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Square Enix says the Japanese market is no longer sufficient enough to recoup development investment and generate a profit; Global market the priority

DriftingSpirit

DriftingSpirit

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,904
This is on page ten of their 2022 annual report.

Sega mentioned the global success of Persona and Yakuza in their report. SE is also bringing attention to just how crucial global success is for their business. The inclusion of the global market in Japan market discussions has typically been derided on gaming forums over the years, but it is impossible to ignore or downplay the importance of the global market in this regard now.

Achieving major growth in the game industry is difficult now for companies that compete primarily in the Japanese market, given its graying demographics. As such, it is critical for our business that we produce hit titles that speak to the global market, which offers greater scale in terms of both customers and sales volumes.

In other words, the Japanese market is no longer sufficient for achieving a level of earnings that enables
us to recoup our development investment and generate a profit, and we therefore need to approach our development efforts based on the assumption that we have to succeed in the global market.
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Source
 
Lowblood

Lowblood

Member
Oct 30, 2017
5,193
This has been true for a while now, honesty. AAA game dev is too expensive to limit yourself to any one territory.

Thankfully almost everyone has started doing simultaneous worldwide releases, now that SEGA/Atlus is on board. Square's actually been good about that for a couple gens.
 
Vito

Vito

One Winged Slayer - Formerly Undead Fantasy
Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,075
Well duh. Your biggest games barely sell 1 million in Japan.
 
QisTopTier

QisTopTier

Community Resettler
Member
Oct 25, 2017
13,717
wouldyoukindly said:
Isn't it kinda weird saying this after selling a lot of western IPs and studios?
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No
Vito said:
Well duh. Your biggest games barely sell 1 million in Japan.
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JP investors finally getting with reality it never made any sense how JP focused they been for so long when a majority of profits came from out of country. That said dont go and do a early ps3 gen capcom and try to emulate Western stuff poorly, just keep doing your own stuff but take into account the larger world your product is reaching.
 
entremet

entremet

You wouldn't toast a NES cartridge
Member
Oct 26, 2017
60,155
They've basically operated as such for years. Same with Sony.
 
gundamkyoukai

gundamkyoukai

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,143
Has been that way for nearly 2 gens if you talking AAA.
Plus even non AAA games making most of there money out side Japan .
 
BobLoblaw

BobLoblaw

This Guy Helps
Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,302
So selling your western assets and limiting the platforms that you release games on is supposed to help how?
 
dlauv

dlauv

Prophet of Truth - One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
11,513
Surely regularly skipping a platform doesn't help either.
 
NediarPT88

NediarPT88

Member
Oct 29, 2017
15,134
No shit.

I think the only company who would be able to survive from Japan sales alone is Nintendo.
 
Yuntu

Yuntu

Prophet of Regret
Member
Nov 7, 2019
10,691
Germany
Weird statement as thats how they have been operating anyways. Unless they mean "well we now put new DQ titles west day 1 as well, except X".
 
TheRealTalker

TheRealTalker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,487
They're not the only ones.

Bamco, Sega, Media.Vision, Koei Tecmo and many others have reiterated this.

For future franchise growth you need the global market and can't just focus solely in Japan, which in itself has been stagnating and declining in terms of traditional types of games, and soon others.
 
Ovvv

Ovvv

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Jan 11, 2019
10,030
why are comments in here saying "no shit, Square finally waking up!"

bro they been doing this for years they're just saying it officially lol
 

Deleted member 12429

Banned
Aug 19, 2022
1,103
Japanese media is more popular in the West than it ever has been before. The real play now is to convert those kids getting into anime/manga into buying Japanese games. But I don't know the buying habits of the youth anymore - I'm in my millennial early bittorrent fansub days consumer mindset. Obviously kids play games, but is there overlap between the kids who watch whatever's popular and going out to buy Final Fantasy? That was certainly the case for my generation, but I don't know about how it works now.
 

Deleted member 22750

Oct 28, 2017
13,267
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platocplx

platocplx

2020 Member Elect
Member
Oct 30, 2017
36,072
QisTopTier said:
No

JP investors finally getting with reality it never made any sense how JP focused they been for so long when a majority of profits came from out of country. That said dont go and do a early ps3 gen capcom and try to emulate Western stuff poorly, just keep doing your own stuff but take into account the larger world your product is reaching.
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Yeah their games should stay true to that and more just exporting their games to the world.
 
DiipuSurotu

DiipuSurotu

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
53,148
They're going to overreact and do more weird projects like Final Fantasy Fortress, Kingsglaive FFXV, Forsaken, Left Alive, Ariana Grande in Brave Exvius, etc.
 
NinjaScooter

NinjaScooter

Member
Oct 25, 2017
54,166
DNAbro said:
No shit, but your biggest western hits are usually your JP produced games.
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Pretty sure they acknowledge that. Japanese games doesn't have to mean Japanese (as a market) focused. Japanese publishers have been targeting more global expansion of their IP for a while now. This is nothing new. And frankly its what all publishers do really. Its not like Ubi is just trying to sell games in France, or CDProject in Poland. Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts are global brands and the Japanese market hasn't been the primary one for those games for a long time.

BobLoblaw said:
So selling your western assets and limiting the platforms that you release games on is supposed to help how?
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Feels like you're missing the point. You don't have to have western studios or even western IP to target/appeal to western audiences.
 
AshenOne

AshenOne

Member
Feb 21, 2018
6,110
Pakistan
Regardless good to great games made specifically for the JP audience sells well in the west as well. So please keep that up but ofcourse if you want to release mediocre games like you did recently then thats on you.
 
Bengraven

Bengraven

Member
Oct 26, 2017
26,853
Florida
It's been.

You have a west devouring your content for 30 fucking years plus.

Don't take this and get all weird and ASSUME AGAIN and make shit with buff bald dudes with guns though. We give you all these zeros for goofy long haired anime soldiers and flower girls and cute bartenders who kick with the force of a dolphin.
 
TheRealTalker

TheRealTalker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
21,487
Bengraven said:
It's been.

You have a west devouring your content for 30 fucking years plus.

Don't take this and get all weird and ASSUME AGAIN and make shit with buff bald dudes with guns though. We give you all these zeros for goofy long haired anime soldiers and flower girls and cute bartenders who kick with the force of a dolphin.
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I don't think it necessarily means changing their games from being "Japanese" in style since with Anime, etc... entertainment has started to mesh together in terms of what people consume globally.

Rather it is trying to get said I.Ps bigger for said global market where the real growth is.

For example even Tales of Arise did will globally.
 
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