Square Enix has lastly made public its dissatisfaction with Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth’s industrial efficiency, admitting neither recreation met revenue expectations.
In a monetary outcomes briefing held Could 13 however solely launched at this time, September 18, Takashi Kiryu, president and consultant director of Square Enix stated: “Within the HD Video games sub-segment, we launched a number of new titles, together with main titles comparable to Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, however earnings sadly didn’t meet our expectations.”
Kiryu went on to counsel Square Enix cannibalized gross sales of its Final Fantasy video games launched through the monetary yr ending March 2024.
Final Fantasy XVI Echoes of the Fallen and The Rising Tide Recreation Awards 2023 Trailer Gallery(*16*)
“We acknowledge that points stay within the Digital Leisure phase,” Kiryu admitted. “The HD Video games sub-segment failed to higher its profitability, posting working losses in yearly of our earlier medium-term plan. Along with this, we didn’t handle our title portfolio throughout the corporate in addition to we might have, which I consider resulted in alternative losses as a result of cannibalization between our personal titles.”
Square Enix launched Final Fantasy 16 in June 2023, then Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth simply over half a yr later in February 2024. Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth each launched as PlayStation 5 exclusives, and whereas Square Enix has introduced a gross sales determine for Final Fantasy 16, it has but to take action for Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, the second recreation within the firm’s trilogy of Final Fantasy 7 remakes.
The corporate has already introduced a big rework of its enterprise because it fights for profitability. It has a brand new multi-platform plan that encompasses PC and doubtlessly Xbox and the following Nintendo console (Final Fantasy 16 launched on PC this week). However it has additionally canceled quite a few video games, and, Kiryu revealed, taken steps to higher curate its pipeline of video games.
“Within the case of the HD Recreation sub-segment, gross sales of particular person video games will stay the important thing variable, however we consider that we can train a point of management over that volatility by fastidiously curating our pipeline over the following three years,” Kiryu stated. “By additionally working steadily to enhance our profitability, we intend to offset the weak spot in SD video games to realize general profitability.”
Square Enix has now prolonged the timelines for a portion of its pipeline, “partially due to the huge period of time required to develop HD video games, and partially as a result of we decided that we must always rethink how finest to ship a few of the titles we had below improvement to our clients,” Kiryu revealed.
Final Fantasy isn’t the one Square Enix collection struggling. Its Splatoon-style recreation Foamstars additionally flopped and has since gone free-to-play.
So, what’s subsequent for Square Enix? Square Enix has Kingdom Hearts 4, the third recreation within the Final Fantasy remake trilogy, and Dragon Quest 12 within the works. In January, Final Fantasy 16 producer Naoki Yoshida stated it may be time for a youthful era to steer the franchise and helm Final Fantasy 17.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You’ll be able to attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.