Rockstar is asking developers working on GTA 6 to return to office five days a week as the long awaited sequel enters its final stretch of development.
09.02.2024 - 09:39 / wccftech.com / Takashi Kiryu / Alessio Palumbo / Will
Square Enix is planning a major internal restructure of its game development system, as reported by Bloomberg Japan. The news came directly from Representative Director and President Takashi Kiryu, who spoke at the financial results briefing for analysts held on Monday.
We are reviewing from scratch what the organizational structure is to materialize the contents of the pipeline and what is best. We will announce it at least this spring.
The goal is to improve the game quality as well as the profit margins of Square Enix titles. Among various tweaks, the Japanese publisher plans to introduce a new checking mechanism to judge the quality of a project at an earlier stage of game development. These changes should go live starting in the month of April.
Last Monday, Square Enix also reported less than impressive quarterly financial results:
At the HD (High-Definition) Game sub-segment, net sales for the nine-month period ended December 31, 2023 rose compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year due to the release of titles including “FINAL FANTASY XVI,” “FINAL FANTASY PIXEL REMASTER” and “DRAGON QUEST MONSTERS: The Dark Prince.”
In the MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) Game sub-segment, net sales fell compared to the same period of the previous year. In the Games for Smart Devices/PC Browser sub-segment, net sales declined compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year as the June 2023 launch of “Dragon Quest Champions” and the September 2023 launch of “FINAL FANTASY VII EVER CRISIS” were unable to compensate for factors including weak performances by existing titles.
Net sales and operating income in the Digital Entertainment segment totaled ¥179,654 million (a decrease of 2.6% from the same period of the prior fiscal year), and ¥30,715 million (a decrease of 20.7% from the same period of the prior fiscal year), respectively.
Final Fantasy XVI underperformed compared to the expectations of Square Enix. However, the upcoming Final Fantasy VII Rebirth seems poised for success based on our latest hands-on.
Rockstar is asking developers working on GTA 6 to return to office five days a week as the long awaited sequel enters its final stretch of development.
EA announced that it will lay off 5% of its workforce by the end of March as part of an initiative that will also see it move away from making a lot of externally licensed games in the future.
As the release of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth began worldwide, Square Enix announced that some copies of the game sold in Japan and Asia were mislabeled, with the Data Disc and the Play Disc having their labeling switched during manufacturing. Square Enix posted a notice on social media and gave affected Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth players instructions on how to get around the issue.
Yuzu, the original Nintendo Switch emulator created by the developers of Citra (an emulator for Nintendo 3DS), has been hit by a Nintendo lawsuit.
Children are facing social exclusion or bullying over the purchase of in-game items and cosmetics in online games, a new study suggests.
In the video game industry, many people stick around with the company they’re attached to for quite a while for multiple reasons. They might just like the company they work at. Or, they might be trying to gain “higher ranks” there. Another reason might be they know that their talents or ideas might be more appreciated at that particular company because they’ve worked there for so long. But, on the other side of things, people sometimes depart gaming companies somewhat randomly, including because they want to “move on to a new challenge,” which is what the creator of Final Fantasy did after a while at Square before it became Square Enix.
Free users of Nvidia’s GeForce Now will begin seeing ads on February 28. Nvidia’s subscription cloud gaming service launched in 2020 and is a good substitute or supplement for people who may not have the most powerful gaming rigs at home but still want to enjoy playing games with ultra settings. The GeForce Now catalog of games currently features nearly 2,000 titles ranging from indie to AAA and from a wide selection of genres.
Square Enix has revealed Foamstars’ second season of content.
Square Enix producer Tomoya Asano has teased fans about a potential announcement regarding the Bravely Default JRPG series for later this year. The first Bravely Default game was released as an exclusive for the Nintendo 3DS. It received generally favorable reviews, as it was a nostalgic revisit to the job-based systems seen in early Final Fantasy games, while also utilizing a unique turn system that featured the titular Brave and Default actions. It got a direct sequel, Bravely Second, a few years later, which was also released on the 3DS, introducing new jobs and continuing on from where the first game left off.
Today is the seventh anniversary of the launch of NieR: Automata in Japan, so PlatinumGames took some time to celebrate the occasion with a blog post. The studio also revealed that the game has now surpassed eight million units sold to date.
WhatsApp users may soon find it easier to share high-quality media as the messaging app is reportedly working on a feature to allow default HD uploads. While WhatsApp has gradually introduced support for high-resolution images and videos, users still need to manually toggle the HD option for each media file. However, a recent beta release for Android hints at a forthcoming change.
Today, Riot Games has finally revealed the name of its long-awaited Project L fighting game: it will be called 2XKO.