phosphor112
Banned
Oy. That's painful.
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Square Enix reports 13.7b yen loss, 99.7% yoy decrease in games income
- Thread starter Pooya
- Start date
lunchwithyuzo
Banned
I think he meant the Wii U version only, which bombed at retail but might've done well digitally.
Game should be cancelled because no one cares.
There are a thousand other characters that should 'return' instead.
Conrad Link
Member
Time for a new Abyssea expansion in FFXI.
Japan likes lightning far more than we do.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Not enough to justify a game realese if XIII-2 numbers era to believe.
mentalfloss
Banned
Hey guys.
What's happening to the industry these days?
What's happening to the industry these days?
The Horror the horror
Banned
Seems a lot of companies are feeling the effect of the bursting of the PS2 bubble. That generation gave publishers the fallicious impression that the industry would exponentially expand with such uniformity under one monolithic platform, goading these companies to expand their overheard costs; but instead the industry diversified, creating confusion relevant to the disbursement of resources and support.
TheBaronOfNA
Banned
Hey guys.
What's happening to the industry these days?
You give your point of view in the three threads about it and somehow you seem to make less sense.
What a lot of people don't understand is how executive changes work, and how results are reported.
When a CEO is replaced, the new CEO will take very aggressive writedowns and reduce forecasts substantially, which is a big one-time hit to the financial statements and can be blamed on the 'old CEO', or 'restructuring'. If any costs can be recognized or incurred now, they are; if revenues can be delayed, they are too. For this stuff, the business or the underlying viability of the company hasn't changed at all, simply its facade of financial performance. This sets the stage for the new CEO's performance looking great, as they have so much reporting wiggle room to bloat up. Over time, accounting tricks are used to slowly push the bloat up in the financial statements, the CEO looking good the whole time. Once the bloat is too much, financial statements start looking like crap again compared to before and in many cases the CEO is replaced, restarting the cycle. If they're smart, they'll get an outrageous severance package.
This is a major issue!
The new CEO can also 'clean house', where he fires the sacred cows (overpaid tenured employees who are resting an their laurels), lays off employees, reduce raises, etc. This is also cyclical, and sometimes will fire more lower-level employees (who actually create the products and support the business) and keep too many managers. This is managerial bloat.
Cleaning house is good, the method of which can be either great or terrible.
So when I see these financial results a short while after the CEO was replaced, I'm skeptical that this is actually showing the SE has crap performance. I bet some of it is the new CEO setting the stage.
That being said, I'm not happy with SE's direction. That studio has had issues since the late PS2 era, when they started heavily focus testing and targeting until their games were a bloated mess. When the HD era hit and costs and complxity shot up, they were ill-prepared. They can either slowly shoehorn themselves into a mobile developer (much of the revenue of which is based off of their declining reputation...) or they can try to return to their roots of creating games that the developers want to play.
When a CEO is replaced, the new CEO will take very aggressive writedowns and reduce forecasts substantially, which is a big one-time hit to the financial statements and can be blamed on the 'old CEO', or 'restructuring'. If any costs can be recognized or incurred now, they are; if revenues can be delayed, they are too. For this stuff, the business or the underlying viability of the company hasn't changed at all, simply its facade of financial performance. This sets the stage for the new CEO's performance looking great, as they have so much reporting wiggle room to bloat up. Over time, accounting tricks are used to slowly push the bloat up in the financial statements, the CEO looking good the whole time. Once the bloat is too much, financial statements start looking like crap again compared to before and in many cases the CEO is replaced, restarting the cycle. If they're smart, they'll get an outrageous severance package.
This is a major issue!
The new CEO can also 'clean house', where he fires the sacred cows (overpaid tenured employees who are resting an their laurels), lays off employees, reduce raises, etc. This is also cyclical, and sometimes will fire more lower-level employees (who actually create the products and support the business) and keep too many managers. This is managerial bloat.
Cleaning house is good, the method of which can be either great or terrible.
So when I see these financial results a short while after the CEO was replaced, I'm skeptical that this is actually showing the SE has crap performance. I bet some of it is the new CEO setting the stage.
That being said, I'm not happy with SE's direction. That studio has had issues since the late PS2 era, when they started heavily focus testing and targeting until their games were a bloated mess. When the HD era hit and costs and complxity shot up, they were ill-prepared. They can either slowly shoehorn themselves into a mobile developer (much of the revenue of which is based off of their declining reputation...) or they can try to return to their roots of creating games that the developers want to play.
Release FFXII: I: ZJS: HD remix for console and portable and then you can die a death, Square.
The only thing within the past decade that I gave a damn about from you. And you didn't even release it in the states. Fuck you. >:|
The only thing within the past decade that I gave a damn about from you. And you didn't even release it in the states. Fuck you. >:|
Glass Rebel
Member
Both branches are struggling. SE Europe games don't sell enough either.
Can't count out the digital sales. Didn't Capcom say MHU was a smash hit because of digital, but the retail sales were soft? The same may be true for DQX.
japan does not like lightning. the poll she won was 125 people on an FF13 forum that only deciated fans already posted on, it's like saying Lightning is loved in the west and using perfo and luukyk as a source
Gunpei wasn't bullied out (don't believe every bullshit from the internet).
Gunpei wasn't the company PR face.
SlipperyFishes
Banned
And on more than one platform.
GoddyofAus
Banned
Seriously, has this turned out to be the single worst merger in the industrys history?
Wow you sure are dedicated. Even in threads not pertaining to Nintendo at all. You can still push your agenda.
3 million people don't want to play Tomb Raider and Hitman? 5 million don't want to play 13? Come on. The problem is development costs and poor management here. Nomura is one of the worst offenders.
Why? Thief has been in development for a long time. Final Fantasy XIV was a financial diaster. The engine for the Fabula Nova Chrystallis games took to much time to develop. This meant that FFXIII was shown at E3, but one could say they had nothing of the actual game developed. They showed off a game that had no content developed. A lot of assets were not used for FFXIII. The game also had a long development time. Final Fantasy: Type-0 took many years to release and it never got a Western release. They lost a lot of money on that. The PSP might be dead over here, but it would have most probably recouped localization costs. FFXIII-2 had to be done because a lot of people were not happy with FFXIII. Now they are making Lightning Returns to try and fix problems people had with FFXIII-2. Don't forget last generation when FFXII was in development hell.
Blaming Nomura is very silly.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
In retrospect are we even surprised?
Start a kickstarter for the Type-0 localization.
Glass Rebel
Member
Blaming Nomura is so weird when it's clearly FFXIII and FFXIV that are at the center of SE's current state.
RurouniZel
Asks questions so Ezalc doesn't have to
When's the last time Nomura released a game that he had more than a passing say in? KH: DDD?
Where?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
"I don't understand, we ran off all the talented creative types, and a bunch of the skilled technition types followed them out the door, we should have no operating budget by now!"
"Sir, there's alot in our new European branches like that, and they make LOTS of money!"
"Eeeeeeeexcellent."
"Sir, there's alot in our new European branches like that, and they make LOTS of money!"
"Eeeeeeeexcellent."
I hope Bravely Default sells gangbusters in the West. It will be yet another thing to make Square Enix look foolish.
MagiusNecros
Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
But I like doing things for free.
Awful Falafel
Banned
Least likely part of Human Revolution, sigh.