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[Kurotri]

Square Enix’s stock has fallen 30% from its peak this year, wiping almost $2 billion off the company’s market value

The slump comes after sales of the PS5 game (Final Fantasy 16) reportedly failed to meet the high end of the company’s expectations.

Following the disappointing performance of other big budget releases like 2020’s live service flop Marvel’s Avengers, support for which will end this month, and Forspoken, the debut game from Square Enix’s Luminous Productions studio, which launched to “lacklustre” sales, according to the company.

More at the link on the tweet.

 

[Aion002]

Sony...

Otherwise MS might do it.

 

[Serge85]

Final Flop XVI

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

When was the last time a game met Square-Enix expectations? Final Fantasy X? lmao

 

[mrmustard]

That's the aftermath of those 7 Forspoken and 33 FF16 copies they could have sold on Xbox.

 

[Ozriel]

Sony...

Otherwise MS might do it.

Looking forward to regulators forcing Sony to keep all SE games multiplatform going forward as a purchase condition

 

[Elysium44]

I always look at these games like FF16 and Forspoken which I have zero interest in, even though I am starving for new games and will try almost anything that looks half decent, and wonder who is buying them? I guess the answer is, not many people.

 

[Godot25]

Square Enix and inept decisions and expectations?

Name more iconic duo.

That company is living on goodwill from Final Fantasy fans and Final Fantasy XIV.

 

[Virex]

Maybe Square should do some soul searching an go back to turn-based RPGs. Like the ones that everyone remembers. If SMT and Persona can be successful after all these years and they are TB. Why can't Square do something like X again? Though 7 Remake is pretty good. 16 in my opinion wasn't very good, and I'm sure remake part 2 will sell a vagina-ton of copies

 

[RoboFu]

how about listening to your fans next time? No one ever wanted a forspoken or Final Fantasy may cry.

 

[Musilla]

 

[winjer]

30% so far.....
The way SE is being ran, it might lose even more value next quarter.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Maybe Square should do some soul searching an go back to turn-based RPGs. Like the ones that everyone remembers. If SMT and Persona can be successful after all these years and they are TB. Why can't Square do something like X again? Though 7 Remake is pretty good. 16 in my opinion wasn't very good, and I'm sure remake part 2 will sell a vagina-ton of copies

Square Enix still makes plenty of turn based games.

The problem with FF XVI wasn't that it was an action RPG. The problem was that it sucked as an RPG and sucked as a character action game.

 

[Virex]

Square Enix still makes plenty of turn based games.

Just not Final Fantasy ones.

 

[ssringo]

I'm sure them sacks of exclusivity cash are offsetting everything. Though I doubt they'd be in a different position regardless. They seem to have been burning bridges with fans and making head scratching decisions for a long time now.

 

[ArtHands]

SE's stock fall by 30%? Certainly not related to Forspoken and Final Fantasy 16. Must be Bloomberg's fault

 

[DenchDeckard]

Covid reset or is there a genuine reason apart from Forspoken?

I thought FFXVI was performing well?

 

[T4keD0wN]

Now thats what i like to see, stock going in the right direction thanks to excellent leadership. Keep it up Square.

 

[Krieger]

Of course it failed to meet expectations, after all Square Enix expected 450 million copies sold in 3 hours after launch.

 

[kazuyamishima]

This has been span as if it was FF16 fault but is something more than that.

The Diofield, marvels avengers and Forspoken are the result of this alongside the decrease in FFXIV income.

 

[GHG]

Seems orchestrated, much like the what happened to ATVI's stock.

Let's see who the buyer ends up being.

 

[SNG32]

Either Sony needs to buy them or Square needs to stop all this exclusive shit with Sony. We’ve seen what happened to Capcom once they stopped that shit. No way next kingdom hearts is a Sony exclusive square would have to be outta their mind to do that again at this point without a Sony acquisition atleast.

 

[GHG]

Either Sony needs to buy them or Square needs to stop all this exclusive shit with Sony. We’ve seen what happened to Capcom once they stopped that shit. No way next kingdom hearts is a Sony exclusive square would have to be outta their mind to do that again at this point.

So I take it you've not seen what they've done with that franchise on PC?

 

[Three]

Either Sony needs to buy them or Square needs to stop all this exclusive shit with Sony. We’ve seen what happened to Capcom once they stopped that shit. No way next kingdom hearts is a Sony exclusive square would have to be outta their mind to do that again at this point without a Sony acquisition atleast.

Stock price has nothing to do with exclusivity otherwise it would have went up since Square announced official PC release and MS partnership for xbox releases already.

 

[kazuyamishima]

Either Sony needs to buy them or Square needs to stop all this exclusive shit with Sony. We’ve seen what happened to Capcom once they stopped that shit. No way next kingdom hearts is a Sony exclusive square would have to be outta their mind to do that again at this point without a Sony acquisition atleast.

The only Capcom exclusive in the last years on Sony consoles has been SFV and it was funded by Sony because Capcom was having financial issues, the funding actually helped Capcom more than Sony.

 

[Kenneth Haight]

Jim Ryan going in with the low ball offer now

 

[wolffy66]

You would think Forsaken and Avengers cost them more in profit loss than FF. Those two had to be really bad.

 

[UltimaKilo]

Their Market Cap seems to be around 4.45 billion USD. I don’t know how they can keep this up.

For those of you discussing acquisition: nobody is going to acquire a company that is bleeding this much cash, unless they’re buying at a stupid low price.

 

[RoboFu]

This has been span as if it was FF16 fault but is something more than that.

The Diofield, marvels avengers and Forspoken are the result of this alongside the decrease in FFXIV income.

Both forespoken and FF16 cost a lot to make and didn’t return on either. Throw in the marvel game / strangers of paradise failures and a declining FF14 for good measure.

But they did have a lot of small games that did well. So I don’t think it’s that dire. It’s just lower than before.

 

[SNG32]

So I take it you've not seen what they've done with that franchise on PC?

Yea but they still fucked up not doing a steam release.

 

[Majukun]

square always sets absurd expectations for their releases.

also releasing only on ps5 (so far) probably didn't help

 

[kazuyamishima]

Both forespoken and FF16 cost a lot to make and didn’t return on either. Throw in the marvel game / strangers of paradise failures and a declining FF14 for good measure.

But they did have a lot of small games that did well. So I don’t think it’s that dire. It’s just lower than before.

Except this one was helped by Sony and SE confirmed the game was profitable since July 2023, don’t know why some people are still saying didn’t return on.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Too bad, so sad. Maybe they will finally realize that it is not 1990s anymore.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

Their Market Cap seems to be around 4.45 billion USD. I don’t know how they can keep this up.

For those of you discussing acquisition: nobody is going to acquire a company that is bleeding this much cash, unless they’re buying at a stupid low price.

Sony or MS right now:

 

[DJ12]

Looking forward to regulators forcing Sony to keep all SE games multiplatform going forward as a purchase condition

You mean like they did with elder scrolls and starfield.....

 

[RoboFu]

Except this one was helped by Sony and SE confirmed the game was profitable since July 2023, don’t know why some people are still saying didn’t return on.

Square has said so themselves. I mean it’s literally in the article and many others.

Stop buying into obvious PR when sales drop off a week after.

 

[GHG]

Yea but they still fucked up not doing a steam release.

That's exactly what I was getting at.

 

[SidViscous]

Forespoken really hit them hard, they shut the whole team down so not sure what more can be done other than suck up the loss and write better stories in future

 

[gundalf]

Should have been multi-plat from the start including Steamdeck support.

 

[Dreathlock]

Now make your game EGS exclusive on PC and see what happens.

 

[Punished Miku]

I blame Pikmin 4.

 

[Spyxos]

No way i will buy 80 euro games on Pc. Square got to greedy. And now they got the bill.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Square Enix and inept decisions and expectations?

Except this time, stakeholders did not buy into SE bullshit.

Square Enix still makes plenty of turn based games.

Rather than making them, they just dump them into the void without any kind of marketing.

The only Capcom exclusive in the last years on Sony consoles has been SFV and it was funded by Sony because Capcom was having financial issues, the funding actually helped Capcom more than Sony.

To launch SF5 without content

Their Market Cap seems to be around 4.45 billion USD. I don’t know how they can keep this up.

Well, if they can't keep it up they can always go down

 

[Fabieter]

Looking forward to regulators forcing Sony to keep all SE games multiplatform going forward as a purchase condition

Nintendo and Microsoft getting 10 year deals .

 

[kazuyamishima]

Square has said so themselves. I mean it’s literally in the article and many others.

Stop buying into obvious PR when sales drop off a week after.

I don’t buy in the PR but is simple math considering the units sold and the financial help they got from Sony, without it, I would agree the game wouldn’t break even as of now.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Maybe Square should do some soul searching an go back to turn-based RPGs. Like the ones that everyone remembers. If SMT and Persona can be successful after all these years and they are TB. Why can't Square do something like X again? Though 7 Remake is pretty good. 16 in my opinion wasn't very good, and I'm sure remake part 2 will sell a vagina-ton of copies

They still make turn based games and they’re way better than their AAA flops

 

[Thirty7ven]

Boring company that doesn’t know what to do. Awful management.

 

[Punished Miku]

Though 7 Remake is pretty good. 16 in my opinion wasn't very good, and I'm sure remake part 2 will sell a vagina-ton of copies

I'm not sure of that at all. Everyone has been telling me they're sure of that since that reveal on PS3 but I haven't seen any of evidence of that except FFVII fans in a bubble overhyping themselves. Typically a direct story sequel will sell less than the first game, and then a third will sell less than the 2nd because you have to play the first game to play the others. FFVII did alright, but nothing like what the decade of people saying it is the way to save FF after FFXIII implied. FFXIII sold a lot more than that actually.

I've said for a while that sticking your best development team on remakes for a decade is going to go down as one of the worst decisions they've ever made. We could have FFXVII right now with exciting new characters and a new world, but instead we get more Cloud and looking backwards.

 

[Buggy Loop]

Maybe Square should do some soul searching an go back to turn-based RPGs. Like the ones that everyone remembers. If SMT and Persona can be successful after all these years and they are TB. Why can't Square do something like X again? Though 7 Remake is pretty good. 16 in my opinion wasn't very good, and I'm sure remake part 2 will sell a vagina-ton of copies

gAMerS dOn’T LiKE turN bAsED!

Don’t look at Divinity original sin 2 or Baldur’s Gate 3 scores / success.

Casual gamers have poisoned SE’s mind. They tried to reach mass appeal like a call of duty.

 

[Unknown?]

Looking forward to regulators forcing Sony to keep all SE games multiplatform going forward as a purchase condition

Nah they'll just make some stupid contract like MS that has no meaning to fool them.