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[Bloomberg] Sales of FFXVI, VII Rebirth, and Foamstars failed to meet expectations

Clippy

Clippy

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Feb 11, 2022
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Square Enix Shares Tumble by Most in 13 Years on Weak Outlook - Bloomberg
Sales of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars — all released exclusively for Sony Group Corp.'s PlayStation in the previous fiscal year — fell short of the Japanese game publisher's expectations in both revenue and profit, Takashi Kiryu told analysts the previous day. The company now expects to earn an operating income of ¥40 billion this year, widely missing the average of analyst estimates of ¥57 billion. Its sales and dividend outlook also fell short of expectations.
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If you remember that SE previously stated that FFXVI was within expectations, this is explained by it meeting initial expectations but having no momentum and subsequently failing to meet annual expectations.


View: https://twitter.com/6d6f636869/status/1790227310567960626

Square Enix said:
-FF16 sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games failed to reach FY goal as its momentum slowed. No updates from sales number last announced at 3 million
-FF7 Rebirth sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Foamstars fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Remains confident FF16 can achieve its goal over the original 18-month sales plan. Also, sales of Rebirth and Foamstars aren't necessarily bad.
-Reorganized develoment team into five console teams, one smartphone game team
-Has been relied too much on an individual's creativity. Will promote sharing game making how-how among teams and will seek best balance of individual creativity and organizational discipline
-DQ12 remains under development.

Investors react:
-sell shares heavily, stocks fell to the day's trading limit
-concerns are pipelines have become too empty, no big titles that can lift up the company's top line over the next couple of years
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Last edited:
Lukar

Lukar

Unshakable Resolve - Prophet of Truth
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Oct 27, 2017
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That's a damn shame. FF7 Rebirth is probably my favorite RPG of all-time, and FF16 - while not without its faults - is a great game too.

Hopefully they focus on getting these games out on other platforms sooner than later so more people can play them.
 
IDontBeatGames

IDontBeatGames

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Oct 29, 2017
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Full tweet for those not using Twitter anymore:

Square Enix said:
-FF16 sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games failed to reach FY goal as its momentum slowed. No updates from sales number last announced at 3 million
-FF7 Rebirth sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Foamstars fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Remains confident FF16 can achieve its goal over the original 18-month sales plan. Also, sales of Rebirth and Foamstars aren't necessarily bad.
-Reorganized develoment team into five console teams, one smartphone game team
-Has been relied too much on an individual's creativity. Will promote sharing game making how-how among teams and will seek best balance of individual creativity and organizational discipline
-DQ12 remains under development.

Investors react:
-sell shares heavily, stocks fell to the day's trading limit
-concerns are pipelines have become too empty, no big titles that can lift up the company's top line over the next couple of years
 
kurahador

kurahador

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Oct 28, 2017
17,736
Yeah, really shows PS5 exclusivity is such a bane this gen even Sony is pivoting outside of that.
 
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Clippy

Clippy

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Feb 11, 2022
2,232
IDontBeatGames said:
Full tweet for those not using Twitter anymore:

Square Enix said:
-FF16 sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games failed to reach FY goal as its momentum slowed. No updates from sales number last announced at 3 million
-FF7 Rebirth sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Foamstars fell short of expectations. Initial momentum didn't reach an internal target. No sales number to share
-Remains confident FF16 can achieve its goal over the original 18-month sales plan. Also, sales of Rebirth and Foamstars aren't necessarily bad.
-Reorganized develoment team into five console teams, one smartphone game team
-Has been relied too much on an individual's creativity. Will promote sharing game making how-how among teams and will seek best balance of individual creativity and organizational discipline
-DQ12 remains under development.

Investors react:
-sell shares heavily, stocks fell to the day's trading limit
-concerns are pipelines have become too empty, no big titles that can lift up the company's top line over the next couple of years
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Forgot that some people don't use it anymore, I'll edit.
 
Hasney

Hasney

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Oct 25, 2017
19,174
kurahador said:
Yeah, really shows PS5 exclusivity is such a bane this gen even Sony is pivoting outside of that.
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Yup. I mean, they're confident 16 is going to hit the 18 month goal, so they're clearly expecting some numbers on PC. Not that they should though, late ports have been suffering recently.
 
Kuro

Kuro

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Oct 25, 2017
21,169
They still feel confident enough that XVI will hit its 18 month goal so it seems to be doing well enough.

Its pretty clear shifting marketing to another mainline FF and releasing it half a year later ate into XVI's legs which was just really stupid release scheduling biting Square in the ass again.

Rebirth didn't even hit initial sales goal but most people figured that out already.
 
Kiyamet

Kiyamet

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Apr 21, 2024
476
They did not read the room on foamstars

Something is definitely up with the dinosaurs at Square

As for FFVII R, regardless of the quality, is 10 years too late
 
IDontBeatGames

IDontBeatGames

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I really wonder if Dragon Quest Monsters met their expectations or not. I've yet to get to the game but finding a physical copy of that game was hard as fuck, barely any place had that. I had to actually go to the Nintendo NYC store to get it lol. I really wonder if it sold well enough digitally given that it was a Nintendo exclusive after all, it could only sell so much. And if it didn't sell well, I wonder if that's made Square not want to do anymore DQ Spinoff games. Hopefully, DQ12 slaps and looks hype as hell when we get to see it.
 
Fer

Fer

The Fallen
Oct 26, 2017
1,042
IDontBeatGames said:
-Has been relied too much on an individual's creativity. Will promote sharing game making how-how among teams and will seek best balance of individual creativity and organizational discipline

...

-concerns are pipelines have become too empty, no big titles that can lift up the company's top line over the next couple of years
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Good. I don't find their big products appealing at all.
I got very excited for Paranormasight, I hope they do more small projects like that.
 
Agni Kai

Agni Kai

Member
Nov 2, 2017
7,151
That thread title is asking for war here on Era.

They are coming. You know who they are. They are coming.
 
Toth

Toth

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Oct 26, 2017
4,149
Looks like XVI will be fine but not looking good for the others. Yet Rebirth didnt sell bad it seems.
 
Rychu

Rychu

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Oct 25, 2017
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Utah, USA
Their restructure split their studios into five console game studios and one mobile studio? Was that info known before? Do we know what the studios are being called or how they are referring to them and which studio made what?
 
oty

oty

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Feb 28, 2023
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Star-Lord said:
I'm just super interested in what their targets were supposed to be
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considering 3m was within their target for a mainline release like XVI, probably something...normal?

people always expect SE to have this insane out of reality expectation towards their titles but it's pretty clear they just do basic math and get to those numbers lol
 
Spark

Spark

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Dec 6, 2017
2,606
kurahador said:
Yeah, really shows PS5 exclusivity is such a bane this gen even Sony is pivoting outside of that.
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Exclusivity in general is an albatross, even considering platform holder benefits like increased hardware sales and online subscriptions. The cost of AAA games is just going up too much, and is projected to keep going up. There is no stopping this.
 

crimmy88

Member
Aug 7, 2023
279
User warned: Accusations of bias, metacommentary
Did this come from SE themselves?

I honestly dont trust this reporter for SE and Sony news, in general. His bias against SE and Sony ran wild when XVI released.
 
RochHoch

RochHoch

One Winged Slayer
Member
May 22, 2018
19,103
I'm just happy that they still promoted Hamaguchi despite Rebirth's sales

The game is an all-timer and we can only hope that SE doesn't learn the wrong lessons from it underperforming
 
Bebpo

Bebpo

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Feb 4, 2018
4,787
Nomura is so fucked.

Wonder if he leaves SE when they stop letting him spearhead stuff.
 
Alex de Souza

Alex de Souza

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Jul 14, 2022
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I hope Kingdom Hearts IV will be a multiplatform release. I'll play on PlayStation as always, but PC sales seem very important these days.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

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Oct 25, 2017
117,736
Kiyamet said:
They did not read the room on foamstars

Something is definitely up with the dinosaurs at Square

As for FFVII R, regardless of the quality, is 10 years too late
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Yeah, I really think they waited too long to make VIIR, and the sales bear that out. There simply aren't enough people willing to buy three full-price games covering the story of one PS1 game. It was a mistake.

Bebpo said:
Nomura is so fucked.

Wonder if he leaves SE when they stop letting him spearhead stuff.
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Not really sure it's safe to call this anywhere close to Nomura's fault. And as long as he has KH to put his energy into he'll probably stick around. It's not like he wanted to be the poster boy for Rebirth.
 
WetWaffle

WetWaffle

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Oct 25, 2017
4,626
So this is unequivocal proof FFXVI didn't reach sales expectations, anymore at least. At least there wont be any more 20+ page debates about that anymore.
 
Rychu

Rychu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
8,652
Utah, USA
crimmy88 said:
Did this come from SE themselves?

I honestly dont trust this reporter for SE and Sony news, in general. His bias against SE and Sony ran wild when XVI released.
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Despite a Dragon Quest release and two Final Fantasy releases, Square Enix's "HD Console Games" division had 8.1B¥ this year in losses. (It was 4.1B¥ in losses the previous year when they launched Forspoken and had to close Luminous).

Square Enix also didn't provide updates on any big titles coming out in the near term other than Dragon Quest XII "still being in development" but did not say whether it would come out in the next fiscal year or not.

That caused shares to tumble.
 
Hasney

Hasney

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
19,174
Fer said:
Good. I don't find their big products appealing at all.
I got very excited for Paranormasight, I hope they do more small projects like that.
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They've said previously that they're stopping the majority of the smaller games and focusing only on the big projects.
 
Zeal543

Zeal543

Next Level Seer
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May 15, 2020
5,874
I doubt a dual PC (or even xbox) release would help them hit the figures they wanted considering they wouldn't get extra cash from sony either, 16's non-RPG direction and 7R's structure/fake out put off a lot of people. It might have helped more than the sony bux alone though.

Bebpo said:
Nomura is so fucked.

Wonder if he leaves SE when they stop letting him spearhead stuff.
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Kitase's the FF manager, not nomura
 
Heon

Heon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
174
FF16 sales fell short of expectations. Initial momentum was in line with expectations, but the games failed to reach FY goal as its momentum slowed. No updates from sales number last announced at 3 million
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It was obvious when it officially went on sale 2 months after release. And then went to 40% off. Just recently, it got an even steeper discount at 50% off.

JW3Dgx2.png
 
Hasney

Hasney

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
19,174
WetWaffle said:
So this is unequivocal proof FFXVI didn't reach sales expectations. At least there wont be any more 20+ page debates about that anymore.
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16 did meet sales targets initially. Now it's not. Guessing they planned in a DLC bounce. They're confident it will hit the 18 month mark, guessing that involves the PC port.
 
ArcLyte

ArcLyte

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Nov 1, 2017
3,088
I love 16 with all my heart and put 150 hrs into it, but The Kids™ don't care about Final Fantasy (it's true tho).
 
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Clippy

Clippy

Member
Feb 11, 2022
2,232
If SE is hitting a 13 year low, and you're still assuming the one with bias is the professional Bloomberg journalist and not the twitter randos who've telling you everything is going great... don't know what to tell you.
 
JuniperAndSage

JuniperAndSage

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Dec 27, 2019
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These declines taking place across multiple generations, and from one entry in a series to the next, speaks to way bigger issues than exclusivity. Going multiplatform wont stop this decline, they'll just be in decline on multiple platforms.
 
OGlol

OGlol

Member
Jun 4, 2018
1,471
I am not smart t all for this stuff, if sales do not meet expectations is that with the sony monyhatting included or nah?
 
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