For people who aren’t happy about platform exclusives, this bit is interesting:
Square Enix’s latest financial results indicated that profits were down nearly 70% from the previous year, partly due to “the recognition of ¥22,087 million ($141 million) in losses on disposal of content as an extraordinary loss”.
Those losses are related to the cancellation of projects that don’t fit with its future strategies, it said, suggesting they may have been either tied to a single platform or relied too heavily on external developers.
Square Enix said that, going forward, it will “aggressively pursue a multiplatform strategy that includes Nintendo platforms, PlayStation, Xbox and PCs”.
By doing this, it will be able to “build an environment where more customers can enjoy our titles in regards to major franchises and AAA titles, including catalogue titles,” it said.
While not explicitly mentioned in the plan, recent Final Fantasy games including Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth all launched as PS5 exclusives, and it’s been claimed that sales of the latter titles have been underwhelming.
That’d be at least one publisher that’s decided that the costs of doing platform exclusives aren’t worth the benefits.
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