It's okay. FFXIV relaunch will save them. It's not like the viability of subscription based MMOs died years ago or anything.

I don't know what the definition of an "Extraordinary Loss" is in JP GAAP (I've only read a shot blurb saying it's broader), but I just think it's misleading of them to do that.

Their loss is a result of their business strategy. It's not unusual or infrequent. They've been consistently making losses.

I'm not sure, either, but if it comes from canceled games it may count as an extraordinary loss since they can't cancel those games again. (In theory! But I have faith in you, Squeenix!)

Well I actually posted the Extraordinary Loss in the title cause SE actually reported an EL last quarter.. but because that was another fiscal year this year it doesn't count they start with a new EL..

Consolidated Results and Consolidated Financial Position for the Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2013
In response to the latest environmental changes in the game industry, the Group has implemented various strategic initiatives such as a change in its development policy, organizational reforms, and redesign of some business models. As a result of such initiatives, the Group posts the extraordinary losses, which lead to net loss of ¥13,714 million (net income of ¥6,060 million in the prior fiscal year).

Which is impressive..  cause it could mean nobody is actually working on a game at SE..

Thing to keep in mind I guess is the average selling price of those 3.4 million sales. I noticed tomb raider in oz dropped from full price to half price very quickly (~$89 to $49 in about a month). Now a discount that big isn't retailer, as it was a permanent drop (not a sale). So a lot of those sales would have been at less than full price which obviously pushes the break even point further away. Still, definitely agree that SE should never have expected higher sales than that (particularly on an old reboot) so I think something went very wrong during development which blew the budget, its either that or they suck at market research.

Considering how rudderless and haphazard their handling of their biggest franchise (FF) has been this gen, it doesn't surprise me that they're screwing up on their other IPs from a business standpoint.

It just pisses me off that they put all these unrealistic expectations on their Western IPs to cover their asses over the mess in Japan. And then cited those well reviewed million-sellers as not good enough.

Sorry, those questions were somewhat rhetorical. But you are right.

That doesn't nessisairly mean they lost money on those projects.  Just that that was part of why it had such huge losses.

To give an example.  Say i buy an apple for $1 and project to sell it for 20.  Then i buy $10 in lottery tickets expecting to make 5 bucks.

Instead i go broke on the tickets and only sell the Apple for $5 bucks.   I had a huge loss partially because i didn't hit my price target for the apple. 

I still profited on it though.

True, that's why I said on another post

They should come up with a new (or at least different) word when they talk about not making the money they wanted instead of using "lost".

@czecherychestnut: That's also true (and we could include the sales they had due to the Steam Sales from X-mas), but it was their decision, and in the end what's better, selling 1 for $10 or drop the price to sell 2 and getting $6 for each one? Sure, you don't get as much money per copy as before but at the end of the day you get $2 more.

(Btw, you were ripped off, as usual)

They lost money, it's just hrd to place where they lost it. (This is probably intentional.)