Square Enix wary of future

"I believe that this situation is not a one-time event for the fiscal year ended March 2013, but is a structural issue within the packaged product sales model."
Text: Bengt Lemne
Published 2013-05-27

Square Enix is not having the best of times, in spite of having reasonable success with games like Hitman: Absolution and Tomb Raider, these titles failed to live up to lofty sales expectations. Yosuke Matsuda, senior executive managing director, reflected on the recent losses and what the future might be like (via VG247:

"I believe that this situation is not a one-time event for the fiscal year ended March 2013, but is a structural issue within the packaged product sales model. As a result, I believe it is difficult to guarantee an appropriate return on our investments within the revenue model of purely packaged software."

"Poor asset turnover means that we have little contact with customers during several years of development of a game title. In a model where a game is developed without customers knowing what it's like for many years, the product is presented to customers only after it has been finished, and all investment is recovered at one time, customers are forced to wait for too long, and opportunities for profit are passed up."

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