So we knew Forspoken bombed hard. Awful reviews, extortionate price tag, bizarre platform exclusivity, it was dead on arrival.
What’s notable here is the other “mid-budget” releases that underperformed. Stuff like Star Ocean, Diofield, Valkyrie Elysium and the like. Honestly, these games releasing at full price was never going to do anything but bomb. It’s proof that Square Enix’s model of releasing a LOT of niche games in a short space of time is perfect for Game Pass. Not so much for full price retail releases.
Such a shame for SE that those at the helm are wrapped round the little finger of Jim Ryan. It’s no skin off Playstation’s nose if these games bomb - they get the exclusivity and can point to games skipping Xbox to spread FUD regarding the suitability of the platform. SE are the company left the worse off for it.
At the end of the article: “Although, to top things off, Square Enix also hopes you “…look forward to the blockchain games we plan to launch in FY2024/3 and thereafter.”
I’ve been saying this for so long, all these smaller budget games aren’t appropriately priced at all and when you release so many of these in such a small time frame it most certainly is not going to make things easier. Some of these AA games bombed before as well like Neo TWEWY and Oninaki. They should have realised this well before.
I really don’t understand why Square released 9 mid to small games between September - December and are shocked that they underperformed. Most of the games are JRPGs so it’s highly likely that people had to choose which to buy and which to skip.
I’m still playing through that barrage of Square games lol. A lot of them went on deep discounts only a few weeks after releasing. Valkyrie Elysium was 50% off very quick.
Out of the games listed I think that Diofield, Harvestella, and Dragon Quest Treasures should not have been full price. Harvestella is the only one of the three I played and while I liked it, it was extremely budget. It lacked voice acting and had very stiff animations. Diofield looked very budget too, phone tier game. And DQT always struck me as a “Handheld spinoff tier game”.
The ones there that weren’t full price were FF Crisis Core and Tactics Ogre and I recall both of them seemingly selling pretty good.
Diofield is the one that shocked me the hardest when it was full price.
Square has lost the plot. I mean, they are restructuring their mainline flagship franchise to be as western as possible and turning it into a Devil May Cry game but locking it to only one console whereas every huge success Japanese developed game (not developed by Nintendo) has been multi platform.
At some point their share holders need to look at Elden Ring, Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, etc., and see the common denominator is not exclusivity and demand Square’s leaders to get their heads out of their asses.
And you’re right, Sony doesn’t care if these deals hurt Square; hell, if anything they’re banking on it to increase Squares dependency on them like a sort of Stockholm syndrome.
P.S. I can’t believe we live in a world where Konami thinks it makes business sense to put Suikoden 1+2 on Xbox but Square doesn’t think it’s worth putting FF1-6 on it.
Why is it timed exclusive to PlayStation for 6 months between the PC release too? When they know Final Fantasy XIV is popular on PC, they manage to keep their main player base locked out of the new mainline final fantasy game.
Square Enix is a joke and I’m so glad that Crystal Dynamics and Eidos Montreal were sold off.
New visual novel with mind-bendy stuff like the Zero Escape games. Pretty cheap and about 8-12 hours long. The very very few people playing it say it’s awesome.
They did not tell a SOUL that they released this game! This is another problem with Square, their marketing when on their own SUCKS. Remember just before, when I posted about how Triangle Strategy is getting new content and yet Square didn’t tell anyone about it?
I think a game like this one could be Game Pass material as well. Short and “weird” game that could get word of mouth spread good. I should add it is only on Switch/PC, not on Playstation.
I’m pretty confident higher-ups at Square just get together once a year, put on blindfolds. and throw darts at a calendar to determine when they release their games, and on which platforms.
Summary: “We intend to continue to cannibalize our sales, detract large swathes of potential consumers from future purchases and generally thumb our noses at the fans while simultaneously acting surprised that all our games are bombing.”
Meh, that’s a pretty weak article considering it says, unsourced, that Octopath II has a joint contract between Nintendo and Sony to keep it off Xbox lmao. The title itself, that this automatically means “they’re going to keep signing Playstation deals” is also simply a jump to conclusion on the author’s part, much like Jez Corden saying the PS exclusivity deals MS named were “forever deals”
They also do a multiplat strategy: Switch/PS/PC, far from the only JP company that’s “adopted” this. Does it work? It would, if the marketing was actually good and they didn’t release 10 JRPGs in 10 weeks… It keeps feeling like whenever a Square game doesn’t launch on Xbox, then to Xbox fans it’s automatically PS exclusive, even the ones that don’t even launch on PS.
I myself keep saying, watch the Switch 2. I really do feel it’ll become Square’s new “home base” of sorts. I think almost all of their games will be SW2/PS/PC by then. Xbox, dunno, despite what Square says about the West being their focus and whatnot, they’re a very much JP market leaning company… Honestly think they don’t change unless Xbox grows in Japan somehow.
Would like to throw out there that games like Forspoken are definitively not made to cater to the Asian audience and Final Fantasy XVI is specifically cited as trying to capture The Witcher market.
Obviously their mid-budget/“AA” games are still more geared towards an Asian and adjacent audience, but that doesn’t really seem to be the reason behind SE’s willingness to accept Sony’s bribes to keep the games off Xbox.
Having read the article, I do think, while most of it is sensationalised, it certainly seems like SE intend to continue with their current strategy which includes moneyhatted exclusivity. That being the case, SE have nobody to blame but themselves for games posting underwhelming results (read: bombing) and general fan apathy towards their franchises.
Oh yes, I very much agree with you on Forspoken and FFXVI. In fact I recall someone saying that Forspoken didn’t even support lip sync with the JP audio which is normally unheard of for Square. And frankly that game shows that Square is pretty out of touch with the West lmao.
After Forspoken though… Have to wonder if they’ll even try something like it again lol. I mean the studio behind it won’t even be making another game. The other AAA games, KH and DQ, at least there we already know the external factors there that make locking them down more complicated. Though DQXII probably comes down to MS needing to finance the port but for the sake of JP market relevancy I think they will.
I think expecting them to say “We will stop doing deals with SIE” publicly is also unrealistic. They have a relationship to maintain there.
We do know they have FFVIIR-3 locked down (I still think FFVIIR Intergrade will be a Switch 2 launch year title, and that’s without Nintendo financing the port). FF17 however is so far away that who even knows what the gaming landscape will look like then. I really don’t think there’s much left that isn’t FF for Sony to moneyhat here. But the article to me came across that “every Square game that isn’t on Xbox is a Sony moneyhatted exclusive.”
This is why xbox should just keep getting big western developers. Get CD project red, crystal dynamics etc. the biggest most popular and best selling/played rpgs are wrpgs now not jrpgs
