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Square-Enix Sees Profits Sink
Gamespot reports that RPG maker Square-Enix reported an almost 70% decline in net profit for most of last year. From the article: "Square Enix attributed most of its financial difficulties to its primary business--games. The company had a profitable nine months, releasing a number of hits: Kingdom Hearts II, which shipped 1.1 million units in Japan since its release in December; Romancing SaGa for the PS2, which shipped 500,000 units (Japan: 450,000, USA: 50,000); and Dragon Quest VIII, which shipped 430,000 units in North America. However, the numbers couldn't match those of the previous year, when Dragon Quest VIII shipped 3 million units in its first three days of release in Japan. The segment's sales fell 43.3 percent to 21.2 billion yen ($180 million), and its operating income plunged 95.1 percent to 974 million yen ($8.28 million)."
I have never really understood why it is news that a company that has had a profitable year wasn't as profitable as a previous blockbuster year. Last year, with greater profits, was news; this year just seems normal. Would anyone have a headline saying "Square-Enix has nice, but unexceptional, year"?
I haven't bought a square game since Final Fantasy X2, so I have contributed to their decline I guess. But did you play it? I have played Final Fantasy games for as long as I can remember and I loved FFX. FFX2 was SO lame! Dance fighting with different outfits? I'm a girl and I don't even think that is fun. Hopefully their newer games are better, I haven't gotten into an RPG in a while (I tend to play them a little too much once I start) so I don't know. But if any of them are like FFX2, then I understand why they aren't making as much money!
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." -Albert Einstein
They haven't had any really good titles for awhile. Radiata Stories wasn't that great, Musashi wasn't that hot either, and I'm at a loss to remember anything else they did. They haven't had any Final Fantasies for awhile, and Dragon Quest isn't exactly a household name in the US, although apparently it did fairly well for itself. I'm guessing their portable offerings made them money though. (like Final Fantasy IV). With Kingdom Hearts II out in America this year, the upcoming Final Fantasy XII (hopefully out here before the end of 2006), and a bigger portable lineup (Children of Mana, FF3 DS, FF5 and 6 GBA remakes), they should probably see a better year.
Americans, excluding the small fanbase that does imports, don't know squat about it as far as experience, and in this age of sequels, that really matters.
It's worse than that. We remember Dragon Warrior on the NES. We remember being bored to tears by it. We remember the sequels on the NES. We remember wishing we could just die. We also remember Final Fantasy on the NES, and how our will to live returned.
Everyone remembers the older games, and everyone is reacting accordingly. It's just that there aren't that many fans over here. Of course, considering that only FF1 was released and all 4 of the DQ/DW NES games were released in the US, maybe it's more of an "abscence makes the heart grow fonder" thing.
I'd buy that IF Square-Enix were a small game manufactorer. They aren't. They're a large game manufactorer. If one game, regardless of how popular, is enough to bump their profits by 300% for one year, they've got some serious issues.
And if you read the article, they're basically down in all sections, not just the section that produced DragonQuest VIII. For a company like Valve, where they don't make a lot of games, a single popular game should bump their profits by 300%. For a company like Square-Enix, where they make a lot of different games, having a single title be that important to their bottom line cannot be a good thing.
Especially because if you read the article, sales are up - but profits fell a massive amount.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.