Square Enix shifting to mobile (SE Japan) and online (SE Europe) games

[Lnds500]

Square Enix's new plan: Eidos = online games; Japan = smartphone games​

http://www.hd.square-enix.com/eng/ne...14q2slides.pdf

Note: Digital Entertainment refers to their entire video game business. "Amusement", "Publication", and "Merchandizing" are the other divisions.

 

[Gray Aria]

It's like the company just refuses to learn.

 

[Magnus]

Stupid decision is stupid. Japanese devs in general seem to have lost their marbles this generation. It's all about smartphone and tabled games now. Don't they realise that this is slowly but surely alienating their western consumer base? As harsh as it might sound, if this is the future then I hope they all go bankrupt and close down.

 

[Lnds500]

Let's hope someone capable will buy FF and KH at least..

If EA is the worst American company, then Square is definitely the worst Japanese equivalent.

 

[Magnus]

No, they're not. This madness seem to have affected (almost) all Japanese devs.

Capcom recently announced the return of Breath of Fire, but it turned out the sixth instalment will be a mobile game. They're still cashing in on new revisions of Street Fighter IV, while Megaman has pretty much been left for dead. They release their poorly upscaled HD remasters on physical media in Japan, while it's digital only in the rest of the world. They teased fans that Darkstalkers series could be on its way back, released a compilation of recycled ports and blamed the fans when it failed to sell like hotcakes and then decided to not make a new game as a result. Then there's the Resident Evil series. It was recently revealed that Capcom might go bankrupt soon if they don't improve their financial situation. Their solution? More DLC! That will save the company, according to their new strategy. They didn't learn anything from the on-disc DLC controversy either, it seems.

Sega doesn't even release half of its games outside of Japan. It was sad enough to see Valkyria Chornicles going portable only, but even more sad to see the third instalment being exclusive to Japan. The Shining series is somehow still alive, but it doesn't seem to be a top priority series and it's Japan only now as well. They recently made it very clear that the west can forget about the Yakuza series, because they no longer see any profit in releasing it here. But hey, at least we got the gazillion bad Sonic games they made in the past 20 years. They're also fond of mobile games.

Konami is all about milking Metal Gear Solid. As talented as he is, Hideo Kojima doesn't know when to stop. He said that the fourth game would be the last one. Turns out he lied. Or rather, he just can't let go and move on to something else. He said he'd consider reviving Zone of the Enders, so we got a HD remaster compilation but not much else. And if it's not Metal Gear Solid, Konami is trying to push God of W... I mean Castlevania on us. Silent Hill? Pfft. Konami seems eager to beat Capcom at making survival horror games that are not survival horror.

Nintendo doesn't know what they're doing any more. Wii U is a major flop and they seem be clueless about how to save it. Sure, the 3DS is doing well but mostly thanks to a big third party support. But they recently announced that instead of competing with smartphones they will try to integrate mobile connectivity with the 3DS. Brilliant, huh? Oh, and all of their 3DS bundles now come with the game it's supposed to be bundled with pre-installed, no physical copy.

Square Enix loves mobile gaming. It's all they ever talk about these days. They let franchises like Front Mission get raped and the only real games they produce these days are either Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts. And most of their spin-offs and mobile games are also tied to these two franchises. The 3rd Birthday was supposed to test the waters for Aya Breya's return. I guess that's not happening. When the company presented a major financial loss the other year they blamed it on Eidos, even though Tomb Raider was both critically acclaimed and sold pretty well!

The only major Japanese company that really stands out is Namco Bandai. They have successfully created Free-2-Play variants of Tekken and SoulCalibur as a gateway for the real games in said series. Tekken is not only the most successful fighting game franchise ever, but its fans are still being well fed so to speak. All DLC characters created for Tekken Tag Tournament were free of charge. Harada, producer of the series, genuinely cares about its fans. He was also the reason why they brought the obscure Project X Zone to the west, after Tekken fans had been begging him for it via Twitter. Then we have the Tales-series, which is slowly but surely finally making its way here. After having been lurking in the background for many years, with at least half of the games being Japan only, series producer Baba seems to be very eager to capitalise on the lack of good traditional JRPG's since Final Fantasy, while still a good series, have moved on to become a different beast. They also make very smart decisions as a publisher. Do they engage in the silly smartphone wars? A little bit, but it's never at the expense of their flagship games!

 

[Lnds500]

No, they're not. This madness seem to have affected (almost) all Japanese devs.

Capcom recently announced the return of Breath of Fire, but it turned out the sixth instalment will be a mobile game. They're still cashing in on new revisions of Street Fighter IV, while Megaman has pretty much been left for dead. They release their poorly upscaled HD remasters on physical media in Japan, while it's digital only in the rest of the world. They teased fans that Darkstalkers series could be on its way back, released a compilation of recycled ports and blamed the fans when it failed to sell like hotcakes and then decided to not make a new game as a result. Then there's the Resident Evil series. It was recently revealed that Capcom might go bankrupt soon if they don't improve their financial situation. Their solution? More DLC! That will save the company, according to their new strategy. They didn't learn anything from the on-disc DLC controversy either, it seems.

Sega doesn't even release half of its games outside of Japan. It was sad enough to see Valkyria Chornicles going portable only, but even more sad to see the third instalment being exclusive to Japan. The Shining series is somehow still alive, but it doesn't seem to be a top priority series and it's Japan only now as well. They recently made it very clear that the west can forget about the Yakuza series, because they no longer see any profit in releasing it here. But hey, at least we got the gazillion bad Sonic games they made in the past 20 years. They're also fond of mobile games.

Konami is all about milking Metal Gear Solid. As talented as he is, Hideo Kojima doesn't know when to stop. He said that the fourth game would be the last one. Turns out he lied. Or rather, he just can't let go and move on to something else. He said he'd consider reviving Zone of the Enders, so we got a HD remaster compilation but not much else. And if it's not Metal Gear Solid, Konami is trying to push God of W... I mean Castlevania on us. Silent Hill? Pfft. Konami seems eager to beat Capcom at making survival horror games that are not survival horror.

Nintendo doesn't know what they're doing any more. Wii U is a major flop and they seem be clueless about how to save it. Sure, the 3DS is doing well but mostly thanks to a big third party support. But they recently announced that instead of competing with smartphones they will try to integrate mobile connectivity with the 3DS. Brilliant, huh? Oh, and all of their 3DS bundles now come with the game it's supposed to be bundled with pre-installed, no physical copy.

Square Enix loves mobile gaming. It's all they ever talk about these days. They let franchises like Front Mission get raped and the only real games they produce these days are either Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts. And most of their spin-offs and mobile games are also tied to these two franchises. The 3rd Birthday was supposed to test the waters for Aya Breya's return. I guess that's not happening. When the company presented a major financial loss the other year they blamed it on Eidos, even though Tomb Raider was both critically acclaimed and sold pretty well!

The only major Japanese company that really stands out is Namco Bandai. They have successfully created Free-2-Play variants of Tekken and SoulCalibur as a gateway for the real games in said series. Tekken is not only the most successful fighting game franchise ever, but its fans are still being well fed so to speak. All DLC characters created for Tekken Tag Tournament were free of charge. Harada, producer of the series, genuinely cares about its fans. He was also the reason why they brought the obscure Project X Zone to the west, after Tekken fans had been begging him for it via Twitter. Then we have the Tales-series, which is slowly but surely finally making its way here. After having been lurking in the background for many years, with at least half of the games being Japan only, series producer Baba seems to be very eager to capitalise on the lack of good traditional JRPG's since Final Fantasy, while still a good series, have moved on to become a different beast. They also make very smart decisions as a publisher. Do they engage in the silly smartphone wars? A little bit, but it's never at the expense of their flagship games!

I didn't say the rest of the Japanese developers are not doing extremely bad by every standard possible. I said that Square is by far the worst and I'm sticking to what I said (not that your post wasn't excellent in describing the JP devs )

 

[Cheaken]

I think people are overreacting to this a bit. I doubt this is going to heavily effect the production and pull resources from the games we're really looking forward to and want. I'd rather they just focus on consoles and handhelds myself. But maybe them putting more focus on mobile games is a good thing. Maybe they'll use all the money they make on mobile games to fund larger projects and mobile will give them a safe place to try out new IPs. It's sort of unlikely, but it's best to have a little bit of hope.

 

[Magnus]

I guess we'll have to wait and see, but on paper this doesn't look good. Like I said, most of their proper console games these days are either Final Fantasy or Kingdom Hearts (and as good as it seems, Bravely Default was outsourced). Like most other Japanese devs they've pretty much killed off all of their series that are not best sellers. In Square's case this means no more Mana, Chrono or Saga games unless they're mobile or web browser based games. Front Mission was raped. It's a wonder we're getting Drakengard 3, but something tells me that's mostly because a) it was already in development for the PS2 and b) it's also outsourced. This sort of sets up a dichotomy of two extremes. You've got plenty of mobile games that are fairly cheap to develop on one hand, but on the other you've got these insanely expensive AAA games (which will mostly be limited to FF and KH), that they have to recycle and milk to infinity to earn back all the money they spent on making their game engines.

 

[FudgemintGuardian]

This news makes my brain sad.

 

[Chaser]

These statements are based on management's assumptions and beliefs in light of information available to it at the time these material were drafted and, therefore, the reader should not place undue reliance on them. Also, the reader
should not assume that statements made in this document will remain accurate or operative at a later time.

Did anyone actually read slide 2? This is just what Management is assuming when they look to the future of Square Enix. The things in there aren't 100% going to happen, or even will. It's just what they think will happen based on their recent sales.

 

[Gram]

 

[Shamdeo]

Yep, this is the general plan going forward - as Matsuda is driven to push the company into profitability on all accounts. That includes shifting to markets (that they believe) will offer the biggest returns. Aka, games where people will spend petty cash on microtransactions and whatnot -- what's basically worked for other developers.

This doesn't mean anything for FFXIV, FFXV, KH3, Deus Ex, or Tomb Raider though. They're still going to push on the AAA front.

Just expect a lot less middle-of-the-road games from Square Enix - the ones you will see will likely be published rather than developed in their studios. And yeah, they've already killed off a few projects. ;p

 

[Oracle Spockanort]

What is so depressing is that middle tier games was what sustained the Japanese side of SE for almost seven years. Most of my favorite games from SE the last seven years were middle tier (TWEWY, Type-0, CCFFVII, BBS, Re:coded, 4HoL, Dissidia, etc.) Such a waste of their talent at the company.

 

[Gray Aria]

That's depressing news. The mid-tier games were the ones I played the most, since they usually ended up on handhelds and I was always more of a handheld gamer than a console gamer. It actually scares me to think that there might not be any more interesting new IPs like TWEWY developed by SE.