Square Enix has recently acknowledged that early sales of Forspoken were underwhelming and disappointing.
This information was revealed by Yosuke Matsuda in a short meeting call on February 3, 2023. If you are interested in Square Enix games, you can check out our other articles here.
Square Enix: Forspoken sales are lackluster
Speaking in the latest briefing call, Yosuke Matsuda revealed that initial sales of Forspoken were “lackluster” following “challenging” reviews.
Interestingly, David Gibson claimed on Twitter that Forspoken’s development cost more than 10 billion Yen “with most of those costs likely to be written off”. He added that such costs are “significant when Square Enix’s” profits are “close to 50 billion Yen”.
The Forspoken review we released on January 24, 2023 was very challenging. However, the game has also received positive feedback on its action features, including its parkour and combat capabilities, thus providing results that will lead to improved development capabilities of other games in the future.
Nonetheless, sales were lackluster, and while the performance of new games with February and March release dates will be a key determinant, we see considerable downside risk to our FY2023/3 earnings.
Yosuke Matsuda, President and Representative Director of Square Enix
On their other page, Matsuda also noted the fan reception regarding the list of “small and medium-sized titles” that Square Enix released in the current fiscal year.
Gamedaim Hadir di TikTok! Ayo Follow kami di @gamedaimcom dan dapatkan berbagai konten menarik seputar dunia game.
Net sales declined YoY in the HD Games sub-segment, partly because the launch of big games a year earlier had created a challenging YoY hurdle, but also because many of the small and medium-sized games we launched this year did not perform as well as we expected.
Yosuke Matsuda, President and Representative Director of Square Enix
There are no titles that Square Enix has designated as underperforming, but if we look at the history of Square Enix titles released in 2022, some of them are:
- The DioField Chronicle
- Star Ocean: The Divine Force
- Harvestella
- Tactics Ogre: Reborn
- Dragon Quest Treasures
- Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion
- Valkyrie Elysium
In closing, Yosuke Matsuda also hopes that we “look forward to the blockchain games that Square Enix plans to launch in fiscal year 2024 and beyond”.
