Posts tagged SQUARE ENIX

In its latest financial report, Square Enix's earnings were down over 75% in the first half of 2010 as compared to the second half of 2009. Sales were reported down 30% in the first six months of 2010. The first half of 2010 generated $21 million as compared to $85 million in the the latter part of 2009. Sales were better than originally projected, however, due to strong sales of Just Cause 2 and Final Fantasy XIV.

Much of the decline was laid at the feet of MMO Final Fantasy XIV's disappointing performance. The PC game mustered global sales of 630,000 – although a PS3 version due in March may improve its fortunes.

"We're quickly working on reforms. We'd like to put our full power into regaining trust," CEO Yoichi Wada told investors.

"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."

Read more at Gamasutra.

FFXIVCore.com has a newly translated interview with Square Enix developer Hiromichi Tanaka. The interview originally appeared on Dengeki Games. FFXIV Core will be releasing the translated version of the interview in three parts. Check out a snippet!

DO: Even at the beta stage, it seemed like many people were trying a lot of different ability combinations.

PT: In FFXI, the support jobs for certain jobs became really fixed, like the warrior complimenting the ninja as a sub job. We wanted the players to have a bit more freedom. Furthermore, the use of this system allows for different play styles while solo or in large groups, and strategies will change depending on the abilities available. We wanted it to be a system that wouldn’t pigeon-hole users into certain roles. If a player wants to be a full-out attacker, they can set all their abilities to attack abilities. If a player wants to be purely heal-based, they can remove any aggressive abilities. For this reason, we’d like users to be able to save ability sets, but at this time it’s not yet possible. We’re hoping to add that in an update.

Read Part I at FFXIVCore.com.

MMORPG.com's Thomas Allegood takes a look at the Disciples of the Hand and the new crafting system that will be introduced in Final Fantasy XIV. Check it out!

Once again, we delve into the world of Eorzea to find out more about the new crafting system. Unlike many MMORPGs where crafting and gathering are side jobs, Square-Enix has brought these jobs into the mainstream, by actually making them playable classes. Let's see what they have in store for us using this new and somewhat controversial system.

Read the rest of the FFXIV crafting preview.