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Square Enix FY2024 Q1 Results
- Thread starter Thick Thighs Save Lives
- Start date
- Business
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
Uff not a good report from them.
ChuckeRearmed
Member
Ooof. Not really great results. Why did mobile drop? And with that MMO drop no wonder they want to reach more platforms.
Thick Thighs Save Lives
NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire
The MMO segment will bounce back first when the new Xbox peeps join in early spring of next year, then in the summer when the next big expansion releases. Not sure what's the deal with the mobile drop though.
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ChuckeRearmed
Member
I wonder if FF14 should pivot to more frequent updates rather than big expansions - would provide more stable revenue stream.
Fabieter
Member
Yea they knew in 2019 that they will drop in the fiscal year 2024. The reason they made the jump now it that its the best time so start on a new platform with a completely new story around the corner.
Zheph
Member
It is already the case, you have big updates very often that add contents (next one is 6.5) when the next big expansion will be 7.0
Fabieter
Member
I wonder why people comment on games they don't actually play.
YukiOnna
Member
I mean the MMO segment being down in post patch cycles isn't new and as you said it'll bounce back with 7.0 launch next year. Although the slight increased length in patch cycles probably contributed to this, but it was for employee benefits and whatnot.
Mobile titles from SE tend to have a short shelf life and struggle to compete with the likes of CyGames and whatnot so it's not surprising. It's a lot with little return.
Good thing XVI seemed to pull its weight where it was supposed to.
Rykan
Member
It really won't. That audience just isn't there at all. Final Fantasy games don't sell well on Xbox platforms, never mind an MMORPG that requires a subscription. It's going to be as irrelevant as XI was on Xbox 360.
FFXIV is probably well past its peak. It will see a temporary boost during expansion windows until players finish the Mary Sue storyline. It's an old game, and SE should really start preparing for a successor now that XVI is wrapped up.
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The Fuzz damn you!
Gold Member
I reckon it would be a damn fool idea for Sony to buy them. They will bring on astoundingly high employee costs and have not demonstrated that they are able to deliver the AAA experience that Sony would be buying them for. FFXVI was a mess. An enjoyable mess, but a mess all the same. They would be a liability, and Sony needs profit-generators that wont taint their image.
Zekra Dezivad
Member
Good increase in HD games, but 10 billions mobile decrease in 2 years is a lot. I hope they'll focus on traditional gaming
YukiOnna
Member
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
Do we get sales numbers for their games?
rickybooby87
Member
Operating income is still good though and is expected to be better for fiscal year ending in March, 2024.
Griffon
Member
MMO droping makes complete sense. FF14 is getting long in the tooth, the game is so old that they even got to finish the main story. The technical debt and gameplay systems have a lot of old issues that'll plague the game until its death.
The truth is they need to make a new more modern MMO within the next 4 years.
The truth is they need to make a new more modern MMO within the next 4 years.
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Zheph
Member
I completely agree but the fanbase won't accept that nicely. One of the reason you don't see a WoW 2 also
It would take something quite wild to make the shift easy a bit like what Path of Exile 2 was supposed to be but they even dropped that and will have PoE1 and 2 running separately...
yazenov
Gold Member
I mean, how many percent of those 20 million Xbox Series owners would subscribe to a 10-year-old Japanese MMO? I wonder what is their expectation here?
I think it's more like planting the seed for their next MMO. Or for Square-Enix to receive the huge truckload of cash as compensation for putting FF14 on that console to bridge the relationship.
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adamsapple
Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Have they found a way to somehow blame Tomb Raider for this ?
![L*][*N*K](/data/avatars/m/842/842515.jpg?1696510303){kind=avatar}
brian0057
Banned
Square Enix will lay the blame for the financial troubles on their western studios so they don't have to acknowledge that spending almost 20 cumulative years developing 2 Final Fantasy games isn't a sound monetary decision. Give it time. Crystal Dynamics is on the chopping block.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Square Enix, one of the few single player centric publishers left, is struggling? In 2023?
Embrace modernity, or be left behind.
Embrace modernity, or be left behind.
Punished Miku
Human Rights Subscription Service
Nothing to worry about. They just released their biggest game of the next several years.
Sleepwalker
Member
Re: mobile drops, they recently closed shop on their ff7 mobile game no?
ChiefDada
Gold Member
Financials are actually pretty good. If people understood amortized development costs is costs incurred prior to the financial period but only just now being recognized, they would have a better understanding. It would be more accurate to describe prior period financials as "overstated" because of how costs are being reported and timing of recognitions.
ShadyAcshuns
Member
This. I want to see the platform numbers for Octopath 2.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
Yes because the patches are cleared in like a week and end up being more often then not dead on arrival.
Bloobs
Al Pachinko, Konami President
Xbox: 0
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
Looks like they need that MS money. No wonder they're pulling Phil out on stage.
RoboFu
One of the green rats
Square Enix, one of the few single player centric publishers left, is struggling? In 2023?
Embrace modernity, or be left behind.
Nah ...it is more that they are still coasting off the IPs of their big creative period during the paystation era and really havn't produce NEW ideas since.
And I do not mean just new IPs but a diverse portfolio.. during the Playstation era they had games like ... the bouncer, tobal, dirge of cerberus, FF tatics, einhander, brave fencer musashi, bushido blade ... just ton of well rated critic darlings even if they didn't sell a ton. it all added up.
FF14 is still pretty big though and thats not single player.
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ShadyAcshuns
Member
Just like OT on PS.
Fuz
Banned
Don't be so sure.
Even from rabid fanboys who got an advance copy to *cough*advertise*cough* test, it's got very mild or even negative impressions.
Fbh
Gold Member
Square Enix, one of the few single player centric publishers left, is struggling? In 2023?
Embrace modernity, or be left behind.
Single player centric?
You are seeing the same graph as we, right? More than half of their sales come from the "MMO" and "mobile" division.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Imagine where Square Enix would be without FF14.FF14 is still pretty big though and thats not single player.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
Fuz
Banned
Apparently the story is butchered to sell it in little pieces later on, and even the youtubers weren't expecting that. Among other problems (I didn't follow closely, just saw the tepid reception).
Captain Toad
Banned
Maybe, but FFXIV is 13 years old. Even the reboot was a PS3 game.
I imagine we will hear about FF Online 3 at some point. Maybe, FFXVIII.
Fbh
Gold Member
On console, sure. And I do think releasing low quality shovelware like Diofield Chronicle, Star Ocean and 20 thousand farming games one after another is a mistake.
But their biggest title is arguably FFXIV which is an MMO, and most of their mobile stuff is either multiplayer or at least GAAS and both of those divisions had poor results. It's not like the single player stuff alone is doing badly while all the rest is doing amazing.
Square is having issues but I think it goes beyond just "not releasing enough multiplayer games"