyyyyyyy higher than 165,000

SE said that several mid-sized games underperformed. From the limtied data we have available, it doesn't look like the remakes and remasters are the ones that underperformed.

Therefore we can't blame SE's poor performance this fiscal year on remakes and remasters.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Of the 2022 roster 41% were re-releases / remakes / remasters. Of available data made public the extrapolatiton for 2022 looks like

Everything in yellow was not an original IP for the year. Things with ??? were Nintendo Switch only releases with no track able sales data. Sales #s with a + in the line were multi-platform releases with the only track able data from PC retailers.

2022 was NOT a standup year for SquareEnix.

At first glance, I thought Babylon's Fall said -5,000

 

[jshackles]

If you're gonna gamefly, just rent it instead of buying.

 

[adamsapple]

But you're waiting for an even bigger discount than $40

 

[jshackles]

But you're waiting for an even bigger discount than $40

There's a difference between being cheap and being poor. I'm extremely cheap. It's one of the reasons I'm not poor.

 

[adamsapple]

There's a difference between being cheap and being poor. I'm extremely cheap. It's one of the reasons I'm not poor.

Will you consider waiting for it to land on PS+ (and it will soon) cheap or poor?

 

[jshackles]

Will you consider waiting for it to land on PS+ (and it will soon) cheap or poor?

Definitely cheap. Also, smart.

 

[FeralEcho]

The fuck are you talking about? I think saying fuck in every sentence is a fucking genius way of telling the characters fucking hatred and fucking hatred for everyone

Fuck

Imagine a fusion between Final Fantasy Origin and Forspoken....All that hatred for Chaos this time fully represented by fucks.

 

[Satansblade]

What? Game?
Because FF15 was a sausage boyband sim
The magic system was trash.

15 was so shit it made 13 suddenly look great. (I loved what i played of 14 after the reset, but i do not have time for an mmo)

Came to realize the last ff game i liked was 12 remake. And crisis core Remake.
7 R was bloated af.

7R is awesome, and XVI looks incredible.

 

[iQuasarLV]

The Triangle Strtagey and Live A Live numbers look good becuase they are based on actual reports from SE, the rest of the numbers are just guesses that don't look that turstworthy. For example, Crisis Core did over 180,000 just physcial and just in Japan. Its total sales are wayyyyyyyyyyy higher than 165,000

SE said that several mid-sized games underperformed. From the limtied data we have available, it doesn't look like the remakes and remasters are the ones that underperformed.

Therefore we can't blame SE's poor performance this fiscal year on remakes and remasters.

1. Not guesses just sales data pulled from Steam, and it was obviously notated that those games have a "+" denoting multiplatform and not all platforms advertise their sales data.
2. 40% of their 2022 release window was HD remasters and relaunches. Ignoring the significant contributions the HD sub-genre did to their 2022 roster is just being an apologist.
3. You can neither solely blame nor exonerate the remakes and remasters as contributors to their poor sales in 2022. God knows they were unable to pull SE into profitability.
4. If the numbers were as glorious as Triangle Strategy, you can bet your little tooshy the PR team at SE would have put out a load of press releases about the absolutely fabulous sales performance of those titles. As it stands only Triangle Stategy warranted a press release on its sales performance.
5. My original post in here was to claim that remakes-remasters cannot solely post a company into profitability to make up for bad launches like Bablyon's Fall and Chocobo GP both of which were so bad they shut down service less than a year out the gate.

 

[FeralEcho]

Coming from the company who was upset with the 8 million copy sales of Tomb Raider

Yeah,this will forever be in the back of my mind whenever I think of SE sales expectations....For all we know those smaller AA titles might've actually done well but still failed because of their ridiculous expectations.

 

[Gambit2483]

What? Game?
Because FF15 was a sausage boyband sim
The magic system was trash.

15 was so shit it made 13 suddenly look great. (I loved what i played of 14 after the reset, but i do not have time for an mmo)

Came to realize the last ff game i liked was 12 remake. And crisis core Remake.
7 R was bloated af.

FF16 is clearly not FF15 (Noctis) or FF13 (Lightning)....maybe INSTEAD of shitting on previous Fiinal Fantasy, because...Actually understand and/or Play Final Fantasy 16 first...just saying

 

[Woopah]

Snip

In response to your points:

1. Not guesses just sales data pulled from Steam, and it was obviously notated that those games have a "+" denoting multiplatform and not all platforms advertise their sales data. - Right, so we can use them as a very rough guide of how the games did in comparison to each other, but the real numbers will be much higher than what's on that table
2. 40% of their 2022 release window was HD remasters and relaunches. Ignoring the significant contributions the HD sub-genre did to their 2022 roster is just being an apologist. - I'm not ignoring that there there were a lot of remasters. I'm saying that having lots of remastsers isn't a problem
3. You can neither solely blame nor exonerate the remakes and remasters as contributors to their poor sales in 2022. God knows they were unable to pull SE into profitability - The rematsers mostly did pretty well, but you are right that they were not enough to overcome the real issue with SE's fiscal year, which was that their new games were of poor quality. The issue for SE is that their remasters are their msot well recieved games, and their new games aren't matching them for quality
4. If the numbers were as glorious as Triangle Strategy, you can bet your little tooshy the PR team at SE would have put out a load of press releases about the absolutely fabulous sales performance of those titles.
As it stands only Triangle Stategy warranted a press release on its sales performance. - Agreed
5. My original post in here was to claim that remakes-remasters cannot solely post a company into profitability to make up for bad launches like Bablyon's Fall and Chocobo GP both of which were so bad they shut down service less than a year out the gate. - Bablyon's Fall and Chocobo GP weren't in the current financual year, but I agree with your overall point. They had plenty of mediocre games this fianncial year (Harvestella, Star Ocean etc.)

 

[bluecowboys]

Unironically MS are the only ones who can save square enix. They can pay Square enix to put their games on game pass after a certain amount of time.

I don’t think MS should do it however and focus on acquiring better studios like Capcom and Sega.

 

[oji-san]

It's $47 on US PSN, go buy it.
I'll wait for 27 bucks less.

 

[iQuasarLV]

In response to your points:

1. Not guesses just sales data pulled from Steam, and it was obviously notated that those games have a "+" denoting multiplatform and not all platforms advertise their sales data. - Right, so we can use them as a very rough guide of how the games did in comparison to each other, but the real numbers will be much higher than what's on that table
2. 40% of their 2022 release window was HD remasters and relaunches. Ignoring the significant contributions the HD sub-genre did to their 2022 roster is just being an apologist. - I'm not ignoring that there there were a lot of remasters. I'm saying that having lots of remastsers isn't a problem
3. You can neither solely blame nor exonerate the remakes and remasters as contributors to their poor sales in 2022. God knows they were unable to pull SE into profitability - The rematsers mostly did pretty well, but you are right that they were not enough to overcome the real issue with SE's fiscal year, which was that their new games were of poor quality. The issue for SE is that their remasters are their msot well recieved games, and their new games aren't matching them for quality
4. If the numbers were as glorious as Triangle Strategy, you can bet your little tooshy the PR team at SE would have put out a load of press releases about the absolutely fabulous sales performance of those titles.
As it stands only Triangle Stategy warranted a press release on its sales performance. - Agreed
5. My original post in here was to claim that remakes-remasters cannot solely post a company into profitability to make up for bad launches like Bablyon's Fall and Chocobo GP both of which were so bad they shut down service less than a year out the gate. - Bablyon's Fall and Chocobo GP weren't in the current financual year, but I agree with your overall point. They had plenty of mediocre games this fianncial year (Harvestella, Star Ocean etc.)

 

[kvltus lvlzvs]

I dont hate squeenix like I hate blizzard, but squeenix is definitely one of the more depressing modern game studios that just cant seem to act in a way congruent with common sense. Time jannies didnt surprise me at all and blockchain doesnt surprise me. Looking forward to ff16, it seems like it may be good.

 

[Aaron Olive]

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

Still too expensive. I’ll wait for OS Plus Extra at this point

 

[TheInfamousKira]

Some part of me REALLY really hopes that the Japanese on their little closed off island with their distinct culture, will take ALL the wrong lessons from this game tanking and FFXVI being awesome (hopefully) and decide "Ah, the people have spoken. No more relatable chatty Cathy PoC and no More New York unless we're doing a wide linear Remake of Parasite fucking Eve, which features intelligent, non-meta female leads who are so-so on clothes.

I'm counting on you, Square. Bring back the Attitude Era of gaming. I was figuring on Capcom being Our Savior, but I'm betting on the Enix Equine now.

 

[semiconscious]

One of the clearest signs their leadership is old and needs replacement: this was widespread practice in the industry around 2010, everyone has moved on from locking a game no one wants at full price until it recoups its investment.

same with callisto protocol. stubbornness?...

 

[fermcr]

The problem with Square Enix is that they release a large amount of crap games, and make exclusive deals with their biggest games, cutting off a big portion of potential buyers. With so many bad decisions, it almost seems like the board of directors are intentional trying to devalue the company.

... and selling off Crystal Dynamics, Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal with various IPs (including Tomb Raider) for only $300 million is just plain idiotic.

 

[Tams]

The sales were not lackluster, their expectations were out of line. The game was a new IP and got shitty reviews. It sold accordingly.

Suuuuure, it was all the 'rebeeewwwwwers' fault!

 

[Methos#1975]

It's a misallocation of resources. Many mid games like Harvestella, Diofield Chronicles, Various Daylife (and the list goes on and on) simply shouldn't have been made. They could've rolled the budgets of all these shitty games into something with AAA production values with more widespread appeal. There is only so far that pretty Amano-style box art depicting watercolor people standing on cliff sides can take you, when the Metacritic score averages 70.

I don't particularly mind their remasters since they are preserving their series' legacy. Tactics Ogre also sold relatively well and they did a solid job with it (for a change). It was more like a Let Us Cling Together+ with all the gameplay and balance changes. Live A Live was also fantastic and i'm sure the upcoming Dragon Quest 3 HD remake will be too. I think a case could be made that SE should actually invest more into their remasters, since nostalgia is such a big component of their popularity.

We've not seen anything from Parasite Eve for a long time, and having a remaster to refresh a series' relevance in people's minds can open the way for sequel development. I think this is probably why Valkyria Elysium flopped (in addition to it being low budget shite) - they should've dropped a remaster of Valkyrie Profile Lenneth and 2 first, and then released the new entry. That's a little something called marketing that SE need to get re-acquainted with.

DioField was actually pretty good though

 

[NightmareFarm]

Please do a sequel but without the shitty luminous engine.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Try less cheesy character and jokes next time and you might make something good.