Following the dismal reception of Final Fantasy XIV, Square Enix has suffered its own critical hit as its revenue forecast for the current fiscal year has plummeted by a whopping 92%. What was originally forecast to be 12 billion yen (or $142.4 million US dollars) has been reduced to a mere 1 billion yen (or $11.9 million US dollars). This all comes shortly after the announcement that FFXIV would be receiving a widespread staffing change as well as the delay of Deus Ex: Human Revolution into the next fiscal year.
It just goes to show that the MMO genre is risky business, no matter who you are. Games such as Hellgate: London and Tabula Rasa shut down their respective studios after they failed to take off. However, as unfortunate as it is that there are likely a good number of lost jobs as a result of this, perhaps this is the wake up call that Square Enix needed. Many believe the quality of many of their titles has gone down since their acquisition of Enix, and FFXIV was released in such a poor state that it could be considered buggy at best, shamefully unplayable at worst. Here’s hoping that they can turn around this unfortunate trend and regain customer confidence.
Click here if you’d like to see Square Enix’s investor relations page. The statement regarding the revision is as follows:
With weak sales performance of console game titles that have been newly released during the current fiscal year as well as harsh market feedback regarding a key title, the Group recognizes the reinforcement of development capability in our Digital Entertainment segment as our most critical managerial issue.
We therefore have decided to spend additional time to further polish our upcoming game, DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION™, resulting in a shift in release timing from our prior plan of the current fiscal year to next fiscal year.
Additionally, since recognizing that our FINAL FANTASY® XIV service has not yet achieved the level of customer satisfaction that fans of our FINAL FANTASY franchise have come to expect, we have restructured the development organization and will continue the free trial period until we can present customers with a clear plan outlining FINAL FANTASY XIV’s new direction. Furthermore, we have decided to delay the release of FINAL FANTASY XIV for the PlayStation®3 Computer Entertainment System, previously planned for early March 2011, in order to include all of the improvements we are planning rather than simply converting the current Windows® PC version.
As a result of the factors described above, the Company revises its consolidated results forecasts.
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