It looks like Christmas won't come early for poor Square Enix. Perhaps a cheerfully decorated "we told you so" holiday card is in order?
News Blips:
Square Enix reduces its earnings forecast by 92 percent. The company decreased its forecast for the rest of the fiscal year from 12 billion yen (around $142 million) to 1 billion yen ($12 million). The company cited the delay of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the PlayStation 3 version of Final Fantasy 14 to the next fiscal year (beginning in April 2011) as the main culprits, while also acknowledging the latter's failing to achieve "the level of customer satisfaction that fans of our Final Fantasy franchise have come to expect." It could be just me, but focusing on one franchise for multiple decades tends to sour your creativity (and consequently your profitability) somewhat. Time to get out of that rut and expand your horizons, Square Enix! [1UP]
BioWare reveals that the upcoming PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 uses the Mass Effect 3 engine. On a BioWare podcast, Producer Jesse Houston spoke of the differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game. "One of the first things you're going to see is improved graphics," he said. "We actually created the engine for Mass Effect 3 and used that to make Mass Effect 2 PS3. So we took the content, the story, and all of the other assets that made up Mass Effect 2 and we put it into the Mass Effect 3 engine." The PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 is slated for a January 18 release. Tell me, is "retroactive" a taboo word among developers or something?
Activision Chief Executive Officer of Publishing Eric Hirshberg thinks that the company's current reputation in the industry is unrealistic. "I have Google, just like everybody else, and I'm of course aware of what the reputation is among core gamers, and there's a narrative that I think has taken over reality to a certain extent," Hirshberg said in an interview with IndustryGamers. He went on to liken the anti-Activision attitude to what Sony endured after the rocky launch of the PS3. "If you go back in a time machine and read the general tenor in the blogosphere a couple of years ago about the PS3, it sounds a lot like what people are saying about Activision today," he said. "There’s a lot of disappointment in the PS3, and it was overpriced, and they’ve given up on the core gamer, and Sony Blu-ray… all those complaints were out there. It takes time sometimes to win peoples hearts and minds." Reputation be damned — the sky's the limit when you have the Call of Duty and World of Warcraft franchises in a kung-fu grip, right?
Xbox 360 users spend more time playing online than any other console. Research firm Nielsen reports that 28 percent of time spent on that console was online, compared to 19 percent on the PS3 and 12 percent on the Wii. The Wii came out on top for overall game time, however, due to its users large accumulation of offline hours. Nintendo's console garnered an impressive 57 percent of offline game time, with the Xbox 360 and PS3 trailing behind at 34 percent and 30 percent, respectively. I wonder if the data accounts for the Wii's "offline" time spent gathering dust in a closet. [Gamasutra]
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