Square Enix And Nintendo Co-Dev Reports Losses After Multiple Projects Cancelled

I did not know they co made scarlet nexus. That is an amazing new Jrpg I loved it and I hope they make more

Square Enix: Purposely limiting the physical release of Final Fantasy: The Pixel Remasters Collection, a beloved physical collection that everyone wanted to buy but had no easy way to get it.

Also Square Enix: Surprise that they now had a big loss on that collection. Ummm... maybe limiting that physical collection to just your website store wasn't so bright after all.

Well, I guess Square Enix needs to be make better RPGs besides FF7

It still amazes me that they felt like they would lose /less money canceling the projects than finishing them. They must have been some real stinkers.

@Serpenterror Yup, the pixel remaster cartridge is expensive in the market, about double the price of others nintendo switch games. Squareenix should sells the physical version normally like their other games.

@TheBoilerman Maybe it's forspoken 2, lol.

Wrap it up guys, Mushroom Kingdom Hearts got canceled.

So why cancel them and lose the money? Makes no sense. Develop the games to completion that your employees are working hard on then sell them. You’ll make money. I swear sometimes you have to make the most absolutely nonsensical decisions if you want to be a member of management in any company.

@GameOtaku because if you cancel then:
1 you don't have to spend money on marketing.
2 you don't ave to spend more money developing them.
"Develop the games to completion that your employees are working hard on then sell them. You’ll make money."
That's exactly what hasn't worked for SE so far.

Wonder if Nintendo will buyout Tose one day.

"...due to clients cancelling contracts"

I know nothing about business and contracts, but surely any sound business operator would insist on contracts that don't leave you vulnerable to incurring millions of dollars in costs should the clients cancel. Like... 'Sure, we'll commit X resource to this joint project, but if you pull out, you cover our losses'. And if the client won't agree to that condition, you don't take them on in the first place.

@Fiskern @RygelXVIII
Yeah but we’ve heard this same song and dance from publishers in the past where developers were nearly finished only to have the rug pulled out from underneath. The best example I can think of is when Capcom cancelled Megaman Legends 3 stating that it was on the grounds that there wasn’t enough support from the community which was a bold faced lie.

@GameOtaku Oof, that slap from the past still stings.

@RygelXVIII
Yeah but at that point you’ve probably already got traction going from fans and have probably released teasers and early footage. From a consumers point of view this doesn’t endear us to the publisher when they just up and cancel projects for seemingly no valid reason. There shouldve been checks and balances in place way ahead of this. If things were looking as though they weren’t going to pan out earlier then halting a project then would’ve been fine. But having a project this far along with so much time and effort from an employee perspective (especially them as I’ve had to work so much overtime on jobs at my own work that never see the light of day) it’s a major slap in the face not to mention the consumer who would’ve bought it now has a sour taste in their mouth that may never fully recover. (Looking at you Konami and Capcom)

A bad game is bad forever. A canceled game can often be revived later, like Metroid Dread.

@GameOtaku I don't think Legends 3 is the best example for that. From the information available the paid Prologue/Demo was almost done, but the game itself still had a couple years or more before it would hit the market. Capcom really did a poor job communicating why the project was cancelled, and failed by not just releasing Prototype to actually gauge where fan interest was in raw sales. But, between Inafune leaving (he was a big reason why any Mega Man game released at all after X5 as he constantly championed the series in Capcom) and the 3DS struggles at launch making them question if another 2-3 years of development would be worth it... and with the massive failures of Mighty No 9 and Red Ash those same executives probably felt pretty vindicated. That is before we even talk about how the original Legends games sold on PSOne and N64, which was not great to begin with. It makes sense why Capcom cancelled it... still sucks though.

As for some really good examples well Star Fox 2 is a good go to as the game was done and only got cancelled because it would release too close the N64. I mean Hollywood are some of the worst culprits of this recently with Batgirl and Coyote v Acme which are complete films, but canned for a tax write-off.

Yeah big companies generally suck when it comes to undercutting art for immediate profits.

@gcunit that's how it normally works if you're a bigger development group. Smaller ones looking to take a large growth step may be willing to take a bigger risk, even if it threatens the stability of the company.

And sometimes management just fails to listen to engineers or other advisors when told its either a bigger job than is being sold or that their business partner isn't as steadfast as management had hoped.

Poor guys, they’ve been doing good work

@DemonKow Indeed. Small companies that work on razor thin margins don't really get a say on who they partner with. If you're told you can help develop a Final Fantasy, Call of Duty or insert major franchise here you'll bite on it just to add the experience and name to your portfolio to attract interest in your next project.

I'm sure larger small studios like WayForward, Inti Creates, Mercury Steam or Yacht Club Games may get a say with who they work with... but small teams that namely work as a support studio with close to no public footprint are far more susceptible to being screwed. It is the risk of being the guppy playing with sharks... the sharks with chew you up if it means they get larger profits. It is also why you see so many studios deciding to be bought up in the first place as it gives them some security rather than being fully independent. Sure being just the studio that supports CoD probably sucks for your creative ambitions, but it keeps the lights on and pays your staff.

incredibly crazy to me the way these companies just literally burn money. A great example is a completely finished version of a live action/CGI Warner Bros movie involving Wily Coyote. It's finished. Done. Ready for theaters. But it will never see the light of day because the rich elites got their knickers twisted along the line and wouldn't get as much extra money as they thought for that 3rd vacation home, so they decided to just burn the time and money and never release it. Capitalism sure is a wild rabid beast that is eating itself to nothing these days.

@babyThorman
Same with game’s development. It also harms the employees. I can’t imagine putting in so much time, effort and passion into a project just to be cancelled and possibly laid off just to recoup some cash. Not every game is going to become a hit success but it should at least have some modicum of success vs canceling it and all the talent wasted on it.

@RygelXVIII
Shouldn’t story have come first and gameplay second?

@Fiskern they can also probably get some form of tax write off as well for the failure project when it's a planned failure. I know the movie industry has done that a few times recently instead of releasing potential flops.

They need to stay away from SquareEnix and re-build relationships with better publishers. SE has been on a downward spiral since FF7Remake.

@gcunit it goes both ways. Just as much as no contracted studio wants a contract that can abruptly end at any minute no client wants to be forced to continue to spend hundreds of thousands on a project that is failing.

Usually the contract is done on a renewal based on things like milestones and reviews. There will be certain targets that the contracted studio has to hit each month set by the client a long time in advance, they can be negotiated as well if it looks like something might slip. But if a contracted studio repeatedly fails to meet these then the client have the rights to cancel the contract, usually very quickly.

The other checks that happen will be periodic reviews of the game, usually internally earlier on and then going to closed/invite only betas later. These determine whether the game is working on a more esoteric basis, is this fun, is this what they want, is this sustainable kind of thing. If the client is unhappy there’s usually an extended period granted to fix these things and bring them back around, or at the very least to pitch fixes. These are the real pressure point and again it’s usually if you fail a few of these that the renewal gets cancelled.

However at the moment living in the late stage capitalist hellscape that we do, something now projects are just cancelled because a money guy says so and it’ll keep the shareholders happy making that line go up. Sometimes studios are shuttered for this reason too and that has knock-on for the contracted studios. I expect this is happening here as it’s happening everywhere at the moment.

@Ogbert Appreciate the insight, thanks.

Trim the fat on the staff side and the game scope side. Make smaller, less technically demanding, more potent gaming experiences. That's my advance for the entire industry to stay afloat.

Don't they get paid for the work they do from the clients, Or is payment only made if the project is complete? If projects keep getting cancelled, why not stop working with others and make own stuff?

Tose…haven’t really heard much about them lately. It’s good to know they’re still going strong with game development, though it’s always a shame to hear about canceled projects.

Speaking of canceled projects, I miss Starfy. That’s the series I know them best for, anyway. I suppose at this point we’re not getting a new one, nor are we getting English localizations for the first four. It would be pretty cool if they did, though…such a colorful and unique series.

So, Q3 of their FY lasted from September to end of May the following year? That’s a 9-months quarter…
Mistakes like these really shouldn’t happen in an article like this.