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Square Enix lowers fiscal-year expectations

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Oct 29, 2009 5:39 pm PT

Publisher scales back profit projections by ¥5 billion, cites expenses related to Eidos acquisition, severance payments.

The gaming industry is seeing a burst of pessimism this week. Nintendo lowered its financial projections, one industry analyst changed his mind about US game sales' ability to grow this year, and another suggested the rhythm genre was headed for the second-act fall from grace of a Behind the Music episode.

Lowered expectations aside, Dragon Quest IX should pad the bottom line.

Square Enix is the latest to scale back expectations, as the Japanese role-playing game publisher today revised its fiscal year profit projections downward by ¥5 billion ($55 million). The downgrade was blamed on a variety of factors from the first half of the company's fiscal year (April-September), among them expenses associated with the company's purchase of Eidos, as well as severance payments and outplacement programs.

The downgrade also impacted Square Enix's full-year expectations on earnings per share, knocking it down from ¥130 ($1.43) to ¥87 ($.95). Even with the reduction, that's still significantly better than Square Enix's prior fiscal year earnings per share, which came out to ¥55 ($.60). The rosy outlook compared to the previous year no doubt is owed to the blockbuster Japanese success of Dragon Quest IX, and this December's debut of Final Fantasy XIII for the PlayStation 3 in Japan (international releases on the 360 and PS3 are expected next spring).

The rest of the company's full-year projections, including revenues and operating income, remained unchanged.

51 Comments

  • Cabal23

    Posted Nov 3, 2009 11:45 am PT

    Great idea...come up with a decent franchise that isn't rehashed and maybe you might get a new audience. Spin off after spin off. Just regurgitating the same J-RPG crap over and over ad nauseum.

  • jellyBEANz1

    Posted Nov 2, 2009 9:50 pm PT

    GDCalibur I totally agree with you, they're the reason I became a Sony/Nintendo fan. They need a focus, they're producing too many spinoffs nowadays; less running themselves thin and a little more speed in the production of all these heavily hyped titles is what I wanna see. We don't need 20 different versions of FF for the ds, puzzle games based on FF, 5 remakes of the same game that was just released on GBA etc. To quote GI: "{everybody knows} that the best games in the franchise are the ones with names that contain only "Final Fantasy" followed by a roman numeral.

  • DiscGuru101

    Posted Nov 2, 2009 2:53 am PT

    Should have released FF13 worldwide this year. But maybe they are afraid of what 2010 earnings would look like without FF13?

  • Baconbits2004

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 7:53 pm PT

    FreshTillDeath, didn't FFX come out almost ten years ago?

  • boizo

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 6:04 pm PT

    im in necessity of playing XIII ... i just cant wait

  • meathead86

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 2:39 pm PT

    hurry up ff13 i cant wate

  • blank33

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 2:38 pm PT

    @Jhraxlin....
    Wrong.

  • itachi100

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 1:26 pm PT

    @Reuwsaat

    Then keep on waiting. They never planned to remake it from the start.

  • FreshTillDeath

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 1:18 pm PT

    @ jazilla, you didn't play FFX did you?

  • jazilla

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 10:06 am PT

    I really think they need to reinvent their franchises. While the graphics are being updated, the stories and genres are getting pretty tired.

  • San_09

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 9:50 am PT

    @Jhraxlin

    My response to that is.... LOL!!!

  • Jhraxlin posted Oct 30, 2009 8:42 am PT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    Jhraxlin

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 8:42 am PT (hide)

    @Raziel_125 Technically FF games are not true rpgs.

  • Raziel_125

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 7:24 am PT

    @PiNwOrM
    If you dont like FF then dont talk about it, as long as SE is around so will FF. I agree that another Chrono game should be made but Final fantasy is still one of the best if not the best rpg series ever made so far.....

  • atopp399

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 6:24 am PT

    Too bad they didn't get Final Fantasy out this year.

  • mayankahuja

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 5:43 am PT

    ok

  • MyLameUsername

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 5:22 am PT

    Can't wait for the next Square Enix game.

  • joynul

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 5:20 am PT

    wow their shares are cheap now maybe i should buy some as they will rocket when ff13 comes out and they sell sh*tloads

  • BirgitteSilver

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 5:11 am PT

    "square enix should make 360 exclusives and 360 games make huge sales than any other console"

    Get some global perspective please. Most games sell pretty much identically world-wide between PS3 and 360, with several going towards PS3.

    Yeah, drop half your world-wide sales so your US sales go up...great strategy.

  • mijahi

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 5:01 am PT

    I am considering buying a PS3 just for the release of FFXIII here in the states. That game looks amazing! And I'm really, really wanting to play DQ IX! It's hard not to be jealous of the gamers over in Japan. Waiting for these releases over here is a trial of patience. (Also, when is DQ VI scheduled for release? It hasn't even been released in Japan yet, has it?)

  • 10679

    Posted Oct 30, 2009 4:40 am PT

    @shabulia if you watched a recent interview with the game developers , they said that both version of the games will look identical in the graphical department.

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