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Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

arstechnica.com

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Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#41

Post by bennysomething »

ineedasername wrote: post #31
crate_barre wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was believed Square’s choice to put Final Fantasy on PlayStation killed the Sega Saturn, and dented N64 adoption. But this is console war mythos, not sure if anyone really dug into it. The power of Square once upon a time may have been truly legendary, but who knows for sure?

Cartridge price played a big part for N64. MSRP for new games was about $60 compared to most PS1 games @ $50. Worse, retailers often marked them up a lot, which didn't seem to happen for PS1 games. I'm pretty sure I paid $80 for Ocarina of Time, while I snagged FFVII for the $50 MSRP. And IIRC price drops were pretty rare, especially for 1st party games. (Still true today). It made me much less willing to take a chan…

One of the ex rare Goldeneye Devs said in an interview that the N64 not having a cd drive lost them that generation. I think he's probably mostly right.

Cartridges were not only an anti piracy move, it saved on cost of console manufacturing (the N64 was still sold at a loss).

As you point out N64 games were originally a lot more expensive than playstation games.

Also Nintendo were really restrictive with who could develop for the N64, remember the whole "dream team" thing? Mean playstation had way more favourable licensing and you didn't need silicon graphics workstations (I think I'm correct in N64 dev requiring them?)

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#42

Post by bilekas »

baby wrote: post #34
haunter wrote: post #18

>The Transaction will assist the Company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources, which will enhance corporate value by accelerating growth in the Company’s core businesses in the digital entertainment domain. In addition, the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including b…

I think a lot of their games are really niche too. Nier is definitely not for everyone.

Nier is easily one of my all time favorites and as much as I try and get friends to play it, it's so hard to explain what kind of game and experience it really is. A great piece of art.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#43

Post by ravishi »

levesque wrote: post #38
baby wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you should play uncharted and the last of us. This is peak AAA

Am I the only one that can't stand these games? They are so restrictive in their gameplay, so linear! It feels like watching an interactive movie more than playing a game.

No, you're not the only one. I feel the same.

OTOH, my friends who praise these games do so exactly because of that. To which their own.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#44

Post by sascha_sl »

haunter wrote: post #18

>The Transaction will assist the Company in adapting to the changes underway in the global business environment by establishing a more efficient allocation of resources, which will enhance corporate value by accelerating growth in the Company’s core businesses in the digital entertainment domain. In addition, the Transaction enables the launch of new businesses by moving forward with investments in fields including b…

Pivoting further into gambling utilizing their IP has worked reasonably well for Konami.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#45

Post by WorldMaker »

cinntaile wrote: post #14

Are they preparing for getting acquired by Sony or what?

My bet is that this is a more useful maneuver for getting acquired by Microsoft than Sony in the current marketplace. Microsoft doesn't need much more "Western IP" (not after Bethesda), but everyone knowns Microsoft needs a much bigger Asian IP footprint as the last big hole in their "global" catalog.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#46

Post by sascha_sl »

levesque wrote: post #38
baby wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you should play uncharted and the last of us. This is peak AAA

Am I the only one that can't stand these games? They are so restrictive in their gameplay, so linear! It feels like watching an interactive movie more than playing a game.

I found it annoying in Uncharterd, but The Last of Us made it work somehow. They had just enough freedom and side content to have it be a game while also telling a compelling story that very much demands linearity.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#47

Post by bitwize »

oneoff786 wrote: post #4

The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too. SquareEnix felt legendary growing up.

The original Tomb Raider was almost Minecraft-esque. It was composed of blocks of different heights and slopes in a 2D grid. This allowed the developers to create all sorts of scenarios from simple tools to put Lara through and really test all her abilities.

I played through the first "new" Tomb Raider and it was very much "walk on the path marked walkable, climb the ledges/walls marked climbable, shoot the specially marked doors to create a scripted zipline", etc. Oh, and "waist-height walls mean upcoming combat sequence". Based on that I decided to skip the other two. Uncharted was better able to mask the on-rails nature of its experience, at least.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#48

Post by skhr0680 »

crate_barre wrote: post #11
oneoff786 wrote: post #4

The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too. SquareEnix felt legendary growing up.

It was believed Square’s choice to put Final Fantasy on PlayStation killed the Sega Saturn, and dented N64 adoption. But this is console war mythos, not sure if anyone really dug into it. The power of Square once upon a time may have been truly legendary, but who knows for sure?

Maybe it’s just my filter bubble but for years Sony had such good marketing that I knew their flagship games and random facts about their consoles even when I didn’t own them myself.

I couldn’t tell you a single game on the PS5. I don’t know about other countries, but it’s like they’re not even trying in Japan

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#49

Post by sascha_sl »

TillE wrote: post #29
gundamdoubleO wrote: post #22

Hopefully a new Deus Ex game might be a possibility again.

The thing about Deus Ex is that there's nothing particularly special about the "IP". Anybody could make a near-future cyberpunk conspiracy-oriented immersive sim, and call it whatever. The modern Deus Ex games were really average, and (as detailed in the recent hbomberguy video) failed to grasp the key principles of level design that are required to make games like that work.

Human Revolution excelled as a stealth game, which was fine for me because that is how I (and, judging by the critical reception to DXHR, many others) usually play immersive sims. It's almost as much of an underserved genre as the immersive sim.

Mankind Divided improved on a lot of the criticisms in DXHR, but ended up being too ambitious for its own good, setting sales goals (and production budgets) in a somewhat niche genre as if it was Call of Duty. It's good, but short and ends abruptly.

Re: Square-Enix sells all of its Western game studios and their games to Embracer

#50

Post by Wowfunhappy »

baby wrote: post #35
oneoff786 wrote: post #4

The newer tomb raider games are the most AAA games I’ve ever seen. Not saying they’re good, or bad, but every other moment is a handcrafted moment. It sort of works. A lot of it is platforming through crumbling environments. Which is pretty cool. It’s sort of overdone too. SquareEnix felt legendary growing up.

Then you should play uncharted and the last of us. This is peak AAA

Actually, I greatly prefer Tomb Raider 2013 to any of the Uncharted games I've tried (2, 3, and some of 4). TR2013 is laser focused on cinematic platforming and awe-inspiring set pieces, with much less conventional shooting. I've played through the game several times over the years, and I always come away thinking it's an underrated title.

TR2013 doesn't push any boundaries, but it does execute a standard formula more effectively than anything else I've tried. I did not think the two sequels were anywhere near as good!

(I haven't played The Last of Us though. I hear it's incredible, but I can't deal with the subject matter.)

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