It’s Square Enix, they say stuff like this, and then end up saying later on that the sales were disappointing. The only thing holding them back is themselves with the a bit of help from Sony lol. Yes they will be fine cause Sony pays them yada yada yada, but they will not grow as much compared to other companies like Capcom and Sega. Not releasing on PC day one, plus the issue with Xbox etc. They are basically Sony’s unofficial publisher/studio, might as well tie the knot cause they like to limit themselves for some reason.
Continually taking money from Sony only works in the short term
If your franchise does nothing but stagnate or even worse, continually decline, it doesn;'t bode well for your future success
What exactly do they plan on doing if the series keeps declining? Ask for even more money from Sony to make up for more losses? Sega, Capcom, pretty much all the major publishers have figured this out by now but Square are managed by incompetence
6 Likes
Exactly, relying on Sony for success as a third party is not a good idea long term especially when Microsoft and other bigger companies like Tencent are throwing money left and right. The Xbox ecosystem is bound to grow leaps and bounds too, they won’t be as irrelevant in the long term. The only explanation I can think of is that Sony is planning to buy square, which is fair game.
1 Like
Forgot to mention it, but is it weird that in response to a piece by Bloomberg, they reached out exclusively to IGN? It seems off to me but I can’t tell if that’s a normal thing to do.
It’s the same for me, well, I’m not too much into FF though but heavily into JRPGs, no interest in FF16.
I’m using this post as an opportunity to once again talk about The Legend of Heroes: Kuro no Kiseki (I consider it one of my favorite games of the 2020s so far), because it did some things similar to what FFXVI did (mainly, targeting an older audience) but so much better IMO.
The game, despite having older characters and a darker story, still kept great looking vibrant and colorful graphics, still kept turn based combat but also worked in action combat (it’s mainly for fighting fodder enemies though), still has a large cast of party members, still kept an upbeat soundtrack, etc. Also the side quests are 1000x better than in XVI lol.
XVI doesn’t look like what I want from a JRPG, I think it would have been possible to have something more for fans of the genre while trying to keep things “palatable” for the “Sony movie audience”
1 Like
I’m still waiting for the Nihon Falcom Game Pass announcement. Hopefully at the TGS 2023.
1 Like
If FF16 is such a big success for them, then it’s not reflected in their share price which peaked June 20th (with FF16 releasing on the 22nd).
I guess they haven’t been doing particularly well in general though. Their stock is up 19% in the past 5 years, compared with for example 67% for Sega and 319% for Capcom. It’s actually hard to find a major Japanese gaming company that’s done worse.
7 Likes
I’ve been hoping they get acquired by MS for years. The Trails and Ys series would be good gets for MS and it would be cheaper then acquiring square.
One of Falcom’s biggest weaknesses is money and budget.
2 Likes
I’m not sure what SE is doing in the long run. I mean if the point of they moneyhat is to erase the FF fanbase from other platforms and SE is okay with it, eventually it will happen. Then what? Sony will have no reason to moneyhat the games anymore and now SE is stuck with Sony without support.
they will get acquired sooner or later
Ok, but have you scaled this chart relative to the PlayStation 5 install base?
Checkmate
1 Like
That’s already baked into the share price. If the sales of an upcoming big title like FF16 don’t meet investors expectations, in which console numbers will clearly factor, then the share price will fall. There could of course be other things that affect the price such as general market conditions, but this appears less likely in this case. SE is the poorest performing stock in the past month when you look at other Japanese gaming companies such as Sega, Koei Tecmo, Bandai Namco, and Capcom. This when they just had their biggest release in a long time.
But can they scale up. Wikipedia says they have 62 employees.
yeah they have inxile pre acquisition vibes as far as size. I think inxile was a bit bigger but they have that same energy.
Its not a big success. Thyere trying to save face and be kind to sony
Sorry no fuckign publisher talks about Install base in relative to sales .its an excuse.
They are in Sony’s bed for 30 years. You can consider them as 2nd party and get over it. At least, we can get their games on PC.
https://twitter.com/Nova_Crystallis/status/1684999496214753281
Thoughts? Empty promise? Or will we no longer see Switch/PS/PC releases from them (when they say “whenever possible” I’m guessing they’re referring to Nintendo and Sony moneyhat games, those will keep happening)
2 Likes
„Partnering closely“ hopefully means acquiring them. 
1 Like
Remember how people wanted Phil out for doing a bad job?
1 Like