So wait. When does SE's financial start and end? Around May? Does this mean we won't see FFXIII until the latter half of 2009?

I saw this on gamespot's website and there is so much ignorance surrounding the comments on that news article that it is just sad. But the numbers are down a bit because even though they do good business on the psp and ds they released ff12 the year before, no surprise there. They are still in the black though and made good money even without big name releases so all is good.

Square Enix is caking on the DS. I agree with Erik Aston, when it comes to releasing some new content instead of Final Fantasy this and Dragon Quest that.

I'm not saying the games aren't good, because the games could've been titled differently, but not sold as much because they don't have the FF brand name on it. New games don't often sell 1 million right out the gate, but take time to get recognition (a la The World Ends With You).

Jeez, looking at those Japan:Rest of world ratios definitely makes me understand why so many of their recent trademarks have had the word 'crystal' in the title. Even though they are continuing to put the FF main series on the playstation (at least for 13), there is no way with those numbers that they can afford to let their Nintendo console franchise go without major releases.

If it ends up being Wii/DS that end up keeping them in the black until FF13 comes out, coupled with an unpredictable sales level for FF13 due to the massive uncertainty in how Japan will receive it -- FF12 sold more in Japan than there are PS3s sold as of right now -- it could soon be very hard for them to justify to shareholders continuing production of games for the PS3. Even with 4% of the shareholders not caring in the least (read: Sony).

Also, SaviorX: I agree re: The World Ends with You.  More like that, please, SE!

@alpha_dk

FF13 will SELL PS3's

so its not a matter of install base as it will increase it and sell along with the increasing base..

 I realize it will sell PS3s.  Why I say it is an unknown is because even if they double sales from now till it is released AND have a 50% attach ratio, THEY WON'T REACH THE SAME NUMBER OF SALES!

 Saying that it is guaranteed to sell the same # as 12 is wrong.  Plain and simple.

Alpha_dk

FF13 will sell 8 million....

I am confident....and majority of the sales will come from NA..EU

& I think 2.5 million from Japan..

 Well, I am glad you are confident, because I very much doubt SE thinks that they are guaranteed those sales levels.  It's not every day that you have a #2 selling game in a franchise on the smallese userbase that franchise has ever launched on.  I assume that at this point, they would be ecstatic for those sales.

 Well, that didn't stop a game like Assassin's Creed from becoming the fasting selling original IP game

FFXIII should be able to sell quite a lot.

Ps3 GTA IV is lined up to sell äbout 7M this year.

FFXII will launch with an installbase perhaps 50% bigger, and also have the exlusive benefit. It should be able to make 8M quite easily as a matter of fact, so I believe Darkdevidemo is right (as usual).

People seem to believe that the best selling console will naturally get the best selling games. Well, while this is true, it isn't fully true.

Ps3 ended with about 70% market share, or almost 3 times as much as the other 2 combined. Did it have 3 times as many quality games? I'm tempted to say yes. Of course, not all sold as well, but they took sales from each other. If GTA:SA had been on the XB only, and the XB had had the Ps2 userbase, it could have sold 30M, because the competition is so much smaller.

Now, I'm not saying Ps3/X360 is getting worse games than Ps2 did, but it isn't getting as many super quality broad market sellers as the Ps2 had, leading to that they will sell better.

A thumb rule for Ps2 to Ps360 games, is to do AR, multiply it with 2.5, and use it on the desired userbase instead. You might get a fair number.