370°

Square Enix Declares $140m Loss Amid Game Pipeline Shakeup

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth publisher Square Enix has declared a $140m loss based on a shakeup of its internal development pipeline.

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techraptor.net
Furesis20d ago

What are they doing over there? Sounds like they canceled something big. I read a rumor a while back about ff9 remake . Here "Final Fantasy IX has gone through a very challenging development, the game is still in progress but may undergo changes drastic enough that we won't hear about it for a couple of years."
This could be one of the reasons if the rumor is true. That was Silknight i don't know how credible he is but it's something and it would make sense.

-Foxtrot20d ago

I hope IX is still on the cards

Just a straight up remake which they expand a little bit nothing over ambitious

If IX dosent happen then VI and VIII will never be thought of.

Kakashi Hatake20d ago

6 and 8 were way more p popular games despite today's cult following of 9.

blackbeld19d ago

I want my FF8 remake! Can't believe they cancelled it.

TiredGamer20d ago

What are they doing? Sales are falling and the costs are out of control. Big releases need to be absolute sales home runs now, and Final Fantasy sales have stagnated.

Now we know why Square didn’t fall over themselves to remake the original FF7 all these years ago. It certainly wasn’t a license to print money, at least not with what the expectations were. Each of these full on remakes drains an enormous amount of company resources for a razor thin profit margin.

TwoPicklesGood20d ago

Breaking the game up into multiple parts was a mistake IMO.

blackblades20d ago

The loses came from cancelling games nothing else.

Tapani20d ago

They lost the magic in the remakes. And the story is incomplete. The original FF7 is still way better. The Remake / Rebirth are just fan service. Like an Anime/Manga with "optional" filler content. FF7 had pretty much zero filler, it was paced extremely well, and still today flows much better than the grindy story and spongey enemy battles in the remakes.

babadivad19d ago

If they released it at once on all platforms, they would have made all of their money back. Could have been on to an FF8 or 9 remake. Ready to cash in again on nostalgia like Capcom. This is their fault for trying to milk the title.

Once I head they were breaking it up into parts, I lost all interest.

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 19d ago
neutralgamer199220d ago

I hope people understand usually when a loss is declared it means a game which had been in development got cancelled. For example Sony Santa Monica before GOW-PS4 had cancelled a project which Sony had spent 7 figures on

As far as square is concerned they release a bad game once a year. Forspoken anyone?

For those making comments on remake not selling well, I hope y’all realize that Sony is the only reason this remake is happening. If Sony didn’t fund it the remake wouldn’t be happening. Just like Konami didn’t want to remake SH2 because development costs of 100 plus million

shadowT20d ago

Do not miss Final Fantasy 16. Great game!

raWfodog20d ago

I'm waiting for them to release the complete edition bundle, but it's definitely on my list.

PhillyDonJawn20d ago

Wth is going on with the gaming industry?

mandf20d ago

Corporate investors taking everything

TiredGamer20d ago

Not rocket science. Compare sales numbers, development cycles, and budgets to the previous gens. We are all collectively burning up the industry from the inside out. Expectations are ludicrously high now for every release and sales are dropping for even the most prestigious of series.

We used to be satisfied paying $50-60 for a game that took 1/100th the budget and staff to make. Now gamers feel cheated if they have to pay the same for a game that took 100x the budget. We may be reaching the end of the line for this model of gaming.

wiz719120d ago

@tiredgamer I think your point is one that ppl don’t understand and you hit it on the nose .. some gamers don’t want to take accountability but it’s some of the gamers fault the industry is where it’s at .. we as gamers set the standards for the industry not the shareholders , ppl forget that the shareholders and the industry want and need OUR Money. Both the Xbox and PlayStation are seeing a drop in hardware , the industry is very stagnant right now.

Tacoboto20d ago

Speaking to Square:

Turns out their mismanagement wasn't related to the western studios they dumped to Embracer, but their own fault.

With regards to Xbox - a good way to kill your brand is to pull support on high quality titles and only dump B and C-tier titles to it

With regards to PC - Epic Games Story exclusivity for any duration and piss-poor optimization will hurt you.

With regards to FF Pixel Remasters - y'all messed up by barely releasing them on physical, like wtf that was free money!

And lastly, you don't help a franchise by releasing a mainline title that undermines every title that came before it. FFXVI was a DMC-like with bottom-of-the-barrel side quests and I can't imagine that helping Rebirth at all considering its marketing is directly tied to how big that game is.

Tacoboto20d ago

Sony is getting their best titles and with the most polish, so what about it? Nintendo gets their top properties too, for titles that can run on Switch hardware.

It's the other fanbases that get the second- and third-class treatment from Square. If that's due to agreements with Sony, that's not a Sony issue but a Square one for accepting those terms. Sony is doing its best to look out for Sony.

wesnytsfs19d ago

sales and stupid practices like exclusives.

TiredGamer20d ago

The industry implosion is continuing. Sky high budgets, prolonged development windows, stagnant sales numbers, and falling currency values (inflation) are wreaking havoc on the legacy industry. AAA games will slowly become the rarity.

CS720d ago

Sad. Rebirth was one of my favorite games in a long time. Should have sold more.

CrimsonWing6920d ago

Oh I’m with you. What’s worse is they can say, “Well we tried to make this amazing game and spend all this money on, but not enough people showed an interest. So no more of these since we can’t take a hit like that.”

The industry is going to take a dramatic shift. Mark my words on this.

rpvenom20d ago (Edited 20d ago )

I think there is quite a large portion of individuals like myself who held out on buying it on PS5 because I can get it on PC eventually. To be able to mod the game and also have custom graphical settings to my liking

gold_drake20d ago

same

but im not sure if it matters at all. im sure they made sony pay a hefty sum for the 3parter to come on ps5 exclusively. so watever they made in sales, might have come bk in profits for square, but i dont know
and we dont know what "underperformed" even means for square.

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90°

Nintendo Has Acquired Shiver Entertainment From Embracer Group

Nintendo Has Acquired Shiver Entertainment From Embracer Group

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press-start.com.au
Profchaos12h ago

Great news it shows that Nintendo intends to continue developing ports of AAA games to its next gen platform

H95h ago

Buying studios from embracer now is a great deal, they must be dirt cheap at this point, Nintendo is a opportunist, they wait until someone fall so they get their best deal

OtterX0m ago

That is some serious brain gymnastics you have going on there. 🤔

banger885h ago

I hope someone buys Piranha Bytes, their future isn't looking good right now. I love their RPGs, they're janky as f***, but they have heart and soul.

Relientk772h ago

Nintendo saw the Mortal Kombat 1 Switch port and were like, "Yeah, these guys are worth acquiring."

You can't make this crap up lol

Profchaos56m ago

Mortal Kombat 1 was never going to port well I'm sure they told wb it wasn't going to work but wb wants that sweet sweet 140 million install base

In the end wb approved the project cleared the milestones and allowed the product to release

130°

Microsoft to Add Copilot AI to Video Games

Microsoft recently revealed its plans to incorporate Copilot directly into video games, with Minecraft being the first showcased example.

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xpgained.co.uk
Fishy Fingers15h ago(Edited 15h ago)

F*** AI

"Hey Copilot, what's a good meme to prove I dislike AI".... https://giphy.com/clips/sou...

Einhander197215h ago

Two trillion dollar company that just can't wait to put as many people possible out of work as fast as possible.

It feels like every single thing they do is making gaming worse and destroying the industry.

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CaptainFaisal4h ago

Why all the hate? Im actually excited about this! Always wanted this kind of immersion, and an AI companion with me all the time helping me out knowing the status of my skills/inventory/progress and giving me tips on the best approach or how to craft something specific is game changing for the industry.

Hate all you want about AI, but this is just the start and I can see the potential already. You wont be complaining in the next 5-10 years about this, but rather complain if a game hasn’t implemented it.

MrDead3h ago

Yes we can't wait for the work of others to be used without the need to pay them so that MS can profit even more from the people they fire.

I_am_Batman3h ago(Edited 3h ago)

There is no chance I'd ever use something like this, especially if it's not part of the core game design, but a layer on top of it. It's way too much handholding. Many games already feel like busy work, because they don't let the player figure things out on their own. Having a real-time interactive guide defeats the purpose of playing the game in the first place in my opinion.

If this were to become the standard like you predict, we'll see more and more video games get away with bad design, because people will just be used to ask for help from the AI companion anyway.

Number1TailzFan3h ago

Well Nintendo don't need this with some of their games these days, with invincible characters, items, easy bosses etc.. they do the hand holding built in

helicoptergirl3h ago

Takes "hand holding" in games to a whole new level.

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180°

Take-Two Mandate on Microtransactions: Over-Deliver on Content and the Monetization Will Follow

Take-Two Interactive states their edict on microtransactions has been to over-deliver on content, and the monetization will follow.

lucasnooker13h ago

Warning. Boatloads of micro transactions coming for GTA VI

porkChop12h ago

To be fair, while GTA Online is monetized heavily both GTA Online and GTA V offer a massive amount of content without paying anything extra. Though I do think GTA Online's optional subscription is bullshit.

Profchaos6h ago

GTA online was luck though we can see that with rdro Rockstar keenly priced their mtx content to exploit money over people grinding and it felt pay to win at least in its first few months

neutralgamer199212h ago

Can you please focus on delivering enough quality content to justify the $70 asking price? While I appreciate the idea of over-delivering, it's essential to ensure that the base content itself is worth it. I have concerns that GTA6 might have less single-player content because most of the focus seems to be shifting towards online play and microtransactions.

It's understandable why publishers are capitalizing on microtransactions when they generate billions with relatively little effort compared to traditional content creation. We, as consumers, are partly responsible for this trend. I've seen people spend on FIFA cards as if it's a normal part of the game. Previously, features like player cards and big head mode were earned through gameplay or cheat codes, but now gamers are willing to pay for them, so publishers have no reason not to monetize these features.

It's astonishing that the gaming industry is now more profitable than any other entertainment sector. Yet, despite record-high profits, the industry continues to see increasing levels of greed. It's baffling to hear about record profits followed by significant layoffs of developers. This disconnect makes no sense.

I know it’s unlikely given the size of the industry, but it might take a significant downturn for things to reset. Currently, there are too many decision-makers who lack a genuine understanding of gaming, focusing only on financial spreadsheets. A prime example is Andrew Wilson, the CEO of EA.

RhinoGamer8812h ago

It must be a nightmare working at Rockstar in a Production role...dealing with the team egos and those of the V suite. #soulcrush

-Foxtrot11h ago(Edited 11h ago)

The thing is doesn't that just give studios the excuse of filling their games with content that’s just going bloat it rather than contribute towards the main story.

Ubisoft games for example with all the markers where 90% of it is just padding or useless crap.

Or maybe they design the game in a way that makes it feel longer but it’s because they’ve created it in a way where you are spending most of your time backtracking with spaced out unlocks that help your reach new areas or even having to do a bunch of platforming / parkour to get around. Jedi Survivor was the first game recently that’s made me think “ we didn’t need all this, it should have been more linear”.

It gets tiring

PRIMORDUS9h ago(Edited 9h ago)

I that's fine I can take all the DLC for when GTA 6 comes on PC for free, by torrenting of course. LOL You all know this game no matter the protection (unless SP will be online only) will be on top of every Scene groups list to crack. I cannot stand Take-Two. I would tell off that CEO shit bag I'm taking your game for free ain't nothing can be done about that🤣

Crows909h ago

I guarantee that the same people that broke the law while weed was not legal will tell you how bad you are....lol

PRIMORDUS8h ago

I do by PC games, but not many, there are some companies that are pieces of shit like Take-Two, Rockstar I'm not too fond of either that I don't care what I do or say to them. There is too much bullshit with all these microtransactions, DLC, etc. and I will never pay for that. 😎

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