All Channels
180°

Square Enix First Half Profits Drop 75 Per Cent

Square Enix has published its first half results covering the six month period ending September 30. The company reported a decline in profit to 1723 million yen ($21 million), down from 6826 million yen ($85 million) last quarter - a drop of 75 per cent.

Net revenue took a hit too, falling 30 per cent from 101.7 billion yen last half, to 68 billion yen ($843 millon). The company revised its profit forecasts to 1.7 billion yen ($21.1 million) from 2.4 billion yen ($29.8 million) - Square Enix recorded a net income of 2.68 billion yen ($33.3 million) last year.

"We're quickly working on reforms. We'd like to put our full power into regaining trust," said CEO Yoichi Wada. "If we satisfy our users, they will return. On the other hand, once the users say, 'forget this,' there's no turning back. We can only recover our trust so far."

Square Enix blamed "slower sales growth" and the "sale of property" for the drop.

Read Full Story >>
next-gen.biz
Kain815652d ago

Well mmh...deserved i think... for abondoning your Fanbase...

"forget this,' there's no turning back. We can only recover our trust so far."

i dont think so, as long as wada leads SE, you cant recover SE
abondoning your Fanbase for a wider Audience, was a wrong move.
Cutting content from a BIG franchise to fit on a DVD wrong move,
the failures SE made are infinite

Masamori Sumimura5652d ago (Edited 5652d ago )

Stop this abondoning your fanbase crap. People arent buying Square-Enix Games because they Suck and have lost their touch in the recent years and that's about it. If Square was Delivering as much as they used to almost 10 years ago on Psone and early PS2 era do you think the sales would be that low? Most of Square's games have been doing well on Nintendo DS and PSP because Fans have been getting what they want like DragonQuest Games and The FinalFantasy Remakes and FinalFantasy CrossOver Fighting Games. But Not so much on PC , XBOX and PS3.Here They stuck to the Fanbase and Gave you guys a Semi-Exclusive MMO on PS3/PC called Final Fantasy XIV and the Game still sucked balls and might be one of the worst games this year. Do You expect any gamer to buy that? Even the Fans would not fall that low and buy such product. On N4G it'S so easy to blame everything on the Xbox360 while it is not the problem. Final FantasyXIII wouldnt have been better if it was exclusive to PS3 it would have featured the same flaws the same gameplay same story and characters. Most Fanboys here on N4G act as if the fanal fantasy Series was still great and the games were delivering as much as the 6th and 7th Games in the recent years While anybody with common sense would tell you otherwise. I owned Most of the recent final fantasy games on Playstation 2 and PSP all before XIII came out and NONE of the games were spectacular.

What Important Released did Square come with this year except for Final Fantasy XIII,XVX and NiEr? Nothing compared to the 2009 Lineup where they had more games during the 1st half. That explains most of the 75% Deficit. IF Square would actually spend more time developing Newer franchises and giving them the Proper advertising they would see some bigger sales but all they care about is Final Fantasy games and that's about all they've been giving us for nearly 20years now and people have moved on.

Namco/Bandai is a much better RPG maker then Square now. Move on

Game-ur5652d ago

Don’t know about blaming the 360, the fans always lay the blame on Wada and his "let's do a liner game like COD".

Other bad decisions:
-Front mission evolved (devolved)
-Different KH games for different platforms, resulting in spreading the fan base too thin, they should have simply made it multiplatform.
-Not realizing the potential of Nier, which needed better production
-No DQ for HD consoles, missing out on millions in sales

And I disagree on Namco, they don’t publish their games properly, the best at RPGs now are Atlus IMOO

5651d ago
Applegate5651d ago (Edited 5651d ago )

Completely agree with Masomouri. Sony fanboys blame AIDS and everything else on the 360. Maybe they're 8 or 9 years old and werent there to see that:

FF10: not as good as FF 7/8/9. Already very "mass public" kind of game.

FF X-2: I think no need for an explanation. Pretty clear now that SE=/Square.

FF12: The most boring FF ever because SE wanted to make an offline MMO with it. The most overrated game of last gen no doubt.

FF13: So...SE are too poor to afford an extra disc for the 360 version...? BULL$HIT. Especially since 360 owners dont give a damn about multiple discs. LO had 4 discs and nobody cared.

But hey...lets blame the 360 for WW2 too and why not blame global warming on it while we're at it.

edit: and in case you didnt know, FF13 is a massive commercial success so the drop in revenue is from elsewhere.

DigitalAnalog5651d ago (Edited 5651d ago )

"Final FantasyXIII wouldnt have been better if it was exclusive to PS3 it would have featured the same flaws the same gameplay same story and characters."

Now you see, that's why I call bullshit on your comment. Nomura DROPPED the project. The same guy who spearheaded Final Fantasy into a worldwide phenomenon.

Have you noticed none of his ambitions are present in FFXIII but now is applied in versusXIII? Even the gameplay trailers from 2007 and 2009 are too different.

They've pissed off the majority of Final Fantasy fans (myself included) hence the first time in a console generation where I do not purchase anything from S-E. With Sakaguchi gone and only Nomura left (who has YET to make a game for the PS3 hence the 3 projects: versusXIII, Agito XIII PSP and Parasite Eve 3rd birthday).

"Series was still great and the games were delivering as much as the 6th and 7th Games in the recent years While anybody with common sense would tell you otherwise."

Wow... I mean... really? What the hell? That negates your opening sentence.

@Applegate:

The only thing I agree on your list is X-2 and XIII. (Supposedly the bane of the FF franchise) Wanna know who produced both games?

Kitase.

Co-incidence?

-End statement

Malice-Flare5651d ago

actually, the "abandoning fanbase" arguement come from the fact that any timed exclusive for the 360 should have been released in the Japan too...

i mean, there are people in Japan actually waiting for "The Last Remnant" for PS3.

the fact of the matter is, SE did not take care of their Japanese audience, which is both 360 and PS3...

porting to the 360 is fine, but if you ignore the larger audience in your home country, well they will remember...

Dragun6195651d ago (Edited 5651d ago )

Square Enix screwed up their fanbase.

The problem was how they transitioned from PS2 to this Gen. They threw plenty of Titles at the Xbox360, which would have been no problem, if it they were multiplatform. But in this case, they were all either exclusive or time exclusive to Xbox360. Which early PS3 adopters were upset with especially those who were SE fans. Hell, SE couldn't even release The Last Remnant for PS3 and they finally managed to release their first PS3 game just this year.

The another problem is how they changed their game design towards the western audience instead of their usual primary audience, the Japanese market. I mean come on, MindJack, Gun Loco, Front Mission Evolved are all shooters and they have like one rpg for the consoles and that's FFXIII Versus. Like What the hell is up with that. Why changed the game design that your Name lives up to so well during the PS1/PS2 days?

SE is now all but slowly destroying it's name by releasing half ass games for the console market. In a market congested with shooters, you would think SE wouldn't jump in the FPS/TPS bandwagon, and instead make a game like Dragon Quest, another Crono game, Valkyrie Profile 3, or another Mana game for consoles.

maniacmayhem5651d ago

Oh my god! A post that makes so much sense here..ON N4G?!

*tear,

I thought I would never see the day...*tear

pinkyxyz5651d ago

But they did abandon us, and wada needs to leave like air needs to be breathed

hikayu5651d ago

actually , i dont blame them for making a movie toward a more western audience as the japanese market is becoming more of a stalemate and people want something different . but their approach to it is just plain horrible :
combining the stupid story grid from typical japanese characters ( the whiny boy , a seem-like-naive-but-hold-a-dee p-story/past , a story to find the hero within themselves . ) . i mean , whoever watch a single anime/manga in their life would have seen almost all of the plots in FF games MILES away .

bakasora5650d ago

After what they did to FF13, no way I'm supporting $quareEnix anymore.

UltraNova5650d ago

Well Square-Enix I hope you're happy with your new-found love for MS is paying off..

+ Show (8) more repliesLast reply 5650d ago
Kareshi_X5652d ago

Could not have said it better

5651d ago Replies(1)
zeddy5651d ago

dam! where did all that microsoft money go?

GameGambits5651d ago

They just aren't making great games, and the ones that could be get pushed out half assed and too early.

Nier could've been so much more, and even in its shipped state I had a great time with it.

FF13 wasn't a complete disaster like some seem to think it is, but they approached the game in a lot of wrong ways.

Their biggest disaster is Final Fantasy XIV. I'm surprised no one has brought up the journalism biasness around that game from Japan, because I have YET to see a review from Japan for it. Where's Famitsus score? 2 months later, and they are ALWAYS the first to put out a score for FF games. They've clearly been bought to stfu about that disaster.

AAACE55651d ago

How did they abandon their fanbase?

If they abanodoned their fanbase, they wouldn't have put the game on any console! Or are you talking about them not buying into this fanboy war crap!

FFXIII was going to turn out that way because that's what they wanted to do! Now that they know a lot of gamers don't like the change, we have to wait longer for Versus, because it was headed in the same direction!

You can keep trying to blame the 360 for FFXIII turning out as it was, but SE claimed they wanted to appeal to western audiences. So they made it more like an action game to keep the pace moving. In other words to try to make it more interesting.

Overall, you just have to accept the fact that they aren't the developers you once loved! They merged with Enix! Sakaguchi left! And they clearly have no direction where they are going!

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 5650d ago
DaThreats5652d ago Show
Godmars2905652d ago

Wada is completely blind to the value quality make to a title. Only wants to get something out to the most people thinking that name alone, Square's or whatever franchise they throw up, will sell it.

Cyb3r5652d ago

They just dont put any effort into their games anymore its more about money than quality

Show all comments (54)
130°

Metacritic's 2026 Game Publisher Rankings

Jason Dietz: "We reveal the past year's best and worst video game publishers (based on their 2025 releases) in the 16th edition of our annual Game Publisher Rankings."

Read Full Story >>
metacritic.com
Christopher36d ago

Take note, Sony, you're falling behind by a lot.

-Foxtrot36d ago (Edited 36d ago )

I was just going to say this, their biggest and top rated game here is TLOU2 for PC….it’s embarrassing.

Even Ubisoft and EA are ahead

Kind of surprised Nintendo is pretty low aswell, their biggest game is also a rerelease with the Switch 2 version of TotK.

StoneColdCrazy35d ago

That’s what happens when you start shutting down your own studios and forget what actually made you matter in the industry in the first place. Sony used to set the standard — now it feels like they’ve lost that identity. And if they decide to walk away from the PC market too, that’s going to be another huge mistake — that platform is only growing, and ignoring it now would just put them even further behind.

1Victor36d ago

@christopher:” Take note, Sony, you're falling behind by a lot.”
.
Why single out Sony? Microsoft didn’t do any better than the year before 5th same as Sony 9th and they have acquired activision and other mayor titles that have boosted their score massively from a 9th and Sony a 4th the year before the acquisitions.
Sony does need to do better without a doubt and I do hope they do take note but not the note of buying publishers is the way to succeed.

Christopher36d ago

1. Microsoft didn't get worse.
2. Sony got way worse.
3. Because Sony needs the criticism the most considering their publishing output this generation has been propped up by last gen ports and third-party developers for the most part.

36d ago
thesoftware73035d ago

1Victor,

I don't wanna speak for Christopher, but like most of us we recognize that Sony's output this Gen has been way below their own standards.

Also Sony did buy a fair amount of Devs, I know you will say they were not publishers, and don't compare in size, but they had their fair share of Aquisitions, including the very well established Bungie.

The overall point is with their stellar first party track record of the past, they should not be going down, they are singled out because they are some of the best videogame devs/publisher on the planet...no matter what reasons we attribute to the situation, they are moving in the wrong direction... period.

35d ago
KyRo35d ago

Its widely accept that Sony this generation has been underwhelming. We've had more peripheral releases, controller variants, PS5 accessories than games it feels like. The exclusives were also PS4 and what little output they have put exclusively on PS5 is nowhere near as memorable as what came in every generation before that.

This isn't a Sony hate post but anyone who's older and has been around for a long time gaming will agree that PS5 is by far Sony's worst generation. As much as Xbox is in the gutter, I pray the do bounce back in the hope we get Sony to wake up again.

darthv7235d ago (Edited 35d ago )

If you want to critique MS... you are doing so towards their management. The games output and their hardware have been much better than PS this gen. Sadly... people still hold a grudge against XB because of MS. Thankfully i am not that petty... I've been enjoying their games output in the drought of PS. And add in some NS1/2 games as well to balance things out. Things will change for me once Wolverine hits, and I start using my 5 more. That one I'm looking forward to. And the Marvel fighter... I'm not a GTA player so that has no bearing on my view of things.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 35d ago
Profchaos36d ago

Big part of that has been the live service push resulting in cancellation or flop after flop but when they put out the games their fans want we get amazing stuff like astro bot

Leadership really screwed the pooch trend chasing

1Victor35d ago (Edited 35d ago )

https://www.metacritic.com/...

https://www.metacritic.com/...
Well I apologize I was wrong about not doing worse but my statement of Microsoft getting a boost still stand 🤷🏿

35d ago
1Victor35d ago

Well OBSCURED unlike you I’m honorable enough to recognize when I’m wrong and apologize.
.
@ The software you know there’s no comparison between what Microsoft acquired and what Sony acquired that’s why you tried to get ahead of the conversation, yes we all know Sony can do better than what they have done this gen but they inhaled the poison GAS they thought would bring money for years but we make sure they got the message and quite a few games got cancelled you know as well a hit like that take years to be corrected and by now they hopefully will have taken steps away from the GAS and slowed their approach to them.

bsingle4035d ago

You will say anything when you are in denial that your hardware is dead and nobody wants your platform. Good luck with Helix because nobody will buy it.

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 35d ago
SimulationDaily36d ago

But... but... the garbage-mongers always tell us that Square Enix is in trouble! 😂

Christopher36d ago

Square doesn't help that it fear mongers itself with ridiculous 'goals' that they can't reach and then they proclaim failure if they don't reach it. They're quite freaking profitable and people act like they're dying.

SimulationDaily36d ago (Edited 36d ago )

Keep in mind that these "proclamations" are usually third-hand bad translations from somedude who was at the investor conference, posted on Twitter, and picked up by press and youtubers like they were gold, and then when the official translation comes out, they're much softer statements, but at that point, the damage is done.

gold_drake36d ago

to be very fair

being number one on these things does not indicate how "well" their games do selling wise.

36d ago
36d ago
36d ago
Show all comments (39)
40°

Square Enix Reports Lower Sales but Growing Profits in Financial Results

Square Enix announced its financial results for the first nine months of the fiscal year, related to the period between April and December 2025.

Read Full Story >>
simulationdaily.com
100°

Shareholder denounces Square Enix's 'sluggish' revenue and profit

3D Investment Partners, a major shareholder of Square Enix, issued a 112-page presentation criticizing the company's 'sluggish' revenue and profit margins.

Read Full Story >>
gamedeveloper.com
141d ago
SimpleDad141d ago

Basically, their presentation says: Go Woke, Go broke.
Sorry fellow N4gamers.

Alos88140d ago

Or, alternatively, don't cut Switch and Steam out of your biggest releases day one.

360ICE140d ago

If your response to a 112 page presentation from a profit-maximizing investment fund about the need for corporate restructuring (i.e. layoffs), integrating non-gaming (i.e. sell merch or build a theme park) and other corporate initiatives, is that it's about "go woke, go broke", then it's because you've lost the ability to think in any terms. Awful way to live your life. Private equity is destroying the games industry while you obsess that Square made a cringe game everyone thinks is cringe in 2023. Time to move on.

gold_drake141d ago

i mean .. we've been saying this for years.

franwex141d ago

Oh darn. Maybe games with NFTs can fixed that!

Soy141d ago

Waaah waaah our profits aren't big enough! I mean, they're still growing and all, but we want it faster and NOW! Waaaah!

Show all comments (13)