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News Square Enix shifting to “aggressively pursue” multiplatform strategy

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So that “never been stronger” partnership with Sony appears to be going well. This is far more sensible than doubling-down on AAA or pushing into web3 BS.

Also what’s up with their delineation between HD and SD content? Are they going to start making Wii games again or something? Investigating Playdate development?
 
Vernal said:
Yeah but that's a problem for Square Enix as well. I wonder if people just don't realize it or their fanboyism is simply getting the better of them. The Switch exclusives they self published also under performed/bombed, so it's not just a platform problem.

Glad I'll be able to play DQ III Remake, XII, and the next Team Asano games on PS5! 🤭 (I won't but I know some of you suffered reading this.)
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I kind of agree, I don't think any of their AAA games would have fared dramatically better had they been on the Switch, except for maybe FFVII if and only if they got both Remake and Rebirth on the system.

The reality is Final Fantasy lost a lot of its mainstream popularity after years and years of mismanagement, and it need to lower its profile a bit, because it can't sustain its current costs.
 
shoptroll said:
Also what’s up with their delineation between HD and SD content? Are they going to start making Wii games again or something? Investigating Playdate development?
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Ahah yeah that's how SE calls Premium PC/Console games (i.e. paid titles) versus Mobile/PC F2P stuff. It's an... interesting, let's say, choice.
 
Leo said:
I kind of agree, I don't think any of their AAA games would have fared dramatically better had they been on the Switch, except for maybe FFVII if and only if they got both Remake and Rebirth on the system.

The reality is Final Fantasy lost a lot of its mainstream popularity after years and years of mismanagement, and it need to lower its profile a bit, because it can't sustain its current costs.
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I meant that it's not that they wouldn't sell on other platforms (I think they absolutely would), rather than platform exclusivity is not the only big problem they're facing like some are making it out to be.

Edit: Also off-topic but does anyone know how do I edit a post I've already sent to quote another user's message? Sorry for the double post.
 
I'm honestly kind of amazed that FF7 Remake has gone from being a once in a lifetime dream PlayStation exclusive that drove literal generations of speculation and hype, was expected to be one of the biggest exclusives for Sony ever... To a total wet fart of a release that is not only actively selling less and less, but is actually losing Square Enix money.

Imagine going back in time, and telling someone directly after the PS3 tech demo: "Guess what- Sony will eventually release this... And no one will care."

Just astronomical mismanagement all round. FF7 Remake was supposed to be their hail Mary, once in a lifetime, use in case of emergency save. Something that would always be a huge megaton release. And instead it's just completely falling flat.
 
JazzPotatoes said:
I'm honestly kind of amazed that FF7 Remake has gone from being a once in a lifetime dream PlayStation exclusive that drove literal generations of speculation and hype, was expected to be one of the biggest exclusives for Sony ever... To a total wet fart of a release that is not only actively selling less and less, but is actually losing Square Enix money.

Imagine going back in time, and telling someone directly after the PS3 tech demo: "Guess what- Sony will eventually release this... And no one will care."

Just astronomical mismanagement all round. FF7 Remake was supposed to be their hail Mary, once in a lifetime, use in case of emergency save. Something that would always be a huge megaton release. And instead it's just completely falling flat.
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I wouldn't say Remake selling 7 million sales is falling completely flat... that's their 5th biggest FF release, in a series of about 20 entries...

They could have helped it being bigger if it came day and date on PC though... Looking at Helldivers 2 is a pretty good indicator of that...

I agree however about Rebirth, it suffers from both a smaller userbase and being a sequel to a game on another platform. It should've been multiplatform from the getgo.
 
Sure, some of this can be solved with a smarter strategy around multi-platform for Final Fantasy and other major franchises, but it doesn't change the underlying facts that a) enormous budgets are difficult to recoup unless you get an enormous sales success, b) Square Enix mangled their own mid and low budget titles' chances by cramming them into a short period of time, and c) however good the constituent parts are, doing a high-cost narrative-driven trilogy across two console generations was always in serious danger of leading to diminishing returns.

In some senses, you can see glimpses of the right idea: spread your budgets and your bets with games of different scope and scale. But the release strategy in both timing (for mid-tier) and platforms (for mainline FF) is only part of where they went wrong. They're going to have to grapple with the same problem afflicting seemingly every publisher apart from Capcom and Nintendo, in that there are games which are 'too big to fail' but which do 'fail' because the threshold for a satisfactory level of success is so high. On top of that, as far as the FF7 remake trilogy goes, the fact it is a heavily narrative-driven trilogy split across two console generations was always going to cause further problems achieving the high sales levels demanded by today's biggest budget releases. Square limited their audience when they went PlayStation only, and then they limited it further by going for a trilogy of games.
 
This is interesting as Square games that are Nintendoc exclusive always get ported elsewhere eventually. I literally waiting to hear the news of PS ports of Harvestella and DQ Monsters any second now.

It's the PS exclusive games that are stuck on the console they're on. If SE is to become more "aggressive " about it, Nintendo and Xbox will benefit the most. I mean, it's been nearly 30 years since Nintendo got a day & date release of a mainline Final Fantasy game. Can they really show their aggression on this? Very difficult to believe but I'll remain hopeful.
 
MisterSpo said:
On top of that, as far as the FF7 remake trilogy goes, the fact it is a heavily narrative-driven trilogy split across two console generations was always going to cause further problems achieving the high sales levels demanded by today's biggest budget releases. Square limited their audience when they went PlayStation only, and then they limited it further by going for a trilogy of games.
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Everything will be alright once they release a Remake Trilogy on PS6 in 2029 :v
 
mazi said:
it's one of the most bizarre things i've ever seen in gaming when SE in the span of 6 months dropped all these games. a lot of them got zero marketing and for some of them they didn't even send out review codes before release:
  • Voice of Cards: The Beasts of Burden
  • Various Daylife
  • The Diofield Chronicle
  • Valkyrie Elysium
  • Star Ocean: The Divine Force
  • Harvestella
  • Tactics Ogre: Reborn
  • Dragon Quest Treasures
  • Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion
  • Forspoken
  • Theatrhythm Final Bar Line
  • Octopath Traveler II
  • Paranormasight: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo
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I will say they keep posting about Paranormasight out of all games lol. I dont mind, it was my favorite SE game last year.
 
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Also it makes me wonder if Bravely Default will get Final Fantasy branding back if it goes multiplat. Bigger and more mainstream audience might require more mainstream themes. Like, kupo.
 
MisterSpo said:
Sure, some of this can be solved with a smarter strategy around multi-platform for Final Fantasy and other major franchises, but it doesn't change the underlying facts that a) enormous budgets are difficult to recoup unless you get an enormous sales success, b) Square Enix mangled their own mid and low budget titles' chances by cramming them into a short period of time, and c) however good the constituent parts are, doing a high-cost narrative-driven trilogy across two console generations was always in serious danger of leading to diminishing returns.

In some senses, you can see glimpses of the right idea: spread your budgets and your bets with games of different scope and scale. But the release strategy in both timing (for mid-tier) and platforms (for mainline FF) is only part of where they went wrong. They're going to have to grapple with the same problem afflicting seemingly every publisher apart from Capcom and Nintendo, in that there are games which are 'too big to fail' but which do 'fail' because the threshold for a satisfactory level of success is so high. On top of that, as far as the FF7 remake trilogy goes, the fact it is a heavily narrative-driven trilogy split across two console generations was always going to cause further problems achieving the high sales levels demanded by today's biggest budget releases. Square limited their audience when they went PlayStation only, and then they limited it further by going for a trilogy of games.
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I think putting a FF7 Remake as the PS5's launch title (will still have it working on PS4) would've been a good move. Obviously it seems Rebirth can't run on the PS4 due to that SSD but still... they could've at least made the entire trilogy begin and end on the same hardware.
 
That's nice, but I definitely don't think Square's lack of a multiplatform strategy was their problem. When Remake/Rebirth selling in the millions isn't enough, that's a management problem as well as a scale problem.

When their mid-budget games are crammed into one year instead of given space to breath that's a marketing and management problem. Nintendo has no problem apparently sitting on completed games, so why can't Square?

It's nice that Square is taking multi-platform more into consideration, but they seriously have to improve how they invest and how they distribute their games.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
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Still absolutely amusing how they don't even have ports ready the moment the timed exclusivity ends for both XVI and VII Rebirth. Talk about self-inflicted damage.

NantenJex said:
I am really curious to see how this affects sales. I'm assuming most of these exclusives that they're talking about are the ones on PlayStation, like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Final Fantasy 16 and Foamstars. Given the Nintendo exclusives like Super Mario RPG, Live a Live and Triangle Strategy seems to sell really well.
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mystic_ink said:
Will this include the Nintendo exclusives or that good for Square Enix?
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I thought about making a longer post at first, but barring Nintendo money hats for the launch of the new console it's incredibly likely that those are over too (as far as the foreseeable future is concerned). Everything about this pivot says that. Everything prior to it as well, see Team Asano's last game being multi-platform from day 1.

9-Volt said:
This is interesting as Square games that are Nintendoc exclusive always get ported elsewhere eventually. I literally waiting to hear the news of PS ports of Harvestella and DQ Monsters any second now.

It's the PS exclusive games that are stuck on the console they're on. If SE is to become more "aggressive " about it, Nintendo and Xbox will benefit the most. I mean, it's been nearly 30 years since Nintendo got a day & date release of a mainline Final Fantasy game. Can they really show their aggression on this? Very difficult to believe but I'll remain hopeful.
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This double-standard has no basis in reality, quite frankly. There were always much, much higher chances of FF7's Rebuild saga coming over to Switch 2 than Harvestella, a game whose producer left the company, or I don't know, Chocobo GP, a commercial failure that was worked on by a small team, to come to PS and Xbox.
 
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One thing I noted in that statement is how Nintendo is group ith Sony/MS, it really shows you how they view the market is segmented. iOS/Android is its own thing. I think it tells us a lot about where SE things Nintendo consoles will be next cycle and indirectly confirms what we know already about its capabilities.

This means we could well get a floop of foremely PS exclusive titles like XVI, and FF7 R on the Switch 2 , it's pretty good news to see more third party support.



9-Volt said:
Also it makes me wonder if Bravely Default will get Final Fantasy branding back if it goes multiplat. Bigger and more mainstream audience might require more mainstream themes. Like, kupo.
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They can probably sitll be timed exclusives and I expect Sony may still get first dips for timed exclusives or marketing rights. But the games will be built with multiplatforms in mind, rather than the current situation which seems like SE lets exclusivity window expires and sit on their bums with nothing ready to release on the other platforms because they built the game exclusively for PS.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
That's nice, but I definitely don't think Square's lack of a multiplatform strategy was their problem. When Remake/Rebirth selling in the millions isn't enough, that's a management problem as well as a scale problem.

When their mid-budget games are crammed into one year instead of given space to breath that's a marketing and management problem.

It's nice that Square is taking multi-platform more into consideration, but they seriously have to improve how they invest and how they distribute their games.
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Agreed and they're addressing that as well. More quality assurance checks during production, less games being worked on at once, bigger focus on in house-development. They also recognized spreading their marketing (and their customers) too thin with too many releases in too little of a time frame.

It's a difficult road ahead for SE no doubt.
 
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Vernal said:
This double-standard has no basis in reality, quite frankly. There were always much, much higher chances of FF7's Rebuild saga coming over to Switch 2 than Harvestella, a game whose producer left the company, or I don't know, Chocobo GP, a commercial failure that was worked on by a small team, to come to PS and Xbox.
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I'm not sure, the lead producer quitting wouldn't stop Square porting game, tbh. The game was mostly done by an external studio anyway. Harvestella was a mid success on Switch, rose as high as #4 spot on eShop in its launch month. Should be a prime candidate for a port.
 
Okay, great.

Get Team Ninja on a new and return to form Dissidia post-haste, then, if you aren't already.

SE chasing after esports, without first taking care of the portable-friendly audience that made Dissidia what it was, will always be something I shake my head about.
 
TreIII said:
Okay, great.

Get Team Ninja on a new and return to form Dissidia post-haste, then, if you aren't already.

SE chasing after esports, without first taking care of the portable-friendly audience that made Dissidia what it was, will always be something I shake my head about.
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I feel like Dissidia is one of those series that's going to be on ice with the new strategies at SQEX.
 
Maronic03 said:
The weekly Japanese sales threads are gonna get super fun in the next few years.
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I know what this is hinting at ;P but what I'm most curious about is whether 3rd parties putting their games on Switch 2 day 1 could result in somewhat of a resurgence for 3rd party Publishers sales in the region. It can't just continue being a Nintendominion, that's boring!
9-Volt said:
I'm not sure, the lead producer quitting wouldn't stop Square porting game, tbh. The game was mostly done by an external studio anyway. Harvestella was a mid success on Switch, rose as high as #4 spot on eShop in its launch month. Should be a prime candidate for a port.
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Chances were slim before, but now under's Kiryu's restructured SE? Can't imagine games like Harvestella getting a second chance at life with a port. Same goes for stuff like DQ Treasures. Released a while ago and unsurprisingly no mention of ports to systems other than PC.
 
Dardan Sandiego said:
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Here's most likely referring to this slide in the report:


Operating loss increase YoY even with the two big FF games releasing in the same fiscal year.

shoptroll said:
So that “never been stronger” partnership with Sony appears to be going well. This is far more sensible than doubling-down on AAA or pushing into web3 BS.
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They're still refocusing on key titles with more internal projects and doing less outsourced games.
But they figured out that those big titles should probably be on as many platforms as possible. A novel idea, I know.

Vernal said:
Still absolutely amusing how they don't even have ports ready the moment the timed exclusivity ends for both XVI and VII Rebirth. Talk about self-inflicted damage.
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Rebirth exclusivity hasn't yet ended, but FFXVI is quite puzzling to me.
It's not like that division hasn't worked with PC before, it's Business Unit 3 and most of the team working on the game were FFXIV Heavensward people...
 
Vernal said:
I know what this is hinting at ;P but what I'm most curious about is whether 3rd parties putting their games on Switch 2 day 1 could result in somewhat of a resurgence for 3rd party Publishers sales in the region. It can't just continue being a Nintendominion, that's boring!
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Switch (2) Pac-Man will still be Pac-Man, even if the games released are third party ones. ;D
 
Chocobo GP should've gotten a shot on other platforms. It's a fun game, it'd probably be appreciated more by userbases that don't own MK8DX in overwhelming numbers
 
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Bonejack said:
Switch (2) Pac-Man will still be Pac-Man, even if the games released are third party ones. ;D
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Well I meant stuff like FF17 being (also) a Switch 2 game of course! That's what I wanna see make a splash.

Edit: or y'know Persona 6 and the likes. It's up to thirds to bring forth their best game and be on the platform in a major way.
 
Vernal said:
Well I meant stuff like FF17 being (also) a Switch 2 game of course! That's what I wanna see make a splash.
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I doubt this will instantly result in massive success, but i think unlike the previous FF games, in the case it's multiplatform it won't disappear from the Top10 after 3 weeks.
 
Bonejack said:
I doubt this will instantly result in massive success, but i think unlike the previous FF games, in the case it's multiplatform it won't disappear from the Top10 after 3 weeks.
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Yep. 3rd parties bringing their biggest IPs to the next biggest console of the country. I'd love to see some shakeups, even if of course they'd have to be gradual.
 
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It's a shame it took them so long to realize that limiting these huge budget releases to just one platform was going to make it harder to break even on them, but still great news.
 
Bonejack said:
I feel like Dissidia is one of those series that's going to be on ice with the new strategies at SQEX.
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What gives me the inclination that there's more to be had is largely due to the way the post-mortems for both SoP and Dissidia Opera Omni's shuttering went. In both cases, it seemed like there was a hint for a "new" generation of Dissidia-flavored things that may be on the way, and it's just a matter of waiting to see what form it takes.

Besides, whether Cloud and Sephiroth (and somehow, even Sora?) return in the next Smash or not, SE could, and honestly should, want something of their own. Fighting games aren't going anywhere, and you just need to have the proper strategies in mind (re: LOOK no further than at how Capcom and Nintendo do things!). And it just so happens that a number of Team Ninja's fighting game devs have been otherwise sitting on their collective butts since DOA6 fell flat on its face five years ago, and meanwhile, former head, Shimbori, left to join the Tekken family.
 
I really like the AA games SE released last year and this year, but it's like they just...unloaded them all onto store fronts.

Like if I want a tactics game, there's Triangle Strategy, Diofield Chronicles and Tactics Ogre in a span of within 3-4 months of each other. Sure, hardcore fans would be able to distinguish each other, but for normal players, they eat into market and mind share. Not to mention the marketing, the ones published by Nintendo like Live-A-Live and Triangle Strategy sells better than the rest simply cause they were marketed.

I don't want Square Enix to stop making these smaller titles, but when some of them feels like borderline shovelware(ahem..Various Daylife), I just wish for them to cut down on the volume. Maybe 6 or so polished smaller titles and one or two AAA big budget extravagenza a year would sell better than 24 games in a year I think.
 
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Evilnemesis8 said:
Rebirth exclusivity hasn't yet ended, but FFXVI is quite puzzling to me.
It's not like that division hasn't worked with PC before, it's Business Unit 3 and most of the team working on the game were FFXIV Heavensward people...
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They’re waiting to finish the DLC and the team probably got pulled into Dawntrail’s final push. I wouldn’t expect XVI PC news until we’re closer to DT’s launch.

Lugia667 said:
man seen alot of people saying "Oh no the Switch 2 will hold games back"
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Good. It’s brazenly clear the industry has a costs problem (and that’s a known problem for at least the last two decades). Slowing down is not a bad thing, until companies can figure out better ways to reduce costs (and I don’t mean with GenAI).
 
FF17 might not be until next get at this point anyways, so idk if Switch 2 would get it (at least simultaneously) if that were the case. PC almost surely, though, and Xbox if they don’t fuck it up somehow by then.
 
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TreIII said:
What gives me the inclination that there's more to be had is largely due to the way the post-mortems for both SoP and Dissidia Opera Omni's shuttering went. In both cases, it seemed like there was a hint for a "new" generation of Dissidia-flavored things that may be on the way, and it's just a matter of waiting to see what form it takes.

Besides, whether Cloud and Sephiroth (and somehow, even Sora?) return in the next Smash or not, SE could, and honestly should, want something of their own. Fighting games aren't going anywhere, and you just need to have the proper strategies in mind (re: LOOK no further than at how Capcom and Nintendo do things!). And it just so happens that a number of Team Ninja's fighting game devs have been otherwise sitting on their collective butts since DOA6 fell flat on its face five years ago, and meanwhile, former head, Shimbori, left to join the Tekken family.
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I mean, it's entirely possible there were plans, maybe even a game already in dev, but new boss, new rules. I mean a year ago there were headlines about gamers better embracing that more Sony exclusives from SQEX will come.

The new CEO really came and literally upended the tea table. And he's set on not stopping upending tea tables for the upcoming future.
 
That's like the first Square Enix announcement in years that isn't complete trash. Now if they were to walk back all the "we support crypto/nfts/ai" stuff they do every year, maybe I could even buy some of their games and not feel like shit for supporting such a company
 
Bonejack said:
Utterly dumb, if future SQEX games would keep the level of graphics Remake and Rebirth displayed for a couple of years, that would be totally fine.
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That's how I feel about the ps5/xsx in general, and we already have people salivating for a ps5 pro to get even better performance out of 7 Rebirth.
 
Smart. They have a lot of games where they have limited the install base by being exclusive and they have a lot of other games that are inexplicably absent on modern consoles. Why can't I buy Dragon Quest V or Chrono Trigger?
 
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Wonder if they’re gonna save the FF7R ports for a bit and then use them to hype up a multiplatform launch of Part 3
 
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