Square Enix Q1 FY2014 numbers: extraordinary loss.. Praises Mobile/Social/Browser

[gigantor21]

czecherychestnut said:

JEMC said:

The Fury said:

JEMC said:

http://www.destructoid.com/tomb-raider-hitman-sleeping-dogs-all-failed-square-enix-249692.phtml

Sleeping Dogs has sold an estimated 1.75 million copies to day, followed by Tomb Raider at 3.4 million and Hitman at 3.6 million. Square Enix blames these "slows sales" in part for its "extraordinary" financial losses this year.

Incredible but true, but the losses where included in last year's fiscal, not this past quarter.

That's baffled me honestly. Is the industry that much of a mess that games that sell over 3 million copies are not profitable? How did they spend so much money?

I don't know. ¿Marketing?

Hell, I don't even know anymore when they use loss because they have really lost money or because they expected to win 100, have only won 90 and therefore have "lost" 10.

We live in a mad, mad world.

@20happyballs: I was aware of that, but thanks. But still, something has caused them to book that unexpected loss, and that something may be the cancellation of games.

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.