Action, RPG games help publisher post 175 percent year-over-year rise to $65.78 million for last nine months of 2011; net sales down slightly to $1.2 billion.
Deus Ex: Human Revolution and the Japanese debut of Final Fantasy XIII-2 were big hits for Square Enix in 2011 and helped the publisher post a strong profit during its latest period.
For the nine-month period ended December 31, 2011, the publisher posted net income of ¥5.01billion ($65.78 million), up 175 percent from last year's haul of ¥1.82 billion ($23.8 million).
Square Enix attributed the sharp increase in net income to sales of Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Final Fantasy XIII-2, which were released in Japan during the period. Revenues from Square Enix's Web, smartphone, and social networking services were also called out as contributors to the bottom line.
Total net sales during the period came in at ¥95.74 billion ($1.26 billion), down 2.5 percent from the ¥98.18 ($1.28 billion) recorded a year prior. A significant chunk of that total stemmed from the company's Digital Entertainment business unit, which posted ¥53.7 billion ($704 million) for the period, a rise of 6.2 percent from the year prior.
Square Enix said its full-year forecasts of ¥65.61 billion ($861 million) in net income on ¥130 billion ($1.7 billion) in net sales remain unchanged for the year ending March 31, 2012.
Eddie Makuch (Mack-ooh) is a News Editor at GameSpot. He works out of the company's Boston office in Somerville, Mass., and loves extra chunky peanut butter.
well duh they made alot of money as they actually released games. when they go so long without releasing new games of course they are losing cash especially when they have multiple games in developement at the same time with half of them being a year to years off from release. though deus ex carried them while type 0 and ff13-2 just gave them a little boost. which is very odd this article forgot that type 0 existed.
@naka_rob Funny, I think 75% of your post was fictional, and as a long time Duke fan myself, I thought that game was horrible. Goes to show about your tastes in games, bubble pop JRPG is far better than horrible FPS level design any day of the week.
@TheTrueMagusX1 as a long time Duke Fan I thought it was "good" that a new game came out. But as a long time fan I will be the first to tell you the game SUCKs huge donkey ####. no two ways about it. it is a TERRIBLE game. I used to be the biggest FF fan in the world. one bad game is understandable. 4 bad FF games! no way. They have become the bubblegum of POP RPGs. I am in Japan and married to a Japanese women. She walked in one day back when I was playing FF XIII and asked me a very serious question: "why are you playing a game that was made for 12 year old Japanese girls?"
@inaka_rob And yet this is coming from some one, who thought Duke Nukem Forever was good.
It's such a sad time to be a gamer when games like FFx-2 gets lumped in with such amazing games like Deus ex 3
deus ex and ff13-2 are the two games i'm playing these days, and i'm enjoying them both - very much, i should say. sure, final fantasy isn't quite what it was some years ago, but square is still one of my favorite game companies
I really enjoyed Deus Ex: HR. Not so much FFXIII, so I won't be buying FFXIII-2. We'll see about FFXIII verses...if it ever comes out.
Ok great, but now give me a FFXIII-3 that completes the story with Lightning as MC,thanx :)
Deus Ex was phenomenal. GOTY imo. I'm glad they made a profit and hope to see more games coming from them
Good news. (Spoiler alert.) Although the main players all died in Deus Ex: HR, I hope they continue the series in some fashion. I found it to be one of the most enjoyable games of last year, and would love for the series to continue.
Just to be clear, SE published Dues Ex and Just Cause 2. They had nothing to do with the development. It sounds like they make a better publisher than a developer to me.... at least recently.
Its a great game that managed to live up to original Deus Ex(but not surpass it),well deserved,and it shows how there is still a strong market for good core SP-only games that don't need to rely on gimmicks and crap while fishing for sales... I just hope this success won't lead to Deus Ex name being milked to death with dumb prequels or spin-offs,which would be a huge insult to first Deus Ex,one of the best games ever created IMO... Sadly,its a possibility.The Deus Ex name brings good money to them,but we'll see...
Shame it's a couple of average titles that have been deemed to cause this upturn in profit as opposed to a couple of top notch titles.
Wow, what a mystery. They make a good game (finally, after 10 years) and they get a good return. Who would have thought!
Ahhh well THAT'S certainly a good explanation as to how on one hand they produced such mind wrenchingly horrid games, then turn around and manage to enthrall me with a well defined story, and a playground of destruction unrivaled in it's ability to illicit childlike glee in even the most morose gamer.
@Hatemachine25: I hear you, but bear in mind that Square Enix Japan and Square Enix Europe are two very different beasts. Deus Ex 3 and Just Cause 2 were from Square Enix Europe, which operates pretty much as Eidos did back in the day. Square Enix Japan have indeed lost the plot though.
After getting burned on Front Mission Evolved I pretty much wrote SE off, and the Mediocre RPG they packaged as FF XIII, and that abomination that was FF XIV didn't do anything to improve their standings. Then I got Deus Ex and Just Cause 2 and couldn't be happier to see that SE still has the ability to bring forth something WONDERFULLY entertaining, I truly hope they find their Niche with these titles and expand on them. Also an FF VII remake would net a solid sale in Nanoseconds, just saying man.
Those money they earn must be worth to finish Final Fantasy Versus XIII by now. I'm not gonna wait til the PS4 to play that game cuz by then I'll be interest in Final Fantasy XV instead.
Square Enix would make more $$$ if they released Kingdom Hearts HD Collection, Kingdom Hearts III, FF Versus XIII and FF VII Remake. Both FF XIII-2 and Dues Ex haven't gotten decent reviews. I played both of these games and they sucked. Squaresoft made the best FF's hands down.
I bought Human Revolution. I can't run it properly due to lack of RAM, but I don't care. For some reason I just can't imagine a day in this age without Square Enix.
Currently playing Dues Ex Human Revolution, still trying to handle the loot into fitting into my backpack storage augmentation :P
I'm betting Jensen asked for this ;) Deus Ex Human Revolution was an excellent game. Good on SE and Eidos.
Can't wait to be back in the shoes of the Master Thief! I actually hope they are brewing something up in secret and will release it soon (might take a year at best... who knows..) but sometimes keeping things quiet while not raising hype can breed excellent results.
@GunEye - They are already in the process of doing so I believe; http://www.eidosmontreal.com/teams/tf They've been working on it for a while, so should be out soon enough.
MAKE A NEW THIEF GAME! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!! I loved Thief - and if they made a 3rd Deus Ex - hell yeah - we WILL see Thief 4 - Haleluya! (probably....right?)
The last square-enix game I played was Mindjack... after half an hour I used the disk as a coaster I do have Deus ex currently being shipped to me however :)
@Gelugon_baat I don't think we will get another one. Maybe a new Deus Ex game in general, maybe remakes, but not another game between Deus Ex HR and Deus Ex. Plus SE only publishes them, not develops. My opinion.
Wow...Deus Ex looks good neeed to get that game FFXIII-2 going to buy it when it hits £15 lol
Xenoblade Chronicles is a sublime, wonderfully paced game that both refines and modernises the Japanese role-playing game.
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