Square Enix huge loss

Things aren't exactly smooth over at Square Enix these days. From the outside looking in, at times it's seemed as though the publisher is shockingly mismanaged -- especially on the Japanese side of things -- and now the company's reported a $33 million loss in its latest financial briefing.

According to Games Industry, this huge loss has been attributed to Luminous Productions, an in-house studio that was established earlier this year, headed by Final Fantasy XV director Hajime Tabata. Originally, the development team was set to work on other projects, like videos and movies, alongside big budget games, but now, Square Enix appears to have refocused the studio. From this point on, Luminous Productions will concentrate on "large-scale, high-quality AAA game titles, which best leverage [Luminous'] strengths." This chopping and changing has cost the publisher 3.73 billion yen, roughly $33 million.

The knee-jerk reaction is that this is yet another classic Square Enix cock-up -- yet another case of poor management. Indeed, we dread to think how much money the company has haemorrhaged over the last decade or so, especially when you take into consideration the troubled development of titles like Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts III, and Final Fantasy VII Remake.

[source gamesindustry.biz]